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Автор Tom Phillips
Tom Phillips
HUMANS
A BRIEF HISTORY OF HOW WE F*CKED IT ALL UP
Given the subject matter, dedicating this book to my family could be badly misinterpreted.
So instead, I dedicate this to anybody who has ever fucked up really badly. You are not alone.
3 200 000 BCE: Lucy falls out of a tree and dies. Humanity will repeat this pattern many times over the following 3. 2 million years.
70 000 BCE: Modern humans migrate out of Africa, ruining everything for everyone else.
70 000 BCE–40 000 BCE: Really bad period for Neanderthals.
12 000 BCE: Humanity invents war! YAY HUMANITY! GO TEAM!
11 000 BCE: Agriculture is invented, which may also have been an awful mistake tbh.
3000 BCE: The Sumerians and Egyptians invent the idea of “absolute dynastic monarchy. ” Thanks for that, Egypt and Sumer!
2334 BCE: Sargon of Akkad goes one further and invents the idea of “empires. ” Thanks for that, Sargon!
222 BCE: Qin Shi Huang unites China, searches for elixir of life, dies.
216 BCE: Battle of Cannae. Romans experiment with having two leaders, with opposing strategies. Goes roughly as well as you’d guess.
27 BCE: In excellent news for fans of dictatorship, the Roman Republic becomes the Roman Empire.
26 BCE–892 AD: Not much happens. Pretty quiet time, historically speaking.
1004: First contact between Europeans and Americans; ends in lots of murder.
1217: Ala ad-Din Muhammad II makes the worst decision in history: making an enemy of Genghis Khan.
1492: Christopher Columbus fails to discover new route to Asia, crashes into America instead. Honestly this is the point where everything starts going really wrong.
1519: In history’s most ill-advised hospitality, Moctezuma invites Cortés in as a guest.
1617–1648: Ottoman Empire endures a run of mostly terrible leaders (two of them are called “the Mad,” which is a bad sign).
1698: Scotland tries to establish an empire in Panama. This doesn’t go well, leaving hundreds dead and the country almost bankrupt.
1788: Austrian army manages to defeat itself at the Battle of Karansebes.
1812: Napoleon tries to invade Russia. This turns out to be a terrible idea.
1859: Thomas Austin introduces 24 rabbits into Australia. This doesn’t end well.
1885: King Leopold II is given the Congo for charitable purposes. His purposes are… not charitable.
1890: Shakespeare fan Eugene Schieffelin introduces 60 starlings to New York, whimsically. They become a major, non-whimsical pest.
1914: World goes to war. It’s awful.
1917: In a well thought-through plan, Germany helps Lenin get back to Russia.
1923: The first leaded gasoline, developed by Thomas Midgley Jr. , goes on sale. Several generations get lead poisoning.
1928: Not one to rest on his laurels, Thomas Midgley Jr. develops Freon. Which is bad news for the ozone layer.
1929: It is predicted that the economy is doing very well. Global financial crisis begins a few days later.
1933: The first dust storms of the American dust bowl begin.
1933: The very cunning German politician Franz von Papen does a deal wth Hitler in an attempt to regain power. Yeah, that doesn’t work out great.
