Unbound

How Eight Technologies Made Us Human, Transformed Society, and Brought Our World to the Brink

By: Richard L. Currier

Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine

Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

Although we usually think of technology as something unique to modern times, our ancestors began to create the first technologies millions of years ago in the form of prehistoric tools and weapons. Over time, eight key technologies gradually freed us from the limitations of our animal origins.

The fabrication of weapons, the mastery of fire, and the technologies of clothing and shelter radically restructured the human body, enabling us to walk upright, shed our body hair, and migrate out of tropical Africa. Symbolic communication transformed human evolution from a slow biological process into a fast cultural process. The invention of agriculture revolutionized the relationship between humanity and the environment, and the technologies of interaction led to the birth of civilization. Precision machinery spawned the industrial revolution and the rise of nation-states; and in the next metamorphosis, digital technologies may well unite all of humanity for the benefit of future generations.

Synthesizing the findings of primatology, paleontology, archeology, history, and anthropology, Richard Currier reinterprets and retells the modern narrative of human evolution that began with the discovery of Lucy and other Australopithecus fossils. But the same forces that allowed us to integrate technology into every aspect of our daily lives have also brought us to the brink of planetary catastrophe. Unbound explains both how we got here and how human society must be transformed again to achieve a sustainable future.

Technology: "The deliberate modification of any natural object or substance with forethought to achieve a specific end or to serve a specific purpose."

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2015 Richard L. Currier (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

The story of mankind -, Fantastic overview !

Well worth listening to. To be gained is a deeper appreciation of all that has come before us.

Excellent

I'm not an archeologist, anthropologist or even a scientist, just an ordinary citizen, but I enjoyed this book immensely. It's well written and the narator is very good as well.

Interesting but not mind blowing

I was hoping for more, it was neat but I didn't have any goosebump moments

Unbound

This book offers a wide-lens perspective on the evolution of humanity’s use of tools. While much of this information can be found elsewhere, this book does a good job of bringing together many branches of anthropology and evolutionary science to show the trajectory our species has taken, and offers some theories about what may come next based on this information.

Well read and cohesive but...

His arguments are well organized but he misses some things. He harps on how cultural evolution created the nuclear family, and completely misses that the next step after the tribe was the extended family, which was the major organizational mode of humans for ages before there was anything like a nuclear family. He points out that declining birthrate is a natural consequence of increasing comfort for the individual, because large families are no longer necessary, and lauds it as necessary to save the planet, but after detailing the history of the development of symbolic communication states several times that people who don't have children will contribute neither their DNA nor their accumulated experience and knowledge to the next generation. did he just forget that all important communication? the book is well reasoned but there is a hint of perspective bias in it. 4 out of 5.

Hard to find a better summary of humanity

This was like Sapiens, but based on science instead of opinion. Really enjoyed this. The narrator was ok, but a touch too fast and choppy at times.

Good facts, not much else

This is the book Jared Diamond would have written, had Jared Diamond been deprived of vision or originality. It covers the cultural and, to a significant degree, the physical evolution of hominids from earlier life forms till the hopes and fears of the future. It is a successful compilation of good information and accepted theory, with a lot of well articulated declarations of the obvious, and, here and there, some juicy surprises. But lacking is any interesting focus or vision, other than, if we choose wisely, we can survive; if not... well, you know. It's the grandeur of human evolution in pedestrian wrap. I learned many good things, but I wish there had been more.

truly a remarkable baseline of universal knowledge

crisp concise yet surprisingly entertaining conveyance of what humanity has become well worth listening

Detailed book about human social interactions.

A detailed and concise book about the evolution of human social interactions and the technologies that have resulted due to social interactive changes. A substantial portion of the book concentrates of pre-industrial revolution, specifically focusing on stone age Technonologies. The last 1/4 of the book talks about the microprocessor. Finally, it finishes talking about the threats to humanity and society. It references the Biosphere experiment, which ended in failure. (I never knew that!)

Missing an important fact

This book is very interesting and enlightening. However, he speaks of the rise of pollution and mentions the causes - plastic, fossil fuel consumption, deforestation. He does not even mention animal agriculture, that is a leading cause for environmental catastrophe.