The Fencing Of The Commons

In Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari uses concepts from biology, history, and economics to tell the story of us, Homo sapiens. We start 2.5 million years ago, when Sapiens make their historical entrance, and end in the future, when the creation of an artificially created superhuman race may mark the end of the Sapiens species. Along the way, we learn how our ability to create imagined realities led to our dominance over other species. We watch as the Agricultural Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, imperialism, capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution change our species in lasting, and not always positive, ways.

Ultimately, we’re left with one question: As we design our future, who do we want to become? Asking the right questions may be more important than finding the right answers. Read this summary to explore our history as a species—in doing so, you’ll see today’s world in an entirely new way.

In The Rational Optimist, science writer and journalist Matt Ridley writes that innovation has been the primary impetus for humanity’s progress and prosperity—driving the advances in technology, culture, and political organization that have made today’s society healthier, wealthier, and safer than any in human history.

Ridley writes that such a cross-pollination of ideas would have been impossible without free trade and the exchange of goods. This is because when we trade goods, we create networks of knowledge that reach beyond local communities and nations—allowing innovators to build upon each other's work.

In this guide, we’ll explore:

• How the exchange of ideas and knowledge has fostered human prosperity
• How trade promotes stable societies
• How our capacity for innovation provides a case for optimism on climate change
• Why free trade is the best way to promote growth and prosperity

We’ll supplement and compare Ridley’s ideas with insights from other writers and thinkers who’ve explored the benefits of trade and free markets, the relationship between capitalism and democracy, and more.

To understand the pressures on democracy in the 21st century, it’s important to understand what modern democracy is and where it came from. In The Origins of Political Order, political economist Francis Fukuyama explores the development of political systems from prehistory to the eve of the American and French revolutions in order to show how and why modern democracies evolved.

Fukuyama argues that a stable democratic society requires three components: a strong state, the rule of law, and accountability. In this guide, we’ll explore each of these components in detail and show, for example, how Chinese bureaucracy created the first modern state and how local English legal disputes eventually led to democracy. Along the way, we’ll build on, update, and sometimes challenge Fukuyama’s claims by referring to other works of political theory such as Sapiens, Humankind, and How Democracies Die.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is Jared Diamond’s attempt to determine why societies historically took different paths. It was named one of TIME’s best non-fiction books of all time, awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and turned into a PBS documentary.

Diamond argues that differences between societies were caused by environmental factors that affected the historical development of those societies, not biological differences between the people of the societies. These factors led Eurasians (people from Asia, Europe, and North Africa) to historically have strategic advantages over non-Eurasians, including advanced knowledge, centralized governments, and immunity to infectious diseases.

With these advantages, Eurasian colonists came to dominate much of the world. Diamond believes Eurasians had these advantages primarily because their native geography supported bountiful food production, which allowed for the development of other advantages in technology, knowledge, and government. In our guide, we’ll see how Diamond draws the link between food production and these advantages, we’ll fact-check his ideas, and we’ll consider how Diamond’s view has been received by other experts.

In The Silk Roads, historian Peter Frankopan identifies Central and Western Asia as the crossroads of human civilization, the birthplace of the world’s major religions, the battleground where the great empires of history rose and fell, and the garden from which today’s global economy first sprouted. He argues that understanding the East is crucial to our understanding of the world—particularly for Westerners who have lost this global perspective.

In ancient times, trade routes known as the Silk Roads first brought European merchants to the luxury markets of the East, enabling the flow of both material goods and ideas from East to West. According to Frankopan, the Silk Roads have always been history’s crucial connection point, spreading not just luxury goods like silk and spices, but also technology, religion, languages, cultures, ideologies, and even conflicts and diseases. In this guide, we explore Frankopan’s history of the Silk Roads, while also incorporating insights and feedback from other scholars to supplement his analysis.

In Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari uses concepts from biology, history, and economics to tell the story of us, Homo sapiens. We start 2.5 million years ago, when Sapiens make their historical entrance, and end in the future, when the creation of an artificially created superhuman race may mark the end of the Sapiens species. Along the way, we learn how our ability to create imagined realities led to our dominance over other species. We watch as the Agricultural Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, imperialism, capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution change our species in lasting, and not always positive, ways.

Ultimately, we’re left with one question: As we design our future, who do we want to become? Asking the right questions may be more important than finding the right answers. Read this summary to explore our history as a species—in doing so, you’ll see today’s world in an entirely new way.

In Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari uses concepts from biology, history, and economics to tell the story of us, Homo sapiens. We start 2.5 million years ago, when Sapiens make their historical entrance, and end in the future, when the creation of an artificially created superhuman race may mark the end of the Sapiens species. Along the way, we learn how our ability to create imagined realities led to our dominance over other species. We watch as the Agricultural Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, imperialism, capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution change our species in lasting, and not always positive, ways.

Ultimately, we’re left with one question: As we design our future, who do we want to become? Asking the right questions may be more important than finding the right answers. Read this summary to explore our history as a species—in doing so, you’ll see today’s world in an entirely new way.

In The Rational Optimist, science writer and journalist Matt Ridley writes that innovation has been the primary impetus for humanity’s progress and prosperity—driving the advances in technology, culture, and political organization that have made today’s society healthier, wealthier, and safer than any in human history.

Ridley writes that such a cross-pollination of ideas would have been impossible without free trade and the exchange of goods. This is because when we trade goods, we create networks of knowledge that reach beyond local communities and nations—allowing innovators to build upon each other's work.

In this guide, we’ll explore:

• How the exchange of ideas and knowledge has fostered human prosperity
• How trade promotes stable societies
• How our capacity for innovation provides a case for optimism on climate change
• Why free trade is the best way to promote growth and prosperity

We’ll supplement and compare Ridley’s ideas with insights from other writers and thinkers who’ve explored the benefits of trade and free markets, the relationship between capitalism and democracy, and more.

Though it’s become widely accepted that climate change is real, the questions still remain of what steps we should take to fix the damage and whether they'll be enough. Many scientists and activists believe that the climate has already passed a tipping point and that environmental catastrophe is inevitable. In Apocalypse Never, award-winning science writer Michael Shellenberger says that it’s time to assess the crisis from a rational perspective. He argues that we’re in a much better position to curb climate change than alarmists would have us believe, and that people who bend scientific truth in order to spur environmental action are doing more harm than good.

In this guide, we’ll explain Shellenberger’s argument that environmental alarmists overstate their claims and that there’s ground for hope for our planet’s future. We’ll also look at counter-arguments to Shellenberger’s claims and examine what independent research says about the solutions he suggests. We’ll point to recent developments in industry, agriculture, and the political climate that frame the conversation around climate change.

Imagine living with the knowledge that you could lose your home at any time, for any reason. As sociologist Matthew Desmond explains in Evicted, millions of Americans live every day under the threat of eviction, and it takes a heavy toll on them both psychologically and financially.

This guide will start by explaining why Desmond believes evictions are out of control in the US today and his account of how that came about. We’ll then discuss how poverty and eviction each lead to the other, with predatory landlords and racial discrimination reinforcing that cycle. We’ll conclude with a few of Desmond’s ideas about how the US could empower its citizens to break that cycle permanently.

Our commentary will provide additional information about the history of poverty in the US and how it’s impacting people today. We’ll also examine the pros and cons of some potential solutions. Finally, we’ll present counterpoints to Desmond’s ideas from more fiscally conservative schools of thought, focusing on personal responsibility instead of systemic problems.

Conventional accounts of American history tend to focus on the people at the top—presidents, generals, CEOs, and other influential figures and their struggles, ambitions, hopes, and dreams. But what about average people? The ones who had to live with the consequences of elite decisions, and who often struggled in obscurity? In A People’s History of the United States, historian Howard Zinn aims to tell their story, providing a bottom-up view of American history focusing on Indigenous people, Black Americans, women, laborers, and activists.

Our guide outlines Zinn’s interpretation of significant events, themes, and historical trends in American history. Through our commentary, we’ll provide alternative opinions on the motivations behind and consequences of historical events. We’ll also further explain Zinn’s approach to history and provide additional context for his arguments as well as his perspective on events that happened after the book’s publication.

Think back to your US history classes—how much time did you spend studying Native American perspectives? According to some experts, it probably wasn’t much. History professor and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz fills that knowledge gap with An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Published in 2014, this book is a retelling of US history that makes two major arguments: First, the US’s global success can be traced directly to its genocide of Native Americans. Second, indigenous resistance holds the key to a more peaceful future.

In this guide, we’ll discuss life in precolonial America and explain what led Europe to colonize the Americas. Then, we’ll explain how patterns of genocide and resistance have played out over the course of US history. Our commentary will provide additional information and alternative ideas about the historical events Dunbar-Ortiz covers. We’ll also explore social issues related to colonization, explain how Native American resistance efforts intersect with other movements, and provide an update on US-indigenous relations in the 21st century.