Michael Cook: A Brief History of the Human Race

Reviewed by JOHN GARDNER

The belief that the world would be a wonderful place if it wasn't for mankind seems to be enjoying a certain currency, as Bishop Heber wrote of Ceylon: "Every prospect pleases and only man is vile".

While not entirely rebutting the idea that humanity is a bit of a blot on the landscape, Michael Cook's Brief History of the Human Race does kindle some sense of awe at what an extraordinary creature man is.

To trace our story, fleeting though it may be in geological or even biological terms, is an ambitious task but he tackles it with panache, drawing on a remarkable armoury of disciplines from geography, pre-history, conventional history, culture, science, religion and art.

His method is to set up over-arching themes, although he makes clear he has no Great Unified Theory of history, and then to concentrate on representative examples, short case histories. The result is to blend an intellectually challenging set of ideas with entertaining excursions into such areas as the stunning complexity of Aboriginal marriage rules, the intricacies of the Mayan calendar and the landscapes of the satellites of Jupiter.

The enterprise becomes the best sort of lecture, complete with dry, donnish jokes. While discussing European maritime expansion he observes: "Access to the sea of Okhotsk, should you happen to know where it is, did nothing for anyone."

Describing the emergence of the institution of kingship, he points out "nothing suggests that the emergence of civilisation was good for human rights". And, coincidentally making it clear that New Zealand's present leadership is, in historical terms, an anomaly, he recalls that when a queen ascended the throne in Egypt the caliph of Baghdad sent a helpful message: "If you haven't got a man left to appoint as your ruler, just tell us and we'll send you one."

The fun and games are ornaments, however, on a solidly based account of the physical environment in which humanity has thrived - the climatic serendipity which allowed the development of farming - for the explosive history of recent mankind largely depends on the triumph of the settled agriculturalist over the nomadic hunter-gatherer.

Having established the importance of the Holocene climatic window of opportunity - a beneficial global warming - he makes lightning sketches of our genetic inheritance, the evolution of tools and the key developments in the political structures in the emergence of civilisation.

With the universal foundations in place Cook moves on the specifics, recalling my old history master's favourite paradox - "history is a matter of geography".

He divides the world into geographical entities, tracing the history of each. He identifies the shared characteristics, including humans' "quite remarkable capacity to tie themselves in knots by devising elaborate and ultimately arbitrary rules". He also notes the distinctive features which help to divide us and prevent our understanding one another.

He rounds off his gallop with a look at the modern world. In his introduction he says he has tried to "resist the hollow pretensions of the present to be the chronological centre of the universe" but inevitably some of the preoccupations of the closing stages of the work are of particular interest as viewed through the prism of our own times.

It remains to be seen if the space he devotes to Islam will ultimately be proportionate, but Cook is the author of The Koran, a very short introduction and his perspective is interesting, if unsettling.

Describing the Peruvian experience of the Shining Path Maoists and Pentecostal fundamentalists, he says "the terrorists have no religion and the fundamentalists no politics. What is distinctive about the Muslim world is the extent to which the two elements have come together".

Compressing our story into so tight a frame inevitably brings a sense of watching on fast forward, all frantic action. If aliens are watching from outer space, humanity must seem like a nursery full of children with hyperactive disorders. "What will they get up to next?"

Cook says he has no idea where we will get to in the future but he has certainly achieved a lively and vigorous account of where we have been.

* Published by Granta. $59.95