I believe this is a very important book. Daniel Lieberman takes a methodical, clear-eyed approach as he draws upon the evidence we have to hand to show that human beings evolved to be hunter-gatherers and that our bodies are the bodies of hunter-gatherers. While he does not present this era as a paradise, he shows that for 200,000 years we did not suffer from the diseases and problems that we have now in modern society: there were no epidemics (there were too few of us and we were not crowded together), there was not diabetes, cancer etc. on the scale we have today. We did not harm the environment like we do now. Lieberman shows, more incisively than most similar books, that two massively important cultural changes -- the introduction of farming roughly at 7000 BC in the Middle East, and the mass industrialisation at the end of the 18th century -- have created huge problems for the human body on many levels. This book really nails many of our problems today.
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Popular highlights in this book
We didn’t evolve to be healthy, but instead we were selected to have as many offspring as possible under diverse, challenging conditions. As a consequence, we never evolved to make rational choices about what to eat or how to exercise in conditions of abundance and comfort.Highlighted by 507 Kindle readers- Men and women aged forty-five to seventy-nine who are physically active, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, do not smoke, and consume alcohol moderately have on average one-fourth the risk of death during a given year than people with unhealthy habits.Highlighted by 413 Kindle readers
- The fundamental answer to why so many humans are now getting sick from previously rare illnesses is that many of the body’s features were adaptive in the environments for which we evolved but have become maladaptive in the modern environments we have now created.Highlighted by 409 Kindle readers
About the author
Great insight and very educational
In this book Daniel goes through the evolution of the human body, followed by talking about mismatch diseases and effects of sugar, fat, salt and low activity on human body, which I found quite educating read. You will find out such things for example such as how body converts sugar into energy, energy consumption by hunter gatherers versus modern human, brain size relative to primates and what being not active does to our body. These are only few snippets from the book, there is much more. The book covers quite a lot of stuff. In human evolution part he talks about Apes and Humans and our common ancestors, on how we became bipedals, following by culture and rise of farming which caused our population to explode which exposed us to all sorts of diseases and then ending book with looking at whats causing certain mismatch diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and how our body responds to them. By reading this book you will learn more about human evolution, on how environment and history made us who we are today. You will also learn more about the way your body works, health, diet and what can cause certain mismatch diseases. The book is eye opener and I would highly recommend it to read it through.
Top reviews from United Kingdom
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- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 July 2016
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 May 2025
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 February 2016
In this book Daniel goes through the evolution of the human body, followed by talking about mismatch diseases and effects of sugar, fat, salt and low activity on human body, which I found quite educating read.
You will find out such things for example such as how body converts sugar into energy, energy consumption by hunter gatherers versus modern human, brain size relative to primates and what being not active does to our body. These are only few snippets from the book, there is much more.
The book covers quite a lot of stuff. In human evolution part he talks about Apes and Humans and our common ancestors, on how we became bipedals, following by culture and rise of farming which caused our population to explode which exposed us to all sorts of diseases and then ending book with looking at whats causing certain mismatch diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and how our body responds to them.
By reading this book you will learn more about human evolution, on how environment and history made us who we are today. You will also learn more about the way your body works, health, diet and what can cause certain mismatch diseases. The book is eye opener and I would highly recommend it to read it through.
Images in this review
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 March 2014
Top reviews from other countries
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- Alejandro SahuquilloReviewed in Spain on 3 December 2021
One of the best scientific books I have ver read
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Luis Gustavo Soares LonghiReviewed in Brazil on 2 November 2015
Muito bom, supera as expectativas.
