The Journey of Humanity: And the Keys to Human Progress

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Galor tells this big story while drawing on a range of recent academic research, much of it is his own but also Daron Acemoglu, Melissa Dell, and many other economists who are using modern empirical methods to exploit quasi natural experiments to study how (possibly) random differences in the past cast a shadow centuries or even millennia later. This thorough grounding in research sets it apart from some other more speculative big think books—although some of the research ends up confirming, or at least corroborating, various speculations. I was pretty disappointed on the chapters on institutions and culture. There didn't seem to be a unified theory here, but rather a review of important papers (Acemoglu, Putnam etc.) which were a bit too familiar to the reader of comparative litterature. I get that this is a book with a huge scope (grand historical development), but I was simply a bit too bored when reading the description of various papers that got the label "growth". Oded Galor’sattempt to unify economic theory is impressive and insightful. ” —Will Hutton, The Guardian 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.

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. Although some compare this work with Sapiens (Harari) or Jared Diamond's already classic, the differences are immense. While the first proposed a macrocosmic vision of history in an informative but fresh way, and while the second knew how to combine different branches of knowledge with an innovative result, in this book we find none of that. Maybe it might be said that the bests sections of the book are those in which he copy/pastes some interesting (but very well known) facts about geography and history (some of them previously divulged by other popularizers before him, like Peter Watson or Diamond...) 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. Astounding in scope and insight…provides the keys to the betterment of our species. ”—Nouriel Roubini, author of Crisis Economics Furthermore, too many examples were a bit cliché - institutions seen in North and South Korea, trust seen in North and South Italy. I'm missing a bit more strange examples to give some new flavor to these classic topics.

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Don't get us wrong. It is not that something in his approach to economic development is not true (although there are things that a historian would never accept), it is that the perspective is scientific, ahistorical, anti-philosophical, uncritical... It looks like political propaganda, politically correct...aiming at understanding the whole with broken toys. 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: Because it was now rational to invest in children’s education rather than get them working, child labour fell away

There is so much Oded Galor forgets or ignores... it all comes down to weak correlations! But, anyway, they look so PERFECT that people could believe this is the truth. Fascinating book…Highly exciting journey through the economic history of mankind from the Stone Age to the present day.”— Frankfurter Allgemeine

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The Journey of Humanity takes on the huge task of explaining how humanity got to this point, which the author calls the Mystery of Growth. The second half explains why this growth has not been universal across nations, which the author calls the Mystery of Inequality. If you haven't read Sapiens or books mentioned before, this could be a pretty good read - but if your already familiar with the topic to some extent (and my knowledge is modest), perhaps you should start with Diamond or Fukuyama instead.