From acclaimed anthropologist James Suzman, a portrait of the 'original affluent society' – the Bushmen of southern Africa – and what their way of life can teach us today.
James Suzman, Ph.D., is an anthropologist specializing in the Khoisan peoples of southern Africa. A recipient of the Smuts Commonwealth Fellowship in African Studies at Cambridge University, he is now the director of Anthropos Ltd., a think tank that applies anthropological methods to solving contemporary social and economic problems. He lives in Cambridge.
An insightful and well-written book, describing the hard transition
of foraging communities in Namibia from relative affluence during
the Stone Age to contemporary poverty and misery. Avoiding both
modern conceits and romantic fantasies, Suzman chronicles how
economics and politics have finally conquered some of the last
outposts of hunter-gatherers, and how much humankind can still
learn from the disappearing way of life of the most marginalized
communities on earth.
*Yuval Noah Harari, author of SAPIENS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMAN
KIND and HOMO DEUS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF TOMORROW*
To know what it is like to live as people lived for most of human
history, you would have to find one of the places where traditional
hunting-and-gathering practices are still alive…Fortunately for us,
the anthropologist James Suzman did exactly that…The news here is
that the lives of most of our progenitors were better than we
think. We’re flattering ourselves by believing that their existence
was so grim and that our modern, civilized one is, by comparison,
so great.
*John Lancaster, The New Yorker*
Suzman’s descriptive prose and affection for his subjects generate
the reader’s genuine empathy…This fascinating glimpse into a
disappearing way of life leads Suzman to reflect on our world
today: a world where wealth and possessions are valued above all
other pursuits. Suzman’s account of the lives of Bushmen, past and
present, offers plenty of fuel for thought.
*Rachel Newcomb, The Washington Post*
Mr Suzman deftly weaves his experiences and observations with
lessons on human evolution, the history of human migration and the
fate of African communities since the arrival of Europeans. The
overarching aim of the book is more ambitious still: to challenge
the reader’s ideas about both hunter-gatherer life and human
nature.
*The Economist*
[Suzman creates] a feeling for the landscape, the difficulties
encountered by the Bushmen, and the pleasures of their simple, if
rapidly changing, way of life... In all, this is a delightful book,
full of perceptiveness and understanding.
*Science*
[A] fascinating book. . . Part-ethnography, part-memoir, this is a
poignant account of a culture on the brink of extinction.
*Sunday Times*
Suzman’s talent for evoking the region’s vast and haunting
landscapes, his elegiac account of a passing covenant with nature,
and his warm and compassionate character sketches of individual
Ju’/hoansi, make this a fascinating and at times profoundly moving
work of literary non-fiction.
*The Irish Times*
[T]hrough neglect, abuse and misunderstanding, an ancient way of
life is being finally extinguished… Yet, Suzman argues, even now
the Bushmen have much to teach us about a social order that, in
many ways, offered a freer, fairer existence and a non-invasive
adaption to ecology.
*Ben Collyer, New Scientist*
This book has truth on every page and is filled with important
insights that range from hunting and tracking to how we think about
time, money, value or success.
*Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of THE HARMLESS PEOPLE and THE
OLD WAY*
This beautiful book--part memoir, part ethnography--offers a window
into the lives of one of the most enduring of human cultures . . .
If you have ever wondered how it might be to measure wealth not by
material possessions but by the strength of social relations
between people, read this book.
*Wade Davis, author of THE WAYFINDERS and INTO THE SILENCE*
[A] beautiful, heartfelt paean. AFFLUENCE WITHOUT ABUNDANCE is
learned without being condescending, tender yet unsentimental. It
is both a celebration of an ancient way of life and a lament for
all that has been lost in our own headlong pursuit of the
material.
*Peter Godwin, author of MUKIWA and WHEN A CROCODILE EATS THE
SUN*
A spirited ethnography of the ancestral peoples of the Kalahari . .
. A welcome contribution to a once-vibrant anthropological
literature without many recent entries.
*Kirkus Reviews*
In his thoughtful, in-depth look, [Suzman] focuses on the
Ju/’hoansi people, whom he has been working with for more than two
decades… A fascinating examination of a society drastically changed
by forced modernity.
*Booklist*
Ask a Question About this Product More... |