The World Until Yesterday

The World Until Yesterday, published in 2012, is a popular science book by the American intellectual Jared Diamond. It asks what people living in the Western world can learn from traditional societies, meaning peoples who keep ways of life that predate industrialization and the modern state.

Throughout its pages, Diamond examines several areas in which these societies offer approaches different from those of the West: conflict resolution, the treatment of the elderly, childcare, the benefits of multilingualism and a lower salt intake.

The reception was mixed. Abby O'Reilly, writing in The Independent, called it essential reading, while David Brooks, in The New York Times, praised much of its content but lamented the scarcity of individual indigenous voices. Some anthropologists were more critical: the ethnobotanist Wade Davis considered both the lessons drawn and the ethnographic evidence limited. Indigenous leaders in West Papua and the organization Survival International also objected to the characterization of tribal societies as violent.