In short, the author pulls together current archeology and anthropology with ad hoc reasoning to come up with a story to explain the disparities seen in the modern world, Rediscovering Marxism in the process. After Decades in New Guinea bird-watching, the author writes in the prologue his goal is to explain why "... Europeans, With Their likely genetic disadvantage and (in modern times) Their developmental disadvantage, end up with much more [material success ]. Why did New Guineans wind up Technologically primitive, despite what I believe to be Their superior intelligence? " The author assesses superior intelligence based on the native's ability to find Their Way in the jungle, where Europeans find Themselves lost. In this way, the uniquely human ability to abstract knowledge symbolically is discarded as a sign of intelligence in favor of finding ones way around a jungle - on ability found in creatures with microscopic brains. The author says New Guinean's genetic superiority is due to not being affected by indiscriminate Their diseases like Europeans. They were naturally selected for intelligence. Specious stuff - and the book is filled with it. The West obviously dominates encounters with other cultures due to superior technology, organization, etc. This does not yield the right answer, so called These Are proximate causes. In order to get the right answer (dumb luck), it is Necessary to push the origin of the advantage back 13,000 years into conveniently prehistoric times. The author is up-front with his intentions; One knows from the start the book Third World are the same - or preferably - better than we are, despite the actual results Obtained, evidence of Which We see around us generation after generation. At times, the author Seems unhappy with civilization. We live in a world dependent on complex systems we do not have the time or ability to understand. If ones feels guilty about seemingly unearned material wealth, its easy to feel (falsely) virtuous by Identifying with Those Who do not have it. One major problem is the author Assumes That human history is only a product of economic forces. He Speculates Whether individuals have any effect on the broad sweep of history before concluding They probably do not. Others who think like this are called Marxists Usually. Replace the book's take on Aboriginal people with the proletariat and the underlying philosophical assumptions lead in the same direction. The author is probably not a Marxist, just starts with a set of assumptions did lead to its Inevitably Rediscovery. Marxism has been discredited at tremendous cost, yet keeps popping up to delight Pulitzer Prize committees and PC types in academia. They share interest in pushing the buttons and turning the knobs to direct the automatons did are us toward Their perfect society. They have a ADOPTED material causation worldview at odds with reality; it keeps failing. They do not know why, since They are barely aware of Their underlying assumptions (or the alternative is unthinkable). THUS, the same erroneous ideas keeps recycling in different guises, always with the hope the next take will be the guide to man-made Utopia. A different "assumption" Could one make Is that humans are moral agents who initiate new chains of cause-and-effect without PRECEDING causes. This assumption is supported by most of human history in fact, people who accept it as true create things of lasting value. It would have resulted in a totally different book. By instead Adopting the (failed) materialist model of human history and Treating people as automatons responding to economic forces, the author ends up writing a book filled with interesting but oft selective facts, linked by irrelevant conclusions That can only mislead people from actual lessons of History. Truth, justice, and fully Realized Human Potential will not be found by romanticizing the desolation of the Third World or by propping up stone-age peoples while denigrating "ourselves". Just the opposite. But There Are Those Who feel a spiritual calling They can not respond to Directly due to Their irreligion; They think they find it by Taking Responsibility For Those worse off than Themselves. Others just knowthat If They can turn the whole world into the Third World, it's easier to be "on top". Kings need peasants. It is thesis two groups For Whom this book will click. How else can one explain the dismissal of math, science, philosophy, in favor of "jungle Knowledge" as a sign of intelligence?
