The WEIRDest People in the World

Lots of mispronounced words

Just a quick note that the narrator mispronounces lots of words. Not super difficult stuff - isn’t there a producer / editor to catch this stuff?

27 people found this helpful

bad narration of a good book

I highly recommend this book-- for reading. I don't recommend the audible version. The narrator has a pleasant enough voice and enunciates clearly (hence two stars instead of one), but his pronunciation is often distracting (e.g., "-ure" words such as "endure" sound like "-oor" words, and "prevalence" is read with the stress on the second syllable and a long "a" sound ...). The real problem, though, is that the narrator doesn't read as if he understands what he's saying. He seems to be reading word by word, rather than seeing where a sentence is going and adjusting his delivery to reflect the larger structure and the various components --phrases, clauses, conjunctions-- within it. I've been listening to audiobooks for at least 25 years, and I don't recall having come across another narrator who does so little to help me keep track of where I am in a sentence. Nevertheless, I did manage to listen to the whole book despite nearly giving up after 30 minutes. Switching to 1.25 speed (a first, for me) made a big difference.

9 people found this helpful

Ruined by Poor Narration - Save your Money

A great book ruined by sloppy narration. Pathetic. The narrator sounds like he’s never read a book aloud before.

5 people found this helpful

poor narrator

the narrator destroys this audiobook, it is almost unbearable to listen to. story is great en enlightening.

4 people found this helpful

One of the best books I've read about who we sre

This book continues and expands on Joe Henrich's excellent "The Secret of our Success" (2015). It must be one of the best books about anthropology, economics, and psychology in a long time. it explains who we (Europeans and North Americans) are, and we became this way. It's a well told story and very convincing.

4 people found this helpful

Digestible Academia

This book does a dantastic job using high level behavioral studies to make its point, while making it graspable for any level reader.

The book falls a bit short of the apex because I feel that there wasnt a good point made for what should be done with the information given in this book. It makes it point and then ends.

1 person found this helpful

Mostly harmless

While the pronunciation errors other reviewers have noted are significantly more frequent than in any other audiobook I've listened to, and sometimes embarrassingly silly, they rarely impeded comprehension. The only instance I can recall in which it came close was when 'causal' was read as 'casual' in a setting where the latter could have also made sense.

Hold on to the last 15% and it gets good

I would have preferred the research and conclusions to be presented together. There was too much building to the end. Also, e.g. means for example. This is how it should be read aloud.

Too tedious

I really wanted to like this book and hung in for several chapters but found the analyses excessively tedious for an audible book. Do not listen while driving as it is sedating.

Fascinating in its broad implications

While some of the psych studies cited make me cringe a bit with their lack of rigor, I think the broad theories proposed by Henrich here are quite worth considering. Also does a phenomenal job building the reader’s knowledge of kin-based institutions from the ground up so as to fully process the implications of his theories on the West.

Also, the narration is truly not that bad. I may be biased as an American, since the narrator has a strong american accent. But the information contained therein is too valuable to be put off by the occasional mispronunciation.