This was another library impulse grab in my mission to read more non-fiction and I’m glad I made it through!
Using key moments and figures, Martin Puchner lays out a brief sketch of human culture over the millennia. Which, you know, huge task! He focuses on times of cultural exchange, whether willing or not, and how we are constantly borrowing, assimilating, and rediscovering who we are. The examples he chooses are diverse and not just the frogmarch of Western Civ that would have us believe there is a straight line from Greece to Rome to Europe to America, which is basically the history I grew up with. Puchner emphasizes how globally interconnected our culture is and always has been.
I liked having this next to me for the past couple of weeks. It was perfect for a chapter here and there, I could usually finish a chapter in thirty minutes and they were contained, so I didn’t feel like taking a break from it for a couple of days diminished my experience. Was this a life-changing work? Did it make my brain explode with new possibilities and information? Not exactly, I watch A LOT of PBS, but the examples Puchner uses to make his points were interesting and the routes he takes to make those points were not always obvious. I appreciated that he presented figures honestly, acknowledging the damage many did in their attempts to shape or preserve culture. He gives a clear-eyed analysis of “these people were of their time, this is the context of their actions, they are still abhorrent, this was the consequence” and is in no way a colonizer-sympathizer.
Overall, this was an interesting, if not riveting, account of humanity through the context of culture. It gave me a broader view of some topics and made me think about certain figures or moments in a different light (am I finally going to read Middlemarch??). It was an easy read, the perfect non- fiction for me, where I could put it down for a couple of days, but I always wanted to know what was next. 3.75/5 stars, recommended.