Review: The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? by Jared Diamond

I love popular science books. I hope that many would be translated into languages Muslims often speak, particularly Arabic, since many educated Arabs only read Arabic, unlike Urdu, for example, of which I'm told its educated speakers typically can read English.

One of the authors whose books I suggested should be translated is Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse. His latest book, The World Until Yesterday: What We Can Learn from Traditional Societies?, also deserves the widest possible audience.

By comparing how modern and traditional societies handle war, raising of children, care of the elderly, health risks, religion, language and diet, The World Until Yesterday stretches our conception of the ranges of choices available to us in a matter similar to the best science fiction.