Book Review of Civilized to Death — The Price of Progress,

Civilization Has Led Us To Misery, Adopt The Practices Of The Past And Be Happier.

In Civilized to Death — The Price of Progress, author Christopher Ryan proposes the most controversial explanation offered today for what is wrong with our world. The problem began with advent of agriculture which gave rise to civilization: the movement of human activity from a life of cooperative community foraging together to one of individual competition for personal gain. Ryan notes that scholars wonder why for thousands of years, when humans lived in hunter-gatherer (forager) societies, “nothing was happening” to signify progress. His explanation is that humans were essentially happy and satisfied with their lives. Then they became civilized promoting the concept of progress that has led humanity into misery.

Digging into a treasure trove of research on pre-historic societies and those of the few existing forager societies, Ryan demonstrates that measures of health, longevity, security, and leisure have all declined because of civilization. He notes that “skeletal remains confirm that neither famine nor obesity were common until the advent of civilization.” Researcher Eileen Crimmins found that while pre-historic life was short lived, data shows that today’s longevity is a net loss from that period in terms of functional longevity…