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

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.

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

Interesting but not mind blowing

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