The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000-Year History of Human Culture, Conflict, and Connection

by Tamim Ansary

Overview

From language to culture to cultural collision: the story of how humans invented history, from the Stone Age to the Virtual Age


Traveling across millennia, weaving the experiences and world views of cultures both extinct and extant, The Invention of Yesterday shows that the engine of history is not so much heroic (battles won), geographic (farmers thrive), or anthropogenic (humans change the planet) as it is narrative.


Many thousands of years ago, when we existed only as countless small autonomous bands of hunter-gatherers widely distributed through the wilderness, we began inventing stories—to organize for survival, to find purpose and meaning, to explain the unfathomable. Ultimately these became the basis for empires, civilizations, and cultures. And when various narratives began to collide and overlap, the encounters produced everything from confusion, chaos, and war to cultural efflorescence, religious awakenings, and intellectual breakthroughs.


Through vivid stories studded with insights, Tamim Ansary illuminates the world-historical consequences of the unique human capacity to invent and communicate abstract ideas. In doing so, he also explains our ever-more-intertwined present: the narratives now shaping us, the reasons we still battle one another, and the future we may yet create.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610397964
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	10/01/2019
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	456,568
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Tamim Ansary is the author of Destiny Disrupted and Games without Rules, among other books. For ten years he wrote a monthly column for Encarta.com, and has published essays and commentary in the San Francisco Chronicle, Salon, Alternet, TomPaine.com, Edutopia, Parade, Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. He has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Bill Moyers, PBS The News Hour, Al Jazeera, and NPR. Born in Afghanistan in 1948, he moved to the U.S. in 1964. He lives in San Francisco.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part I Tools, Language, and Environment 11

1 The Physical Stage 13

2 History Begins with Language 21

3 Civilization Begins with Geography 27

4 Trade Weaves the Networks 41

5 The Birth of Belief Systems 53

Part II One Planet, Many Worlds 73

6 Money, Math, Messaging, Management, and Might 75

7 Megaempires Take the Stage 85

8 The Lands in Between 104

9 When Worlds Overlap 119

10 World Historical Monads 148

Part III The Table Tilts 173

11 Out of the North 175

12 Europe on the Rise 185

13 The Nomads' Last Roar 196

4 Europe and the Long Crusades 203

5 The Restoration Narrative 223

16 The Progress Narrative 247

Part IV History's Hinge 255

17 That Columbus Moment 257

18 Chain Reactions 265

19 After Columbus: The World 278

20 The Center Does Not Hold 286

21 Middle World Enmeshed 296

22 Ripple Effects 305

Part V Enter the Machine 309

23 The Invention Explosion 311

24 Our Machines, Ourselves 321

25 Social Constellations in the Machine Age 335

26 Empires and Nation-States 345

27 A World at War 356

Part VI The Singularity Has Three Sides 365

28 Beyond the Nation-State 367

29 Digital Era 380

30 The Environment 389

31 The Big Picture 397

Acknowledgments 407

Bibliography 409

Index 419

Editorial Reviews

08/19/2019

Chatty, breezy, and capacious, this global history of humanity by journalist Ansary (Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes) focuses on the power of narrative to shape human behavior and on the interconnectedness of people across the globe. Ansary starts off with the beginnings of human societies, nimbly summarizing the development of tools, languages, trade networks, belief systems, and empires: a page on the religious beliefs of ancient Mesopotamians is followed by another on those of Egyptians, and cuneiform and hieroglyphics are summarized in several paragraphs. Next, he describes the West overtaking the East in ideological and technical innovations after 1000 CE; the eastern peoples crafted societal narratives focused on restoring their former glories, while Europeans’ narratives highlighted the benefits of progress. Their emphasis on Christianity and progress motivated, for example, the conquistadors to subjugate Native Americans. Western mechanical inventions in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries only increased the region’s power. Today, Ansary, concludes, humankind edges toward singularity—when humans and machines effectively merge—and nation-states’s primacy is eroded by globalization. This overview paints a cogent and superficially impressive picture of world history, but it doesn’t have much room for depth, complexity, and argumentation. Readers willing to take Ansary’s word for things, however, can sit back and enjoy the ride. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Ansary offers a remarkable big-picture synthesis that draws upon geography but resists determinism, and celebrates diversity while embracing humanity's commonalities."—Booklist


"In his terrific new book, Tamim Ansary explores the underappreciated ways that empires, nations and smaller sets of people have responded to their surroundings, influenced one another and developed stories that give their lives meaning."—San Francisco Chronicle


"A beautifully written world history focused on the stories different civilizations have told about who we are. It ends with a fundamental question: In today's extraordinary world, can we build new narratives that are inclusive and global enough to encourage worldwide cooperation in the task of building a better future for humanity?"—David Christian, distinguished professor, MacquarieUniversity, Sydney, Australia, and author of Maps of Time: An Introductionto Big History and Origin Story: A Big History of Everything


"Tamim Ansary has done it again, writing an expansive, wonderfully readable account of our present world. With deft examples drawn from across history, he skewers the idea that there's anything pure about culture or race. Ideas have blended and meshed across space and time to make the modern world what it is. Ansary is a charming guide to this blesh of civilizations, and to the world's permanent-and hopeful-capacity for change."—Raj Patel, author of Stuffedand Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System


"Brimming with essential insights and yet always approachable, this is the global history we need now."—Lynn Hunt, author of WritingHistory in the Global Era


"Weaving together multiple complex strands of the human experience into a single compelling storyline, Ansary delivers-in his usual down-to-earth yet erudite style-an engaging global 'narrative of narratives' informed by decades of critical study, reflection, and personal transcultural experience. A deeply enriching,
highly relevant read from an important, unique voice of our day."—R. Charles Weller,Central Eurasian and Islamic world history, Washington State and KazakhNational University

"The Invention of Yesterday is an insightful guide into human civilization packed with information that shows how we have been connected globally since the beginning of history. Tamim Ansary unpacks complicated theories to make sense of how we became who we are today."—Fariba Nawa, authorof Opium Nation: Child Brides, Drug Lords and One Woman's Journey throughAfghanistan


Praise for Destiny Disrupted:

"Ansary has written an informative and thoroughly engaging look at the past, present and future of Islam. With his seamless and charming prose, he challenges conventional wisdom and appeals for a fuller understanding of how Islam and the world at large have shaped each other. And that makes this book, in this uneasy, contentious post 9/11 world, a must-read."—Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns

Praise for Games without Rules

"In "Games Without Rules," Tamim Ansary has written the most engaging, accessible and insightful history of Afghanistan. With gifted prose and revealing details, Ansary gives us the oft-neglected Afghan perspective of the wars, foreign meddling and palace intrigue that has defined the past few centuries between the Indus and Oxus. This brilliant book should be required reading for anyone involved in the current war there — and anyone who wants to understand why Afghanistan will not be at peace anytime soon."—Rajiv Chandrasekaran

From the Publisher

2019-07-17
World history as "a story that we're telling one another."

In this intriguing account of humankind from the Stone Age to the present, Ansary (Road Trips: Becoming an American in the Vapor Trail of the Sixties, 2019, etc.) writes, "we live on the same planet but in many different worlds." In 800 C.E., for instance, the Chinese thought their world was the world; other civilizations also believed they lived at the center of their own world model. The author argues that we invent the tribes and other social constellations—the culture—of our own world through narratives based on geographical differences. Viewing the past through this lens, he sees global history as a melding of many master narratives—a "drama of ever-increasing interconnectedness." Trade, warfare, and other interactions caused separate worlds to overlap. "Neighbors influenced neighbors who influenced neighbors," writes Ansary. When Rome conquered the Fertile Crescent, diverse belief systems became part of the Roman state. Jews, for example, encountered the secular-pagan ideas of the Greco-Roman world in their daily lives. The Crusades brought hundreds of ideas and innovations into Europe, from gunpowder to mechanical clocks. Pivotal moments triggered interconnections among major cultures, with great ripple effects: Columbus' discovery of America sparked the rise of corporations and banks in Europe and drew the entire world into "one great global drama." The advent of machines in the 18th and 19th centuries changed the division of labor between men and women. The invention of the transistor in 1947 heralded the digital age. As an Afghan American, the San Francisco-based author draws nicely on his experiences of life in the different worlds of Islam and the secular West to help readers understand the outcomes of overlapping narratives. He examines the role of interconnections in the development of everything from board games to belief systems, science, and multinational corporations.

A well-written and valuable take on the diverse narratives that have shaped human history.

Kirkus Reviews

08/09/2019

The biggest determiner in human history has not been the famous accomplishments of emperors or other leaders. Narratives are how our species has achieved both our greatest feats (the switch from nomadism to agricultural) and committed our most terrible transgressions (the Holocaust engineered by the Nazis). So contends Ansary (Games Without Rules) in this sweeping work, which makes connections between seemingly unrelated things that eventually culminated in revolution. For example, the Knights Templars became bankers, unintentionally, by safeguarding the wealth of pilgrims to the Holy Land. Their acumen as financial wizards led to their downfall because of papal and royal envy, but their methods were widely emulated. How societies dealt with ideologies from other cultures is what has led to the robust nature of human societies the world over. When faced with new ideologies cultures sometimes absorbed them, such as the Roman adoption of the Greek mythos, or fought vehemently against them, as exemplified by Japan's isolation from Western culture until the 19th century. These meetings, happening often on the theoretical plane rather than on the temporal one, have been the catalysts for our overall progress. VERDICT A masterly effort with an intriguing thesis put forward to explain key factors contributing to human history. Highly recommended.—Brian Renvall, Mesalands Community Coll., Tucumcari, NM

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