Quasi sapiens. Dalla scimmia a Trump. Come l’umanità se l’è cavata in 100 cenni storici

Quasi Sapiens – From Monkey to Trump
Let’s be honest: for most of us, History is made up of a few fixed landmarks floating in a murky swamp of blurred memories.
We might clearly recall the Ides of March, the discovery of America, or the Expedition of the Thousand, while all around them drift Roman emperors with bizarre names (Caracalla — who was he again?), obscure Franco-Prussian wars, crucial dates memorized long ago but now as silent and unfathomable as the Sphinx.
If we try just a little harder to remember, flashes appear in the mental chaos: invasions by Ostrogoths and Visigoths, the litany of vassals, valvassori and valvassini, the Peace of Versailles, of Augsburg, of Westphalia…
But fear not — Guido Damini is here to save us, with the fearless bravado of a self-proclaimed “bar-stool historian.”
Riding on the success of his podcast Cenni storici per fare lo splendido, Damini has decided to raise the stakes: what if it were possible to tell the entire adventure of humanity in one hundred short historical snapshots?
The result of the experiment is Quasi Sapiens, a wild gallop through world history, following the amusing — and perhaps circular — journey that leads from monkeys to Trump. With the ambition of mixing caustic humor with scientific rigor, the book alternates small episodes involving great statesmen with incredible adventures of characters unknown to most; enlightening mini-guides to the lending systems of Renaissance banks (more fun than you’d think!) and ruthless historical trials of the Enlightenment or the Industrial Revolution, all fueled by the sacred fire of satire and lol culture.

Structured like the podcast, in the ultra-short format of the “historical snippet,” Quasi Sapiens reveals a hidden thread weaving together oddities and grand systems — a tiny counter-history that nevertheless sheds light on much of the World and of History, with capital letters.