Modern humans have come a long way in the seventy thousand years they've walked the earth. Art, science, culture, trade-on the evolutionary food chain, we're true winners. But it hasn't always been smooth sailing, and sometimes-just occasionally-we've managed to truly f*ck things up.
Weaving together history, science, politics and pop culture, Humans offers a panoramic exploration of humankind in all its glory, or lack thereof. From Lucy, our first ancestor, who fell out of a tree and died, to General Zhou Shou of China, who stored gunpowder in his palace before a lantern festival, to the Austrian army attacking itself one drunken night, to the most spectacular fails of the present day, Humans reveals how even the most mundane mistakes can shift the course of civilization as we know it. Lively, wry and brimming with brilliant insight, this unique compendium offers a fresh take on world history and is one of the most entertaining reads of the year.
"Tom Phillips has proven beyond a doubt that humans are goddamn lucky to be here and are doing nearly nothing to remain relevant and viable as a species-except, that is, for writing witty, entertaining, and slightly distressing-but-ultimately-endearing books about same. And if you care to avoid orbiting the earth in a space-garbage prison of your fellow humans' design, you should probably read it.
Sarah Knight, New York Times bestselling author of Get Your Sh*t Together
"Humans is Tom Phillips' timely, irreverent gallop through thousands of years of human stupidity. Every time you begin to find our foolishness bizarrely comforting, Phillips adds another kick in the ribs. Beneath all this book's laughter is a serious question: where does so much serial stupidity take us?"
Nicholas Griffin, author of Ping-Pong Diplomacy
"Tom Phillips is a very clever, very funny man, and it shows. If Sapiens was a testament to human sophistication, this history of failure cheerfully reminds us that humans are mostly idiots."
