A] sweeping overview of cultural, technological and educational forces…Its breadth and ambition are reminiscent of Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel and Harari’s Sapiens. ”— Financial Times It is tempting for a “unified theory” of the “journey of humanity” to try to provide the key to all mythologies, and the book becomes more speculative and dubious, suggesting that the economic performance of entire modern societies can be explained by a kind of cultural memory of their ancestors’ interactions with one kind of crop or animal versus another. Galor also proposes that languages with politeness distinctions ( tu and vous in French or du and Sie in German) have thereby enshrined more rigid hierarchies, and so harmed individual business enterprise. This reminded me pleasantly of the remark attributed to George W Bush: “The problem with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur.” The book’s desire to uncover the “great cogs” of history devolves into a kind of impersonal conspiracy thinking. In a captivating journey from the dawn of human existence to the present, world-renowned economist and thinker Oded Galor offers an intriguing solution to two of humanity's great mysteries. An inspiring, readable, jargon-free and almost impossibly erudite masterwork. ” — The New Statesman A masterful sweep through the human odyssey…. If you liked Sapiens, you’ll love this. ”—Lewis Dartnell, author of Origins

Incredibly wide-ranging and detailed historical and even anthropological examination of the myriad factors that have brought success and failure to nations…. Lively and learned.”— Tim Hazledine These and more questions are answered within The Journey of Humanity. However, the author does not provide a suggested solution beyond a rather simplistic “don’t force a developed world solution on a developing world’s entirely different culture”. In addition, the book is written like a college textbook with a large and technical vocabulary that may trouble some readers looking for a more popular science level of prose. 3 stars. Just like the theories that promise to tie together all of physics or any other science, Galor’s work aims to make the world’s economic trajectory seem logical, even inevitable.”— American Banker It explores how ancient factors like geography, culture and diversity impact today’s wealth inequality… Uses entertaining narratives to explain how this works.” — Forbes The escape out of the trap would require a large population size and, population diversity. The core of his original argument and data is this population diversity aspect. The other reasons are well accepted, and if I may say better explained in say Youval Harari's "Sapiens" or individually in specialist books.Completely brilliant and utterly original … a book for our epoch. ”—Jon Snow, former presenter, Channel 4 News (UK) Galor is unable to move away from his time and his world. When he talks about technology, he does not differentiate between types; when he talks about education he is only thinking of the current (and A very determined) pattern; and a long etcetera. Please, how can you reduce the increase in schooling and the disappearance of the gender gap only to decimononic industrialists? What about the political revolutionary process, what about the weakening of religious power, what about ideologies...? Please, Galor, Marxists advocated the kind of education you say was only defended by industrialists! Obviously you don't know that... And, do you really think that legislation and the New States didn't play a fundamental role? If you aren't lying consciously, you have been driven mad. I understand know why only economists clap their hands. You are saying, basically, that businessmen are the saviors of humanity. If you had said the same about proletarians, kings or peasants, i would have critized it too. La historia y la sociología sean quizá dos de las disciplinas que más se ajusten al zeitgeist reinante, y este ensayo se ajusta con absoluta precisión a la ortodoxia de nuestros días. No encontraréis ninguna reflexión incómoda que pueda aparecer por la interpretación de unos datos objetivos, como por ejemplo hacía Noah Harari -con el cual, por cierto, discrepo en casi todo, en especial cuando trata el tema que me toca. Galor es superficial y predecible, bastante aburrido por su convencional aproximación al tema. Aunque, eso sí, cumple con lo que se propone, a saber, explicar el crecimiento de la humanidad y la consecuente desigualdad económica. For example, Thomas Malthus had a big idea in 1798 when he argued that innovation would increase the population but not per capita incomes because population would adjust up or down to keep people at subsistence. Galor, in this case drawing on his own peer-reviewed research, looks at quasi natural experiments like the correlation between millennia old “technology” (defined as the timing of the neolithic revolution or natural variety of crops) and data for 1500 (it’s highly correlated with population density but not at all correlated with per capita incomes, which themselves barely vary across places). For most of human history, we were caught in a stagnation trap. Improvements in technology and productivity led to population increases, and all those new people gobbled up the surplus, so that overall living standards always reverted to the historical average, barely above subsistence. Thomas Malthus, the unfairly maligned English clergyman, assumed this would always be the case. And yet, at least in the fortunate global north, things have been very different for the last century or so. How come?

Material gains driven by more people and a demand for more invention where cancelled out by more mouths to feed until an eqlibrium was established. The data does work consistently when combined with the timing of neolithic and agriculturial revolutions. A book of this nature relies on fortuitous reversals that might make sense ex post but how sure are we? For example, Europe’s geography led to many competition states and China’s to a single unified state, the later was better for the economy through 1500 but the former was better after. Yes, there’s a decent story. But am I sure? Of course not. A landmark, radically uplifting account of our species ’progress, from one of the world’s preeminent thinkers.Gedurende het grootste gedeelte van de menselijke geschiedenis was er niet of nauwelijks (economische) groei. Verbeteringen in de technologie en productie werden al snel weer teniet gedaan door de groei van de bevolking die die veranderingen juist mogelijk hadden gemaakt. Het was Malthus die dit in zijn essay in 1798 beschreef en daarmee beweerde dat de wereld zich nooit uit deze 'Malthusian trap' zou bevrijden. In The Journey Of Humanity, Oded Galor argues that climate policy should not be restricted to cutting carbon but should also involve ‘pushing hard for gender equality, access to education and the availability of contraceptives, to drive forward the decline in fertility.’ India will do well to heed that advice.” —The New Indian Express In short, the entire book is flooded with a series of a priori (and general historical ignorance) that is only saved because, in the second part, at least comments certain anecdotal facts. True facts (in part), well known to historians (by the way). The thing is that, even here, they are a kind of puzzle that he makes fit as he wants within the utopian logic from which he started from the outset. The second half of the book is about the rise of inequality between countries. He eschews any discussion of the growth theory of Solow, Lucas, Romer and the like and goes—which he briefly dismisses as “proximate”—and instead instead goes to the deeper, underlying theories: (1) institutions, (2) culture, (3) geography, and (4) population diversity. Oded Galor staat aan de basis van de Unified Growth Theory die unieke factoren beschrijft die ervoor gezorgd hebben dat sommige landen een ongekende economische groei hebben doorgemaakt en andere landen juist niet. Centraal in deze theorie staat het uitgangspunt dat de economische groei, startende met de Industriële Revolutie, leidde tot een val in geboortecijfers omdat ouders - dankzij het groeiende belang van onderwijs - hun schaarse tijd en mogelijkheden aan enkele kinderen moesten verdelen, die tegelijkertijd met de groei in welvaart, steeds een grotere kans hadden om hun volwassen leeftijd te bereiken.

Finally, the fourth underlying story is the one that Galor’s own research has advanced and the idea that is the most intriguing but frankly also feels the most speculative to me. Specifically he points out that migratory distance from Africa is closely related to population diversity—which is very high in Ethiopia but very low in Bolivia because of the “serial founder effect”. He argues that diversity has a plus (lots of ideas from combining different perspectives) and a minus (clashing) and that this leads to an inverted U-shaped relationship between population diversity and various economic outcomes like per capita income. A masterful sweep through the human odyssey...if you liked Sapiens, you'll love this." -- Lewis Dartnell, author of Origins

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Moreover there is a lot that it does not explain, that probably depends on the more mundane issues covered by more proximate theories of growth and some of the standard economic policy issues like the importance of avoiding and resolving crises. For example, why is the United States so much richer than Argentina? Or why did China take off when it did but Brazil did not? Or even just variations in income within regions. Completely brilliant and utterly original...a book for our epoch." -- Jon Snow, former presenter Channel 4 News In a captivating journey from the dawn of human existence to the present, world-renowned economist and thinker Oded Galor offers an intriguing solution to two of humanity’s great mysteries. An optimist’s guide to the future … Oded Galor’s ‘Sapiens’-like history of civilisation predicts a happy ending for humanity.” ―TheGuardian The institutional discussion largely draws on work by Daron Acemoglu and co-authors on the importance of “inclusive” institutions instead of “extractive” institutions (describing their quasi natural experiment around settler mortality, leading to different types of colonization, different institutions, and income levels today.

The stunning advances that have transformed human experience in recent centuries are no accident of history - they are the result of universal and timeless forces, operating since the dawn of our species. Drawing on a lifetime's scientific investigation, Oded Galor's ground-breaking new vision overturns a host of long-held assumptions to reveal the deeper causes that have shaped the journey of humanity: Yet his optimism about humanity shines through – prize its diversity, commit to educate its children and they will find their way to innovate and create a culture of growth. It’s a great way to look at the world, but a healthy recognition that power, capitalism, finance, the existence and structure of states and public philosophies – some right, some wrong – are all part of the brew would have made his account more realistic. Sad to say they would also have made it less optimistic. Humanity, as Kant said, is made of crooked timber from which nothing entirely straight can be made. Galor’s book would have been the stronger had he leavened his sunshine with some shadows.Galor is quite often named as potential candidate for the Nobelprize. With this book he got a remarkable and unprecedented deal (for an economist) with his publisher: it was translated at the very same time into almost 30 languages. A wildly ambitious attempt to do for economics what Newton, Darwin or Einstein did for their fields: develop a theory that explains almost everything. ”— The New Statesman A completely brilliant and utterly original account of humanity’s transit from crude beginnings to a deeply divided planet. A vastly readable insight into why our world is as it is. A book for our epoch.” —Jon Snow, former anchor of Channel 4 News (UK)