The Journey of Humanity: And the Keys to Human Progress

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I was pretty disappointed on the chapters on institutions and culture. There didn't seem to be a unified theory here, but rather a review of important papers (Acemoglu, Putnam etc.) which were a bit too familiar to the reader of comparative litterature. I get that this is a book with a huge scope (grand historical development), but I was simply a bit too bored when reading the description of various papers that got the label "growth". Astounding in scope and insight...provides the keys to the betterment of our species." -- Nouriel Roubini, author of Crisis Economics Galor is quite often named as potential candidate for the Nobelprize. With this book he got a remarkable and unprecedented deal (for an economist) with his publisher: it was translated at the very same time into almost 30 languages. We have the big civilisations first in water based areas. Homogenous civilisations. Control, stability. Europe for example could only thrive much later with better technology as competition drove growth and sutible differences in political institutions, coupled with fewer though better educated children, allowed for the escape from the poverty trap.

Astounding in scope and insight, The Journey of Humanity provides a captivating and revelatory account of the deepest currents that have shaped human history and the keys to the betterment of our species.”— NourielRoubini, Professor Emeritus, NYU, and authorof Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance Because it was now rational to invest in children’s education rather than get them working, child labour fell away A wildly ambitious attempt to do for economics what Newton, Darwin, or Einstein did for their fields: develop a theory that explains almost everything.An inspiring, readable, jargon-free and almost impossibly erudite masterwork, the boldest possible attempt to write the economic history of humanity.”— The New Statesman Furthermore, too many examples were a bit cliché - institutions seen in North and South Korea, trust seen in North and South Italy. I'm missing a bit more strange examples to give some new flavor to these classic topics.

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Written by one of the most influential economists in the field of growth and development, this book is breathtaking in its scope and ambition. Oded Galor’s initial research in the early 1990s highlighted the negative effects of income inequality on economic growth, with the research being published just as the topic was about to become fashionable. Not surprisingly, that paper remains one of the most widely cited in the field. Subsequently, he developed, with peers and doctoral students, a series of progressively more ambitious mathematical models, and rigorous empirical research on the interactions between technological progress, income inequality, and economic growth ultimately leading to a research agenda that went well beyond just encapsulating the 20th century to first, the industrial revolution, then Malthusian epoch, and ultimately covering the entire history of humanity. It would not be an understatement that he is possibly one of the most ambitious thinkers today. This book synthesizes much of his own work complemented by a very active area of quantitative and empirical research in economics, history, and quantitative anthropology, that has benefitted from the data revolution. An inspiring, readable, jargon-free and almost impossibly erudite masterwork. ” — The New Statesman

Don't get us wrong. It is not that something in his approach to economic development is not true (although there are things that a historian would never accept), it is that the perspective is scientific, ahistorical, anti-philosophical, uncritical... It looks like political propaganda, politically correct...aiming at understanding the whole with broken toys. No creo que este libro vaya a satisfacer del todo a nadie, ni a profanos en la materia ni a entendidos y especialistas. Los primeros encontraran el libro lleno de lugares comunes, y lo poco que no conocían solo les servirá para unir las fronteras de los conocimientos que ya poseían a poco que fueran aplicados en el instituto u observadores de la realidad cotidiana; a los segundos, porque no hay nada nuevo ni original. Quizá esto último sea lo más decepcionante, la constante sensación de repetición y pereza intelectual.If you haven't read Sapiens or books mentioned before, this could be a pretty good read - but if your already familiar with the topic to some extent (and my knowledge is modest), perhaps you should start with Diamond or Fukuyama instead. From the Malthusian (hunter-gatherer) epoch to the Neolithic (agricultural) Revolution to the Industrial Revolution and concluding now in the Technological Era, the book looks closely at what drives lifestyle improvements. Has the Demographic Transition, where families have less children due to the cost of training them in advanced skills, promoted prosperity? Did allowing non-native citizens to share in the nation’s wealth increase or decrease growth? Galor’s policy argument instead is that “As the great cogs that have governed the journey of humanity continue to turn, measures that enhance future orientation, education and innovation, along with gender equality, pluralism and respect for difference, hold the key for universal prosperity.” It’s hard to argue with this—and most of these are good in their own right even if they’re not key to growth. Moreover most of them are actually emphasized by international institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (at least today).

It is tempting for a “unified theory” of the “journey of humanity” to try to provide the key to all mythologies, and the book becomes more speculative and dubious, suggesting that the economic performance of entire modern societies can be explained by a kind of cultural memory of their ancestors’ interactions with one kind of crop or animal versus another. Galor also proposes that languages with politeness distinctions ( tu and vous in French or du and Sie in German) have thereby enshrined more rigid hierarchies, and so harmed individual business enterprise. This reminded me pleasantly of the remark attributed to George W Bush: “The problem with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur.” The book’s desire to uncover the “great cogs” of history devolves into a kind of impersonal conspiracy thinking. A masterful sweep through the human odyssey…. If you liked Sapiens, you’ll love this. ”—Lewis Dartnell, author of Origins Unparalleled in its scope and ambition…All readers will learn something, and many will find the book fascinating.” — The Washington Post Incredibly wide-ranging and detailed historical and even anthropological examination of the myriad factors that have brought success and failure to nations…. Lively and learned.”— Tim Hazledine The stunning advances that have transformed human experience in recent centuries are no accident of history - they are the result of universal and timeless forces, operating since the dawn of our species. Drawing on a lifetime's scientific investigation, Oded Galor's ground-breaking new vision overturns a host of long-held assumptions to reveal the deeper causes that have shaped the journey of humanity:I found the section on Climate change a bit short, pretty much just says will be fine if we get rich as the rich societies in Europe went green per person once wealthy... hmmm I'll need a lot more than that. The Journey of Humanity takes on the huge task of explaining how humanity got to this point, which the author calls the Mystery of Growth. The second half explains why this growth has not been universal across nations, which the author calls the Mystery of Inequality. Brilliantly weaves the threads of global economic history. A tour de force! ” —Dani Rodrik, author of Straight Talk on Trade In The Journey Of Humanity, Oded Galor argues that climate policy should not be restricted to cutting carbon but should also involve ‘pushing hard for gender equality, access to education and the availability of contraceptives, to drive forward the decline in fertility.’ India will do well to heed that advice.” —The New Indian Express

For most of human history, we were caught in a stagnation trap. Improvements in technology and productivity led to population increases, and all those new people gobbled up the surplus, so that overall living standards always reverted to the historical average, barely above subsistence. Thomas Malthus, the unfairly maligned English clergyman, assumed this would always be the case. And yet, at least in the fortunate global north, things have been very different for the last century or so. How come? He often highlights that nothing bad could happen to this utopy if we go on ahead, without asking ourselves anything (!), the unstoppable way chosen by entrepeneurs, banks and industrialists. According to him progress will always bring more democracy (which one? China will soon be a democracy) and no matter if we have suffered colonization or wars (he forgets more than one hundred conflicts) because progress has brought us more comfort. That's all, no more questioning. Not only a succinct, unified theory of economic growth since modern humans evolved, but also an engaging and optimistic answer to anyone who thinks that poverty and inequality will always be with us .”— Ian Morris, Stanford University’s Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor in Classics and author of The Measure of CivilizationThere is so much Oded Galor forgets or ignores... it all comes down to weak correlations! But, anyway, they look so PERFECT that people could believe this is the truth. Astounding in scope and insight…provides the keys to the betterment of our species. ”—Nouriel Roubini, author of Crisis Economics Why did humanity get prosperous after hundreds of thousands of years of stagnation? And why do we observe such high levels of inequality between regions and countries today? These are the two main questions that Galor aims to answer in his Journey of Humanity.