A Short History Of Man

A Short History of Man: Progress and Decline represents nothing less than a sweeping revisionist history of mankind, in a concise and readable volume. Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe skillfully weaves history, sociology, ethics, and Misesian praxeology to present an alternative — and highly challenging — view of human economic development over the ages. As always, Dr. Hoppe addresses the fundamental questions as only he can. How do family and social bonds develop? Why is the concept of private property so vitally important to human flourishing? What made the leap from a Malthusian subsistence society to an industrial society possible? How did we devolve from aristocracy to monarchy to social democratic welfare states? And how did modern central governments become the all-powerful rulers over nearly every aspect of our lives? Dr. Hoppe examines and answers all of these often thorny questions without resorting to platitudes or bowdlerized history. This is Hoppe at his best: calmly and methodically skewering sacred cows.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The start of human history is 50,000 years ago, when behaviorally modern man had evolved into anatomically modern man. This is an eminently reasonable starting point, as humans at this time were still inept at hunting and unable to travel far. But around 50,000 years ago, humans began to develop a more advanced toolkit. #2 Human coordination was achieved via language, which allowed knowledge to be transmitted to distant places and times and communicated about. With language, humans could also communicate about matters far away in time and place. #3 The life of hunter-gatherers was initially good, but the challenge of population growth was inevitable. People could try to prevent such pressure from emerging by limiting the number of pregnancies, but that did not solve the problem. #4 The first option, fighting, was not as bad as it sounds. Primitive man was far more warlike than contemporary man, and they had a high mortality rate from unnatural causes.

A Short History of the World is a period-piece non-fictional historic work by English author H. G. Wells. The book was largely inspired by Wells's earlier 1919 work The Outline of History.

Chronologically discusses the events of history beginning with the evolution of man and ending with the restructuring of Western Europe in 1993.