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don’t words such as “civilization,” and phrases such as “rise of civilization,” convey the false impression that civilization is good, tribal hunter-gatherers are miserable, and history for the past 13,000 years has involved progress toward greater human happiness? In fact, I do not assume that industrialized states are “better” than hunter-gatherer tribes, or that the abandonment of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle for iron-based statehood represents “progress,” or that it has led to an increase in human happiness. My own impression, from having divided my life between United States cities and New Guinea villages, is that the so-called blessings of civilization are mixed. For example, compared with hunter-gatherers, citizens of modern industrialized states enjoy better medical care, lower risk of death by homicide, and a longer life span, but receive much less social support from friendships and extended families.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Jared Diamond
Tenanted land as a share of all cultivated land was around 20 per cent in the first years after the Meiji government instituted its land reform. By the time of the Second World War, almost half of arable land was under tenancy and 70 per cent of Japanese farmers rented some or all of their fields. Despite the global depression, tenant rents did not fall below 50–60 per cent of crops (and this was after the renter had paid the cost of seeds, fertiliser, implements and all taxes and levies bar the main land tax). It was hardly surprising that output stopped rising in the 1920s.
How Asia Works
Joe Studwell
Over the last two centuries, the pace of change became so quick that the social order acquired a dynamic and malleable nature. It now exists in a state of permanent flux. When we speak of modern revolutions we tend to think of 1789 (the French Revolution), 1848 (the liberal revolutions) or 1917 (the Russian Revolution). But the fact is that, these days, every year is revolutionary.
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
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