Unbound: How Eight Technologies Made us Human and Brought Our World to the Brink

by Richard L. Currier (2015)

This is a massive book in terms of scope, being a review of the whole of human history.  Much of the contents will, of course, be familiar to people with a passing knowledge of history, but for the rest of us, it is a concise, thoroughly useful romp through all the key elements that one really should actually already know but somehow don't.  It would make a visit to the British Museum or the Ashmolean for more interesting, and dinner parties with informed guests far less intimidating.

Despite the authorial voice being almost non-existent, reading as the book does almost like a collaborative effort of a Wikipedia page, it manages to hold the reader's attention through a spattering of rich historical anecdote and often rather astonishing answers to enormous questions about the nature and form of humanity. When the author does reference himself, it is all the more startling for its rarity. Questions answered include why humans became so much less hairy than their ape-like forebears, why women have been so oppressed over the last century, and why modern humans are seemingly so much more anxious than previous generations.

The book ends on a cautionary note with a bundle of unanswered and worrying problems currently facing humanity.  Max Tegmark's book Life 3.0 would be the book to read following on from this one if you wanted to explore these loose ends. 

Rating 8/10


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