The Civilization of Storytellers. How Stories Become History

Thousands of years ago, when our species existed only as a multitude of small autonomous groups of hunter-gatherers, we began to invent stories—to unite for survival, to find meaning in existence, to seek explanations for the unknown. Subsequently, primitive tribes transformed into empires, civilizations, and cultures, and when their differing narratives began to clash and intersect, it led to both chaos and wars as well as to the flourishing of culture, the establishment of world religions, and scientific breakthroughs.

Tamim Ansari explains how our ability to create and disseminate abstract ideas has influenced global historical processes. He also elucidates our increasingly globalized present: the narratives that shape us, the reasons why people still harbor enmity, and the future that we can create.