AFFLUENCE WITHOUT ABUNDANCE, what we can learn from the world's most successful civilisation

297pp., b/w & colour illus., maps, paperback, Reprint, London, (2017) 2019

James Suzman explores whether understanding how hunter-gatherers like the Bushmen found contentment by having few needs easily met, can help us address some of the environmental and economic challenges we face.

“'Affluence Without Abundance' may be the best book ever written about the San (Bushmen) - a people who lived for two hundred thousand years as successful hunter-garheres and are now transitioning to our more modern but less successful way of life. This book has truth on every page and is filled with important insights that range from hunting and tracking to how we think about time, money, value or success.” – Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The Harmless People" and "The Old Way"

“An insightful and well-written book, describing the hard transition of foraging communities in Namibia from relative affluence during the Stone Age to contemporary poverty and misery. Avoiding both modern conceits and romantic fantasies, Suzman chronicles how economics and politics have finally conquered some of the last outposts of hunter-gatherers, and how much humankind can still learn from the disappearing way of life of the most marginalized communities on earth.” Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens: a brief history of human kind" and "Homo Dues: a brief history of tomorrow"

Anthropologist James Suzman was awarded a Smuts Commonwealth Fellowship in African Studies at Cambridge University and led the De Beers Group's sustainability and public affairs initiatives. Recently he founded the think-tank Anthropos.