Géohistoire - Une autre histoire des humains sur la Terre

by Christian Grataloup

"Quand la géographie éclaire l' histoire. Lumineux et nécessaire !" Erik Orsenna Et si la meilleure façon de raconter l'histoire du monde, c'était de commencer par sa géographie ?
En mobilisant la géologie, l'anthropologie, la climatologie, la démographie, la génétique ou encore l'économie, Christian Grataloup dessine dans ce livre lumineux et pionnier une autre histoire des sociétés humaines. En confrontant toutes ces disciplines à nos connaissances historiques, il raconte pourquoi et comment les civilisations sont apparues sur la Terre, se sont développées ou ont
parfois disparu. Une histoire qui est aussi humaine qu'environnementale. Une histoire globale. Une géohistoire.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

453 pages, Paperback

Published October 19, 2023

Reviews

[Victor · Rating 5 out of 5]

een van de beste samenvattingen van de geschiedenis van de mens die ik ooit ben tegengekomen. geen eurocentrisme, geen bias naar het huidige tijdperk, wel veel nieuwe inzichten en coole gedachte-experimenten.

[Tristan Vacelet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book that review the whole history of Homo Sapiens through the eye of various other sciences (geography, biology, geology…). However, i felt it was sometimes a little bit difficult to digest all the information but definitely super interesting.

[samsam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The history of the World has a geography. And this geography has a history. The diversity of the historical trajectories of human societies is understood in great part by their position: both in regards to all other societies, and in a particular point of the surface of the Earth."

A geographer-turned-historian, Christian Grataloup brilliantly tells a very accessible story of humankind considering long-term trends and evolutions, in the manner of Braudel, instead of focusing on more trendy and attractive "turning points" and "great figures".

Taking into account the influence of geography, and making a key element of the East-West Eurasian "Axis" of the world, without being deterministic like Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel" (but still mentioning it in part), we can see Humanity take shape, spread around the world, and evolve into the first societies, which then begin to coalesce into a kind of "greater exchange" between cultures.

These exchanges prompt progress, which leads to more cultures getting in touch with the central "Axis", generating more progress, but also destruction, as with the plague epidemics or the diseases that ravaged the Americas during the XVIth century, or the effects of colonisation and the intensive European-led slave trade (Grataloup incidentally mentions that the division of labour that was one of the prompts of the "Industrial Revolution" is more likely coming from the European plantations in the colonies than from the genius of some left-at-home European inventors).

The technological and societal progress bring about more than anything an acceleration in the rate of exchanges, until we reach the super-connected, super fast world of today. And an end to this magnificent read, which I would absolutely recommend every time over Harari's Sapiens, which is also mentioned early in the book for its false premises ;-)

[Renaud P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Très bon, en particulier sur l’analyse de la période des grandes découvertes : on découvre à quel point le monde a bifurqué grâce à l’action de quelques pays et personnes très déterminées, et tout aurait pu être différent.

[Augustin Benoit · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh

[Ulysse Broder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Complet, ultra-intéressant. Plongée vertigineuse dans ce qu'a été et est la Terre et l'humanité (que nous croyons, à tort, connaître)

[Mahé · Rating 5 out of 5]

Très bon