الغطرسة.. صعود البشرية وسقوطها

Humans are the most intelligent beings this earth has ever produced. But how can we travel into space, treat diseases, and decode the basics of life, while at the same time finding ourselves facing an existential crisis that threatens to drown us? What lies behind this extraordinary failure to overcome the most important challenge facing our existence? In this exciting book, leading archaeogeneticist Johannes Kraus and journalist Thomas Trapi explore what DNA can reveal about how we got to where we are today, and what the future may hold for us. They show how early humans were repeatedly defeated, how they suffered fatal setbacks, and how Homo sapiens succeeded in conquering continents, transcending natural boundaries, and bringing other species under their control. But the genetic blueprint that got us where we are today had one flaw: it did not take into account the boundaries of the planet. Now, as we approach those limits for the first time in millions of years of evolution, a pressing question arises: Can we learn to live within the planet's available limits, or are we doomed by our DNA to continue expanding, consuming and absorbing the resources around us until they are exhausted, exposing us and other species to extinction? Has our seemingly invincible rise reached its inevitable end? Although the impending climate crisis does not bode well for humanity's ability to adapt to the new situation it finds itself in, we are not at the mercy of our genes – or at least we don't have to. But can we harness the lessons of the past to survive in the present?