Can't order for my middle school library, but can encourage my adult friends to read. We did f&*( this world and we continue to do so. If you are frustrated by today's events, read what other things we've done to life...and wonder how we are even still alive.

Tom Phillips had me at "The Dawn of Fuck-Ups" (if that word offends you, respectfully, this is not the history book for you. Even though it's yours as well as mine.). And don't let the light-hearted banter and colloquial writing style fool you, this is serious and important information. From Lucy falling out of the tree, and how we know that actually happened, through historical horrible decisions and mayhem to prognostications for the future, it's an eye-opening page turner.
Extensive acknowledgments and a 23 page (on my device) index provide titles for additional reading which Phillips encourages..

Too brief of a history, it turns out, after thoroughly enjoying every page, and then it's over. Very enjoyable.

I received this book in exchange for a honest review from NetGalley.

I absolutely adored this book it was light and funny while still explaining the heavy consequences of some of the dumb decisions that we have made throughout human history. I love that this starts off with Lucy falling out of a tree and that we just went downhill from there. Overall this put humanities penchant for poor decision making and underestimating how bad things can go into perspective. Funny and depressing and thoroughly enjoyable.

Humans really can be absolute idiots sometimes. Reading this had me alternating between giggling out loud and wondering how we ever managed to become the dominant species on our planet. Phillips points out the many events in our history that could have gone entirely differently if the people involved hadn't been so deluded, misguided or just plain dumb as rocks. History buffs will enjoy looking at events in a decidedly irreverent light, while others will want to learn more to see if it really did happen that way.

A delightful Monty Python-like romp through the history of foolish and unintended consequences. It can easily be read in multiple sessions warp or weft of history.

I love this! It comes across honest and hilarious; stuffed full of examples of the terrible mistakes humans make. The author is clearly a seriously smart dude, and I appreciate his humor and academic mindset.

We are screw-ups. My husband regularly says "we are just somewhat evolved monkeys" and he's completely right. Humans have a way of taking amazing opportunities and just pissing all over them. This well organized and often funny book gives a disheartening glimpse into some of our biggest historic missteps and the psychology behind them. I really appreciated his tongue in cheek glibness that made what could have been a super depressing book a bit easier to swallow. I think this is something everyone should read because it will hopefully open eyes to mistakes we don't want to make again (but probably will).

"Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked it All Up" is a cherry picked survey of specific events in history which had consequences, some devastating, to the planet and the human race. There were a number of events mentioned in the book which the generalized survey history course at many universities would have either overlooked entirely or would have only mentioned as a side note, possibly a funny side note.
The research was good, but there seemed to be an awful lot of 20/20 hindsight in the analysis and a great deal of "hand wringing" about events which may have had less of an impact than the author implies.
The book will be a decent non-fiction beach read with a provocative title.

The next time you upgrade a perfectly good phone because of a rebate that is denied two months later, don’t feel bad. Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up will introduce you to much worse human errors in judgment.

We celebrated when our hunter-gatherer ancestors started farming. Wrong! That practice started class divisiveness and wars over land.

We romanticized the middle-class Shakespeare fan who brought Henry IV’s starlings to New York City. Wrong! The starlings ate our crops and spread disease like salmonella coast to coast. The starlings’ kinsfolk also killed 62 air travelers in 1960 while forcing a plane to crash land.

There are many more examples of unintended consequences here. If you enjoy irony, Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up is a gem. It also explains history with an eye to the human factor. Disneyland’s Cinderella’s castle is based on a Bavarian castle created by theatrical set designers at Mad King (really just homosexual) Ludwig’s behest as a tourist attraction. It is ironic that it worked for current and olden day Bavarian sightseers but also for copycat Disney. Killing Ludwig after he had built only three castles was the gaffe here.

Other reviewers characterize this book as funny and depressing. However, I think it is empowering knowing that everyone makes mistakes. 4 stars!

Thanks to Hanover Square Press and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

I loved this book. It was an excellent balance of dark/depressing and humor. The whole idea is that humans mess up things, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident, and sometimes in a completely unrelated way. It is a depressing thought that humans are really good at messing things up, but it is a sobering thought as well. We are here today because of all the mistakes our ancestors made, and the mistakes we make will change our world for future generations. My only complaint is that it wasn't longer. I would like to see a sequel of sorts.

5 out of 5 Stars.+

This book began as a fun read full of interesting tidbits that I had no previously knowledge. I absolutely love when a book can teach me something new. I found the author's voice to be humorous and made this book seem lighter that it really is as well as a quick read. The last chapter of the book felt like doom and gloom and I agree with much of what he said I hope us humans can turn it around!

I will say this one thing, and this is probably a personal preference as a person with a history masters, I would have liked to see footnotes, endnotes, or a bibliography of where his information came from. I love to read up on where authors get their information from so I can learn more about a topic I found interesting.

Thank you to Netgalley and Hanover Square Press for an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Eh... I was excited for this book because of all the reviews I read, but I just couldn’t get into it. I enjoy satirical writing that teaches me something but the history discussed in this book just didn’t do it for me. Maybe next time!
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

Did God know what He was doing when He created man? One has to wonder after reading this book. Chock full of facts, this book seems to prove that man has no clue what he is doing. But, each fact comes with a big chuckle. So, maybe there is hope for man...but I have my doubts.

I really enjoyed this book. Not only was it entertaining to read, the history overview was eye opening at times. I would definitely recommend this book to others, especially to read as a group!

3.75 stars

This is a (somewhat) humourous look at history and errors that humans have made in the realms of agriculture, science, war, international relations, etc.

I quite enjoyed this. I originally expected there to be a lot of environmental stuff, and there was some, but there was much more. Some of the humour is sarcastic, but that’s ok. The funniest was the photo at the very end, after a paragraph of doom, then a paragraph of positive, then a photo (not going to say what it’s of – I don’t want to spoil it!). That photo really made me laugh after the positive words in the previous paragraph!

Some of the anecdotes were short and some were longer and went into more detail. I did lose a bit of interest in a couple of the longer ones, but mostly it was interesting. Some of it was history I (broadly) knew about and some of it was stuff I either didn’t know about, or just didn’t know much about (i.e. Ghengis Khan – no, he wasn’t he one who make the stupid mistake…). Overall, though, quite enjoyable!

I really enjoyed reading this book. It is hilarious, but at the same time offers history-as-metaphor for our current age, only everything is about screwing up. The ideas in this book are really sticking with me. Recommended!

My mother said that if I couldn’t express myself with proper language, I didn’t really have anything to say. This is a fun book to read, but I found myself focusing more on the colorful language (and being annoyed by so much of it) than I’d like to have been. Cleaned up of the f-bombs it’s very interesting. As a librarian, I would never recommend it to a patron for fear of offense. Even among staff, someone will object to the title. This is all too bad. A grown up version of the book would be amazing.

A delightful history of some of humanity's greatest screw-ups. Thoroughly depressing, but with a helpful level of humor spread throughout--I laughed out loud several times and had to read sections aloud to whoever was nearest.

A fascinating compendium of how we have managed to make things worse by trying to make them better. The illustrations cover a magnitude of areas and are told in an irreverent, humorous, and sometimes laugh out loud way.