Affluence Without Abundance

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‘Insightful … Avoiding both modern conceits and romantic fantasies, Suzman chronicles how economics and politics have finally conquered some of the last outposts of hunter-gatherers, and how much humankind can still learn from the disappearing way of life of the most marginalized communities on earth.’ – Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens and Homo Deus

‘Fascinating’ – Sunday Times

‘Elegant and absorbing’ – Financial Times

‘Profoundly moving’ – Irish Times
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From acclaimed anthropologist James Suzman, a portrait of the ‘original affluent society’ – the Bushmen of southern Africa – and what their way of life can teach us today.

What can we learn from the Bushmen? If the success of a civilisation is measured by its endurance over time, then the Bushmen of the Kalahari are by far the most successful in human history. Anthropologist James Suzman spent twenty-five years in Southern Africa documenting their way of life and encounters with modern society, gathering invaluable lessons about work, wealth, happiness, equality and time.

‘To know what it is like to live as people lived for most of human history, you would have to find one of the places where traditional hunting-and-gathering practices are still alive…Fortunately for us, the anthropologist James Suzman did exactly that…The news here is that the lives of most of our progenitors were better than we think. We’re flattering ourselves by believing that their existence was so grim and that our modern, civilized one is, by comparison, so great.’ – John Lancaster, The New Yorker