Tanja Berg

“That man-made climate change is real, and potentially an existential threat to many communities around the world and many aspects of civilisation, is so well established as a scientific fact by this point that it seems kind of dull to run over the evidence again.”
― Tom Phillips, Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up

“Even if popular culture has long enjoyed turning him into an object of mockery, we still tend to believe that the Nazi machine was ruthlessly efficient, and that the great dictator spent most of his time...well, dictating things. So it’s worth remembering that Hitler was actually an incompetent, lazy egomaniac and his government was an absolute clown show. In fact, this may even have helped his rise to power, as he was consistently underestimated by the German elite. Before he became chancellor, many of his opponents had dismissed him as a joke for his crude speeches and tacky rallies. He was a “pathetic dunderhead” according to one magazine editor; another wrote that his party was a “society of incompetents” and that people should not “overestimate the fairground party.”
― Tom Phillips, Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up

“Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.”
― Tom Phillips, Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up

“More people were killed by lawnmowers than by terrorism in the USA in the decade between 2007 and 2017, but at the time of writing, the US government has yet to launch a War on Lawnmowers. (Although, let’s be honest, given recent events you wouldn’t rule it out.)”
― Tom Phillips, Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up