Sense and Nonsense Since the Stone Age: The Course of Human History

Our ancestors begin with myth, magic, seeing themselves as the people in the center of the universe and strangers as other than human. Agriculture appears and the idea of sacrifice for the gods. Cities rise, accompanied by changing religions. Attempts at ordered thinking gives rise to philosophy. Empires rise and fall. Conquest and authoritarian rule continue into the Middle Ages. Islam appears. A new age of science and technology develops, with liberalism and the Enlightenment. A shrinking world, conquests, empire, Darwinist racism and advanced technology produce the horrors of the 20th century. After World War II comes the Cold War and a new era of fledging international cooperation, but with conflict, including empire, unresolved by the United Nations. A belief in democracy, the rule of law and secularism dominate with different opinions on how to organize an economy.