Episode · Modern Wisdom · 2020-06-08
Chris Williamson & Rutger Bregman: books mentioned on Modern Wisdom #181
Humankind: Are We Good Or Evil? - Rutger Bregman - #181
Rutger Bregman is a historian & an author. It's a common-held view of humanity that humans are adversarial.
Rutger Bregman discussed Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Chimpanzee Politics by Frans de Waal, and Men Against Fire by S. L. A. Marshall. Chris Williamson recommended Humankind by Rutger Bregman.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a classic novel examining human nature and the descent into savagery among a group of stranded schoolboys.
Discussed“and now one of the sort of the most famous manifestations of this idea in the 20th century was this novel Lord of the Flies that you know especially people in the anglo-saxon world in the US and the UK you know so many people have read it or were forced to read it for a school write this story”
Where to get it
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Chimpanzee Politics
Chimpanzee Politics by Frans de Waal is a groundbreaking primatology book that examines the complex social strategies, power struggles, and alliance-building behaviors of chimpanzees and their striking parallels to human political systems.
Discussed“France - Wow you know he's my fellow Dutch man he's a primatologist and he's been studying chimpanzees and bonobos now for decades and in the 80s I believe he wrote a book called chimpanzee politics in which he described sort of all the politics of zoo in the Netherlands and he compared it to US Congress”
Where to get it
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Men Against Fire
Men Against Fire by S.
Discussed“his name was SLA marshal he read a book about this men against fire and he discovered that the majority of the soldiers didn't shoot”
Where to get it
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Humankind
Humankind by Rutger Bregman is a popular science book that argues humans are naturally cooperative and altruistic rather than inherently selfish.
Recommended“well humankind hopeful history will be linked in the show notes below on Amazon Rutgers Twitter which is disproportionately massive”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (2) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“so why don't you tell us about before we even get into your new book human humankind which is great”
“and again I was really lucky because it was about to promote my new book sure to my previous book utopia for realists and I was about to go on a book tour in Australia”