Writing a summary of the human civilisation that spans from the Australopitecus and its peers to the moment history truly starts is a task that would scare the bravest of the scholars, no matter how confident – or reckless – they believe they are. An awful lot of skills and knowledge are required for it – an encyclopedic culture, grasping different disciplines and a knack for synthesis first and foremost. Now, if you add to that the history of our Mother Earth and the formation of the universe itself, and maybe you decide to stick to your original target and keep it at a paperback format, well….you’d better be Master Yoda to have any hope of success.
I didn’t know who the author was when I started reading, but I have to say I was rather impressed: he has managed to write an accurate and utterly enjoyable story, aimed at a non-specialist public, informative and never boring or unintelligible no matter how complicated the topic could sometimes result.
The book began relating events back to 14 billion years ago – 13.82, to be precise – and it is divided in five main sections. The age of cosmos, which covers everything from the Big Bang until the formation of the Solar System. The age of bacteria, exploring how life started on an Earth so different from the one we know today. The age of complexity, when the first eukarya – the kind to which all complex organisms, humans included, belong – appeared on the planet. The age of the brain, i.e. the emergence of the single organ responsible of the evolutionary success of the human species and that changed forever Earth’s destiny. And finally, the age of humanity, with the tale of how these first experiments of humans became 60,000 years ago the Homo Sapiens Sapiens, who inherited the planet and that is biologically indistinguishable from us (or very much so).
Not all sections work equally well, albeit they are all quite interesting. The first two are certainly the most compelling – possibly reflecting Briggs’ own preferences. Among their highlights, a discussion of the Fermi paradox and an explanation of dark matter that makes easy to read and simple to understand a topic that is neither easy nor simple. When he describes the formation of the Solar System, you have almost the sensation to see it on a screen, as in a sci-fi movie. The last section, on the contrary, is the one attracting some criticism. The author is clearly more a scientist than a (paleo)historian, and it shows up since the introduction, when he declares that history “goes back only about 5000 years to the first civilisation of Sumeria where writing was invented” (location 252 of the e-book). Now, both the date of the beginning and what constitutes writing, as the concept of history itself, are at the very least controversial (see, for example, Carr, E.H. 2001. What is History? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). And this perspective completely ignores the Eastern civilisations, like the Chinese, where writing might have occurred much earlier, according to some recent discoveries (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2956925.stm).
Finally, the book suffers from some confusion in terms of its target readership: the summaries at the end of the chapters are certainly very useful in an academic context, where this could be even used as a textbook. But in that case, more in terms of references – here only present at the end – and formulas is needed, together with discussion questions and focus points. Or the aim is different, and the book is thought for a wider audience: in this case, I really don’t see the usefulness of summaries. On the same note, the title could be modified in something more in line with the book’s actual content. Journey to civilisation implies the presence of humans and their endeavours – whereas two thirds of it is devoid of them. Not that having it more focused on humans would have made it a better book – quite the opposite. But making the title right is an exercise in managing expectations, and a better job needs to be done here.
But these are minor points, and, to get back to what I have said at the beginning, similar texts are an almost impossible task. Briggs achieved the second best, and managed to write a readable, interesting and informative book. You could not realistically ask for more.