Review of "People," by Peter Spier

Review of

People, by Peter Spier

Five out of five stars

 This is a book designed to illustrate the incredible diversity of people around the world. Written at the level of the later years of elementary school, the structure is a fairly short segment of text associated with large and detailed images in full color. Many human endeavors are covered, from the different religions to the type of dwellings to the various ways that humans dress.

 To me, the most impressive example of the wide varieties of how humans do things is the pages devoted to many of the most common ways languages are written. The wide variety of the structure of the characters in the different languages is a tribute to the human capability to recognize form and structure in markings. One odd thing to note is that three forms of Arabic are given, with the last denoted as Arabic (Persian). Which is wrong, Arabic and Persian or Farsi have completely different origin families.

 Overall, this is a good book, demonstrating how people are different around the world. From clothing to customs to languages, how people do things around the world is quite different without being wrong.