PENGUIN The Weirdest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous

A must read for anyone looking to understand the difference between people of each region

Yet another attempt to explain why some countries/peoples have enjoyed great success. Fascinating study in human evolutionary biology, economics and psychology. Format is like a series of college lectures. Explanations are not definitive but thought provoking. Best suited to readers with academic interests.

Me gustó leer este libro. Me permitió entender mejor a las comunidades y a las personas.

By combining deep and detailed knowledge from the fields of anthropology, psychology, and economics, Joseph Henrich proves to be one of the great synthesizers of our time. Drawing on a wealth of recent studies, he ties them together with the sensibility of a humanist to explain how culture, society, and psychology interacted throughout history, and especially from the Middle Ages onward, to produce the WEIRD world that many of us inhabit and assume, implicitly, to be the natural order of things.The carefully presented argument of the book should also give pause and grounds for reflection for readers concerned with the political and cultural moment of the West: those on the conservative end of things will find that human societies constantly evolve in creative and unforeseen ways, endlessly recombining and reinventing themselves to produce novel adaptive solutions; whereas those on the progressive end will face evidence to the effect that seemingly small and circumscribed changes (in this particular case, the Catholic Church's Marriage and Family Program) can have rippling effects of seismic proportions that radically alter the course of civilization, carrying over to virtually all domains of human existence -- from science, to commerce, notions of personhood, migration patterns, law, philosophy, religion, art, and much, much more.Throughout, Henrich writes in precise, yet clear and accessible language that will appeal to both the social scientist and the curious layperson wondering about their cultural psychology and how it might have gotten there. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Comodo

A really good well written book that opened my eyes to the level of research possible in anthropology and economics. The attention to moving from correlation to causation was remarkable, better than in medicine!!!!It’s stopped me going “if only” and put into sharp relief many things I’d noticed as differences in my travels and work around the world, but couldn’t properly articulate or put a common thread through.Brings to mind for me the saying about identifying what you can and cannot change, and having the wisdom to know the difference.While the book was really great it arrived nearly three weeks later than stated, and missed being the Christmas present it was meant to be.