Book Review: The Human Story

By Nick Maker

The Human Story is an amazing book. I’ve got to say it is one of the most well written pieces of literature I have read in a long while.

This story has no plot; it is more on the lines of a biography for humans. It talks about the whole history of human evolution, how they came to be and when they grew from farmers to grand civilization power nations. This to me hit a sense of Civilization V vibe – coincidentally I’ve been playing the game recently – and connecting these two together makes history a blast to learn.

You learn different backstories about different nations of when and where they’ve been from the beginning of the prehistoric era, all the way to where they are now. The book surprisingly makes the chapters pretty well organized to follow and I never got confused or lost about where a nation meets up on this particular timeline and how for example India made the spice deal. It keeps you on your toes with lots of interesting facts rather than a timeline that just gives you dates (when in reality we probably forgot Gandhi’s birthday).

Not only does this book tell you the origin of a particular place like Iran, but it tells you the “supposed” origin of religion. I love studying religion, not only geography, because it makes the culture even more interesting so to understand one another. This book keeps it simple and right on the fact about their religious bibles. It also tells the arguments of religion, power, greed, tension, all the interesting details, including the relationship of Russia and the USA during the Cold War! How exciting it is to learn the inside story of two greatest political minds in one of the biggest staring contests this world has ever chewed on their fingernails for.

Now before you roll your eyes out and say I’m praising too much of this book and ask is it the new “holy bible of humanity?” Of course not! The author even stated that he can not cram enough information in such an already big book because it’s just too much. I wish he had written in volumes like an encyclopedia of humanity’s history; that would be most appreciated for the extra knowledge he could have worked in there.

Another problem in the book which none of us can solve in the prehistoric section, is that nobody can really “prove” exactly the facts of what happened back then. Nobody even back then would have focused on having scholars keeping records of what they do; they were there to collect food for the winter and survive, that’s it! So the author tried his best to research the stuff and finding available information before he wrote the book and in my opinion he did an excellent job doing this.

The Human Story gets a 5/5 star masterpiece seal and I hope Mr. Davis continues writing more historic books about humanity’s leap of growth. Who knows, maybe he’ll do the opposite and write a book about humanity’s greatest flaws? To know the history behind each and everyone’s civilization is a must because to know our neighbors is to work together to work toward a common goal…survive!

About Nick… “I am a studious person who loves reading and loves researching about virtually anything! I play the piano and every year I have to give a performance in a church. I love video games – especially when it’s a puzzle and action game. I would like to become a programmer one day in the field of computer science. I love my family so much, even if we drive each other crazy sometimes, we’re still one big happy family.”