Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

The brilliance of “Sapiens” is that it encourages the ordinary person to peek through a doorway into a critical analysis of the complex tapestry of human evolution and history. I understand if you are a World History scholar you would be familiar with all of these theories, and might prefer all of the points of view be presented with sources cited as a research paper. And someone caught up in the treadmill of life such as me would never read it. In the age of specialization we live in now, it is far too easy for the vast majority of us to pass through life caught up in the mores of our societies, fixated on the microscopic details of each of our respective fields of specialization without seriously questioning any of it. This is not to say the points made in the book should be accepted uncritically; in fact, one of the underlying and most important messages of the book is the need for critical examinations of our belief systems. I was fascinated by the idea that our common systems of belief – religion, natural law, government law, economic theories, and so on - are all based on fictions that are given power to the degree that groupings of individuals are willing to accept them. I was familiar with this notion in a peripheral way – the point was certainly driven home during the mortgage market collapse in 2007. When people stopped believing in the value of mortgage-backed securities, the value collapsed and threatened the viability of our entire financial system. But the fact that all of human evolution and civilization has been powered by the unique ability of homo sapiens to create and believe in fictional realities is very intriguing. The book is worth reading for this insight alone, but there is far more to it than that. “Cold indifference driven by economic greed” - I was struck by a passage that compared the numbers of those who have been intentionally harmed due to nationalism and religion to those who have been brutalized, tortured and killed simply due to cold indifference driven by economic greed. The owners of the slaves who lived short, hellish lives on sugar plantations were not motivated by animosity towards the slaves – they did it because it was the only way to profit on the production of sugar – labor costs would have been far too high otherwise to justify the investment. Just as is the case with the cruel treatment of farm animals today; babies separated from their mothers at birth, never allowed to play or socialize, fattened in confined pens for a few short months, and then slaughtered in a horrific way. The industrial age, and factories – child labor, 18 hour days, 7 day work weeks – this existed once in the U.S. and still exists in other countries today, justified because it encourages growth, spending, and boosts the economy. The passages on religion and spiritual beliefs are certainly sobering; after thinking about it for some time, I decided that if my belief in spirituality is a comforting fiction, that I will continue to allow myself to retreat to it. We are so embedded in a world of imagined reality it is impossible to distinguish the objective from the subjective anyway. For example, a view of human history such as Sapiens is based on an interpretation of the world as perceived through our senses, but can we really trust our senses? Does the color blue exist, or is it a product of our collective imagination? There is a point in our written history in which the color blue is never mentioned. As it is, Sapiens successfully argues the power of sheer belief to give rise to reality – the very house I live in exists because someone at some point looked at the spot of land it is on, and imagined a house standing there. If our realities are shaped by the power of our imaginations, I will continue to hold on to my belief in a spiritual version of my mother because it is so important to me. Sapiens is indeed engaging, but I would not necessarily describe it as “fun,” – some of the insights are too dreadful and sobering to describe it in such a flippant way – but it is important to step off the treadmill of life from time to time to ask the questions that the book encourages us to examine. It is indeed a gift to have such a clear, thoughtful, 10,000 foot analysis of human systems and belief presented in such a compelling and thought-provoking way. Sapiens serves as an excellent starting point for further research and analysis.

“Tolerance is not a Sapiens trademark.” Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari is one of the most entertaining and informative books I’ve read in a long time. It usually takes me longer to get through nonfiction than fiction, but I blew through this book despite it being a bit of a tome. In fact I didn’t even notice how long it was until I saw the paper version later. It’s that accessible and so much fun to read. I learned so much about history, social culture, and the human race from Sapiens. For instance, this following idea blew me away: gossip, not physical strength or military cunning, is what makes leaders and binds communities and nations. It seems we developed language just to talk about each other, not for trade or power or more. I loved how Mr. Harari the word “fiction” (aka common myths) to describe the concepts that let large numbers of strangers cooperate across space and time: “There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.” This is kind of terrifying, but also quite true if you stop to think about it. I also found it darkly amusing and irreverent how he talks about philosophies and hate groups and religions and economic models, all in the same breath: “Some religions, such as Christianity and Nazism, have killed millions out of burning hatred… Capitalism has killed millions out of cold indifference coupled with greed.” I got a crash course in mega fauna, those giant animals that existed on earth for thousands of years until humans killed them off in a matter of decades: the giant diprotodon, a 2.5 ton wombat, dragon-like lizards, snakes seven feet long, a 450 pound six foot kangaroo, a marsupial lion as massive as the modern tiger, a flightless elephant bird, ten feet tall and half a ton (the largest bird in the world), and the giant lemur (earth’s largest primate). “Don’t believe our ancestors lived in harmony with nature. Homo sapiens hold the record among all organisms for driving the most plant and animal species to their extinctions. We have dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of biology.” Mr. Harari trashes the Agricultural Revolution: “This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions.” Nor does he spare the Scientific Revolution: “The Scientific Revolution and modern imperialism were inseparable.” Naturally, religion doesn’t stand a chance, especially the monotheist ones of today which are described as far more fanatical and missionary than the more tolerant open-minded polytheist religions of old. Only Buddhism seems to get a bit of a pass. Each concept and chapter of human history is explained with compelling examples, from economics to history to biology to psychology and so on. In some ways, it seems we’re heading forward, with less violence than ever before, new forms of consciousness, life continuing as we could not imagine it, but continuing all the same. For e.g., Mr. Harari explains that ecological degradation is not the same as resource scarcity, and that in fact, our resources (solar and wind power, man made materials, etc) are constantly increasing, and are likely to continue to do so. The environment on the other hand… But in more ways, Sapiens is an indictment. It is undeniable that “a significant proportion of humanity’s cultural achievements owe their existence to the exploitation of conquered populations,” that “there is no justice in history” and that perhaps happiness is the act of “synchronizing one’s personal delusions of meaning with the prevailing collective delusions.” The parts about animal husbandry are incendiary. From age old practices to modern slaughterhouses, “tens of billions of animals have been subjected to a regime of industrial exploitation whose cruelty has no precedent in the annals of planet Earth. If we accept a mere tenth of what animal rights activists are claiming, then modern industrial agriculture might well be the greatest crime in history.” The descriptions of some of these practices are chilling, perhaps enough to persuade you towards vegetarianism. I found it strangely comforting, in these bad sad days of war and terrorism and misogyny and hatred, to be reminded that this phase we’re in where we work as urban labourers and office workers has only lasted a couple hundred years. The 10,000 years before that, we were farmers and herders, and even that is a vanishing second compared to the tens of thousands of years of human hunters and gatherers. We have a long way to go and much more to learn. And anyway, the nihilists have always known that “from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning.” If you’re tender about things like religion, capitalism, or even human rights, Sapiens won’t give you a break. But it is one rollicking relevant read.

This is a review of Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli scholar educated at Cambridge. We are all Homo sapiens. Sapiens is Latin for “wise”; sapiens is one of a number of species belonging to the genus Homo, which is Latin for “human”. Some other species of humans are neanderthalensis, rudolfensis, erectus, ergaster. All species besides sapiens are extinct. This book is a vast cornucopia of ideas and will acquaint readers with many areas of culture that may be new to them, and what is said about them is sure to be very surprising to many. The book is about cultural evolution, as opposed to biological (neo-Darwinian) evolution. (“neo-Darwinian” evolution is Darwinian evolution plus genetic theory; Darwin wrote before genetic theory was developed.) Note that cultural evolution is purposeful, goal-oriented, using intelligent design, the opposite of random, purposeless biological (neo-Darwinian) evolution. “[Humans are] now beginning to break the laws of natural selection [i.e., Darwinian evolution], replacing them with the laws of intelligent design [through purposeful cultural evolution].” (397) The core message of this book is that as far as our biological constitution, our DNA, is concerned, we are no better at coping with our environment than pre-historic hunter-gatherers, our ancestors, Homo sapiens who predated 70,000 years ago. We have the same biology that they had. If that is so, if we have no more natural (biological) skills and aptitudes than hunter-gatherers, how has it come to pass that we are skilled enough to split the atom, go to the moon, invent complex electronic communications systems, and all the other features of modern society? Why are we not still grubbing around in the woods for edible mushrooms and other foodstuffs, and trying to catch rabbits and other animals? Succinctly, Harari asserts that about 70,000 years ago the Cognitive Revolution occurred, which was a result of biological (neo-Darwinian) evolution. Before that, sapiens’s language was restricted to words that had as their referents (the things to which the words referred) individual, material things: tree, rock, baby, water, etc. There were no words for abstractions. To coin a phrase, Homo sapiens had only an ostensive language whose words “pointed” to material things. The Cognitive Revolution expanded sapiens’s language by adding a new kind of word, words whose referents do not (materially) exist, abstractions, myths as he says. From having a purely ostensive language, sapiens now had a fictive language, a language that could refer to abstractions, myths. Harari demonstrates how fictive language enabled sapiens to culturally evolve through stages into modern humanity: “Such myths gave Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.” (25) The consequences were enormous. Further, fictive language will allow humans to culturally evolve into forms that will not be human as we understand that term. See his chapter 20, “The End of Homo Sapiens?” for his thoughts about the future. This is a remarkable and very thought-provoking book, despite being a popular and easy read. Easily read, but not easily coped with. It can send the reader from pessimism to optimism, depression to elation. At places it pushes the most outrageously unexpected situations into your face just to display their incongruity. One might say that Harari is the de-bunker in chief. Prime example: Normally we say that humans domesticated various animals and plants (e.g., wheat) so we could be better served. Harari says that, to the contrary, wheat manipulated and domesticated us; after all, the word “domesticate” derives from the Latin “domus”, i.e., house. Who is living in the house? Sapiens, not wheat. (80-81) Sapiens spend their lives toiling to do the bidding of wheat. The Agricultural Revolution (c. 10,000 BCE) was, and should now be seen as, a fraud: Hunter-gathering sapiens had an easier life than agriculturalists. The Agricultural Revolution was a trap. True, agriculture allowed sapiens to produce a surplus of food beyond the needs of a family. That surplus was expropriated by a new managerial-ruling class of priests, bureaucrats, and kings. He makes a respectable case for this, but it is not convincing. A counterexample: The Iroquois nations were agriculturalists and were rather well off; the Montagnais hunter-gatherer tribes in eastern Quebec had miserable lives (David Hackett Fischer, Champlain’s Dream, 250 et seq.). Despite this kind of eyebrow-raising and occasionally humorous anecdote, the book is very serious and makes important points. Especially interesting is his explanation of the rise of capitalism. Capitalism depends on credit, but credit is a myth, an abstraction whose efficacy depends on the shared belief among all participants in the capitalist enterprise that they all will act upon that shared belief that debts will be repaid. Another of Harari’s implausible views is his assertion that, from the bird’s eye view of macro history, small socio-political groups and sovereign states are gradually becoming absorbed into larger political entities. Examples might be the numerous native American tribes being absorbed into the various nation-states of the Western Hemisphere; and many ethnic groups and sovereignties of Asia being absorbed into imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. But such instances do not make a convincing case for his assertion. To the contrary, the last two centuries have seen the splintering of many larger political entities into smaller states, the results of ethnic and national particularism. Examples: The disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire, the Soviet Union, the Ottoman Empire, and many smaller entities such as the former Czechoslovakia and the former Yugoslavia. Even entities that have had no significant historical sovereignty such as the Basques and Catalans of Spain and the Kurds of the Middle East now want to break out of the states in which they find themselves to form more smaller states. Remember also that many Quebecois and Scots are hoping to exit from the larger states in which they now exist; not to mention Texas. Even the European Union now appears endangered by unexpected, traumatic events. My view is that Harari has confused the rise of worldwide communications and commerce, both raising the image of globalism, one-worldism, with what he sees as the emergence of ever larger, more inclusive sovereign political entities, culminating in a universal political state. Current events do not point in that direction. Perhaps he supposes that after we humans culturally evolve into an advanced form of being, a more rational form, a world state will emerge. I will mention a couple of patent inaccuracies and other implausible statements in the book before I finish with what is for me the most philosophically interesting part of the book. “The leading project of the Scientific Revolution is to give humankind eternal life.” (268) This may surprise many scientists. But consider the consequences of eternal life (Harari does not). First, would anyone really, really want to live forever (aside from being in a mythical heaven)? Think carefully about that. Would you want to keep living in some way after the sun blows up or cools down in ten billion years or so (according to my latest understanding)? Second, consider the demographic absurdity of humans having eternal life. In the absence of a demonstrated ability to colonize other planets or (more improbably) planets in other solar systems and galaxies, humans would have to stop reproducing very soon or the planet would be cheek-by-jowl in short order. At another place, Harari gives a highly simplistic account of Japan’s surrender resulting from the dropping of atom bombs. Truman’s decision to drop the bombs, and Japan’s decision to surrender were very complicated matters. Rather than making inaccurate and misleading simplistic statements about a complex situation which he had no time to describe, he should have omitted mention of Japan’s surrender. At page 377, Harari says “Communists postulate that everyone would be blissful under the dictatorship of the proletariat.” I am very surprised that this got past such a noted scholar and his editors. The dictatorship of the proletariat was Marx’s and Lenin’s understanding of that stage of pre-history during which the party would establish a dictatorship in which the bourgeoisie and bourgeois mentality would be liquidated. The bourgeoisie would be decidedly unhappy, and even the proletariat would have to await complete happiness until the dictatorship would no longer be needed and society would emerge into communism, and history would begin. (Everything that happens before the emergence of communism is called “pre-history” in Marxist thought.) In fact, communist attempts never got past the dictatorship. The most philosophically interesting part of the book is chapter 19, “And They Lived Happily Ever After”. Harari questions whether all this culturally evolved modern modus vivendi with all its paraphernalia has made us, or allowed us to be, happier. If not, what is the point of cultural evolution? Harari launches into a discussion of happiness. I can only give a brief account of this most important part of his book. According to many, happiness comes from chemical processes in the body which give pleasurable feelings. If that is so, all we need is a steady diet of soma, Prozac, or heroin. Harari rightly discards that. Maybe happiness is seeing one’s life in its entirety as meaningful and worthwhile (so you can’t be truly happy until you’re on your deathbed). But what is meaning? We can’t touch it, pick it up, point at it; it is an abstraction, a delusion, a myth. (391) Perhaps there is a synchronicity between our personal delusions of meaning with the prevailing collective delusions. (392) Here I see a hint of Heideggerian influence. Harari thus passes through two possible solutions to the problem of happiness: chemistry and delusion. He offers a third possible solution. Happiness is not a subjective feeling of pleasure or a subjective delusion because, as has been held by religious and ideological thinkers (Christianity, Freud, Darwin and Dawkins), we are ignorant of our true selves (including our delusions) and hence ignorant of true happiness. Harari supports this by a brief essay on Buddhism. (394-396) “[F]or many traditional philosophies and religions, such as Buddhism, the key to happiness is to know the truth about yourself – to understand who, or what, you really are. . . . The main question is whether people know the truth about themselves” (396) Finally, here I agree completely with Harari. I came to this not through religion or philosophy but through personal intuition of what is really important. But that’s probably just another delusion.

This is fun to read. Dr, Harari knows how to write. Educated in England, now living in Israel. Although this was not intended to be a big Anthropological/Archaeological listing of factual characteristics, Lordy, there are a lot of very interesting details I missed or have forgotten since my undergraduate days. Harari says there have been six Homo Sapiens --Fat head or Big Brain species. One of these species still survives --us. Aren’t some people in Borneo and perhaps Malaysia also of the six Big Skull species like us? That could reproduce with us? Well, a Posner(?) at Harvard has suggested we Sapiens are a very quarrelsome and competitive species. Like mink or some fish. Astonishing that a huge brain --designed more for the year 49,000 that for 70,000 years ago or even today --should now have come to utterly dominate all life on earth. This book is about the last 70,000 years. The period of development of Hirari’s Cognitive Revolution, the last 70,000 years. that he calls Culture. We did discover fire about 150,000 years ago. But that then was hardly more than cute at the time. Fire scared off lions and we became a specie that cooked. So we evolved to eat about everything. Good for our survival. Through many climates, ice ages and droughts. Our short history is an incredible evolvement. Embracing and discarding all these concepts --about everything --all from a Homo Sapien of no consequence or importance 100,000 years ago. Hirari uses concepts like memory overload, new ways of thinking and communicating. Our Posner(?) Intolerance came out of Africa a second time and drove indigenous Neanderthals to extinction. Both bred with them and killed off those funny looking losers. The earliest hint of human empathy is the skeleton of a Neanderthal old women. So much bone crippling arthritis that she would have had to be carried everywhere. Somebody took care of her. Sorry, care wasn’t given by one of our Homo Sapien ancestors. The Neanderthal losers might have had the potential to be greater people than us. Just as we drove to extinction 90% of Australian large living forms, Mammoths and Sabre Tooth Tigers. And today ongoing extinction for the remaining tens of thousands of species that are in our way or unnoticed. We are rude people --rude with each other and with other forms of life. Survivors --in a world we have insisted was hostile and should be destroyed. As far back as we can read history --mankind has conducted a war every two years. We are competitive --and want to be included among the winners. Harari delineates so many cultural evolvements. Not long ago all of us were valued at next to nothing. A good mule was worth more than a lazy slave. And there was only one person that wasn’t really a disgusting slave --our God-like king. Mine likely was a psycho like Ivan the Terrible. Amazing --the thousands of concepts that --perhaps we haven’t render extinct --but definitely rendered to the dustbin of history. Hirari has one favorite notion --Imperial --extended over many thousands of years. And his Imperial is probably ready for the dust bin. Another concept that just didn’t work good enough. Even for cruel perpetrators. Cruelty --toward everything --has been reduced by a factor of 60. I drew my sword and killed you for disagreeing with me. And your death was as brutal as I could make it. Crucifiction, burning at the stake, tarred and quartered --tear off all four limbs, be quick about it, he’s dying fast --Southern lynching --Jim Crow. We are trying to discard all of these elements of our Culture. We are free to disavoy 50,000 years of religious, ideological, ethical ideas. We are now free --condemned to be free --to disregard everything of the past that we wish. Or to accept --supermarket style --anything of the past or newly presented. Our mind is free from all old constraints. Our imagination is our current prime trust. Our emotions are as trustworthy as are the last few centuries of scientific logic and reason. Personally I still trust science more than my delightful imagination. But we are free to imagine any concept for anything that doesn’t yet really exist. And the emotions and imagination --more so than learned limitations and reason -- that are other peoples concerns and interests -- are the starting point of our own Self Awareness. We know there is no Human Nature. We first imagine who we are. The world then tell us what it thinks of our idea. Hirari outlines the evolvement of our frankly marvelous, current economic, technical, and political world. Today’s rapidly evolving Culture. Amazing --given the intolerant, selfish beings that we are. We read of the mind’s ideas over the past 50,000 years --in Harari’s interesting and very readable manner. You’ll like reading this. And a last thought --everyone’s last thought. The extinction of this Homo Sapiens. I think that’s very far from now. Many of our old religious thoughts were that living beings were about to be immediately extinct --tomorrow, maybe. I do accept the extinction of the living human species, but long after establishing colonies on other spatial planets --or, I guess, other spatial objects. To ensure some survival after a serious planetary failure. The dear old earth has had at least six massive extinctions --but here we are. This good book is about what we've tried to be. With good packaging and prompt delivery. :)

Excellent book, a must read. You do not have to agree with many of the points the author has made, but it surely is one of the most thought-provoking and well-written books you will find on this anthropological subject matter. Although the title says “a short history of Humankind,” it is more than a book full of historical facts. It enhances our understanding of our languages, religious, social and economic development since the cognitive revolution occurred about seventy thousand years ago. Dr. Noah Harari describes the journey of Homo sapiens as he puts it, from being an insignificant animal minding its own business in the corner of Africa to becoming the master of the entire planet and the ultimate terror of the ecosystem. The first victim of the cognitive revolution was an extinction of other homo genus including as Neanderthals, and megafauna as they travel other parts of the world. The author argues the most important aspect of the cognitive revolution is the fiction imagination e.g. legends, myths, gods and religions. He illustrates eloquently, “you could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.” While it is true you need imagination for the belief systems; it is another matter to call brick and mortar institutions as fictions. I better not believe that the corporation holding my life savings is only a fiction. Before the agriculture revolution, the human’s lifestyle was to be hunter gathers. The agriculture revolution brought about the domestication of plants and animals. Harari argues in many ways; the forager's life was better than the farmers. It is a hard case to make, but according to him the average farmer worked harder than the average forager, got the worst diet in return. According to him, it was the “history’s biggest fraud.” Perhaps, it is like saying that the human was better off before the scientific and industrial revolution. However, there is little doubt that the domesticated animals got the short end of the stick by the agricultural revolution. Personally, my favorite parts were the chapters where Harari writes about the scientific and industrial revolution that started 500 years ago. The quest for knowledge catapulted the human kind from dark ages to beyond the horizons of the earth. I loved how he states, “The real test of knowledge is not whether it is true, but whether it empowers us. Scientists usually assume that no theory is 100 percent correct. Consequently, truth is a poor test for knowledge. The real test is a utility.” Dr. Noah Harari’s describes the theory of capitalism, its appeal, and its greed in most attractive and simplistic terms. The scientific revolution itself is not devoid of any shortcomings. The revolution caused the massive extinction of plant and animals. It is to the extent that it threatens sapiens extinction. At the same time, sapiens are now on the verge of third and imminent revolution; this is genetics. The intelligent design is to replace sapiens by super humans. I highly recommend this fascinating and thought-provoking book.

Sapiens is a brief overview to the major stages of human history. It is definitely a unique account in that it focuses on a few major events in human history that catalyzed changes to how people organized. The writing style is engaging and the author always tries to focus on issues from all perspectives and as a consequence many people reading might feel shaken at times or perhaps even insulted. The result is a success though and the author forces the reader to rethink the way they look at human culture and ideological preferences. The author also forces the reader to think about in what light should we be thinking about human progress and the course of history as it is a deep issue that is often glazed over with a final focus on what our conception of progress is for the future given we have put ourselves on the borders of being able to engage in intelligent design of ourselves. Sapiens is split into 4 parts. The first starts with the species which includes those now extinct within the homo genus. The reader learns about the spread of various branches of the family tree and the timing of their diffusion. It gives a sense of the initial diversity proto humans had several hundred thousand ago. We learn that there was nothing inevitable about the human form and how in certain environments larger species evolved and in others dwarfs had a competitive advantage. The author from the beginning convincingly describes how our history is very hard to see as destiny when looking back at the initial conditions we faced. The author describes how around 70k years ago there seemed to be a change in our mental structure that led to an advantage over other proto-human species and we soon eradicated other homo genus competitors. The actual events that catalyzed this is impossible to know and the author describes to the reader the impossibility of looking into the past as the data is non-existent and the best we can do is imagine and such an exercise is largely fruitless. The author also details how the spread of humans led to the death of local ecosystems and notes how humans in Australia and elsewhere led to the extinction of a great number indigenous species. The author then focuses on how hunter gatherers migrated to farming with the Agricultural Revolution which began around 10,000 years ago. The author discusses how individuals had a more difficult lifestyle in agriculture but human density increased. The agricultural revolution can be seen as an oddity through this lens as the happiness of people was diminished though the ability to procreate was amplified. The lifestyle of hunter gatherers was less cyclical than farming as one could move with the seasons and change diet accordingly. Farming forced people in closer proximity with animals which led to higher disease and in addition cyclical crop yields. The author also discussed how farming led to larger communities and as the bonds of association weakened the growth of the state began. The author notes that people can live in communities of 100-150 people before intimate trust breaks down. Early rulers of civilizations all exploited the fact that people were tied to the land in farming communities and things like the pyramids were built due to the ability to organize large labor pools which was only possible when farming could be depended upon. The author discusses how different Hammurabi's code with the declaration of independence. The system of law of the agricultural revolution is profoundly different than today and the author forces the reader to think about whether there is such a thing as right and wrong or is there just context and human construct. The author then starts to focus on perhaps one of the most important human constructs in history - money and religion. The author describes how money allowed people to coordinate to a degree that was impossible in its absence. Barter economies are impractical at very low levels of trade but money solves these problems amazingly well. The author gives some basic economics lessons and describes how money solves issues of trade and created a medium for people to trust one another. The author also discusses religion and how that also allowed people to have something in common with one another on a grand scale. The author discusses how religion shouldn't be viewed through the lens of God alone as religions like Buddhism are not centered on God. The author focuses on what religion does for people and how it creates social relations. The author also discusses the evolution of polytheism to monotheism and dispels with why polytheism seems silly in todays world by describing the conditions in which it arose and was applied. The author then moves into the modern era and discusses the scientific revolution and the growth of capitalism. The author discusses our discovery of our place in the solar system and the transition to the scientific method. The author then re-focuses on money and the transition from money as a medium of exchange to money as a store of wealth and the growth of the banking system as a means of allocating savings to investment. The author very intuitively introduces the concept of the money multiplier and how belief in growth in the future greased the wheels for investment today. The author over simplifies a little and infers that lending in the past was not due to the fact that people were unaware of lending but rather there was no economic growth so loans were seen as much riskier as the world was zero sum. Nonetheless as the merchant class grew and embraced the framework of double entry bookkeeping the power of capitalism to fuel growth emerged with force and propelled smaller merchant nations to take on global roles. These included the likes of Holland and England at the expense of countries like Spain. The author gives good examples of how enforcement of contract and rule of law led commerce driven growth. Interwoven throughout the history are questions of whether growth in and of itself should be a goal and discusses the philosophy of capitalism and libertarian ideology but contrasts it with other conceptions of fairness as well as how markets can fail. The author then moves on to the impossibly deep subject of happiness and asks what it is intrinsically. He goes through monotheist religious conceptions, Buddhist conceptions and biological conceptions and discusses the limitations of each and every view, especially as they are not mutually consistent. He highlights how framing of expectations defines happiness and how things like money are helpful to a point then are of no consequence to happiness. The author then discusses the technological frontier and what current science is doing in the area of biotechnology. This is a motivated overview which then brings up the question of what is the point of those focusing on ethics or the science etc. In particular the author asks whether when we take actions that enhance our "progress" they are driven by deep reflected beliefs about the long term effects. The author frames his question so that answers like extension of human life can no longer seem like undoubtedly beneficial as they have spillover effects on distribution of inequality, livelihood of animals and ecological deterioration. Sapiens gives a history of humankind through a very different lens to other books that I have read. It focuses not on the history of events but on certain social constructs that changed our fundamental means of association. There are of course not discrete events but a continuum that leads to our human history but the author frames things in such a way that his ordering is very intuitive. The author reminds the reader throughout the book that concepts of right and wrong are situational at best and will always be subjective. He continually highlights that our lives are sustained by our beliefs in self sustaining myths. It is a scary thing to realize at times but the lessons being taught are true as there were times where we did not have the same myths and our social construct was entirely different. The author ends with important questions about how to think about the future. It is not a guide to give one a sense of what to do but rather it is a guide against being complacent in the importance of where we stand in history. This is an entertaining and thoughtful book.

This is not a great book. It is an interesting book. It's not great because, encompassing such a broad theme as the history of our species, it could not possibly hope to do justice to it. Worse, Harari is prone to making claims that just won't stand up to much scrutiny. Example: Humanity has unlimited energy resources. Yes, true in theory (solar energy is massively abundant); but the facts on the ground ...? Harari does in a way qualify many of his remarks, by saying that nobody knows the future or even the past. But this just seems to be his way of having his cake and eating it too -- hit and run claims, followed by comprehensive disclaimers. Harari's arguments for his claims are often flimsy to boot. Sometimes he just makes claims without argument. There can be paragraph after paragraph with not even a footnote of backup evidence. In this respect the book reads like a textbook, complete with the glossy pages that make this a literally heavy tome, rather than a serious effort at scholarship. Harari is a professional historian, but I would say in this book he shows himself to be more adept at forceful rhetoric than sound research. He also ventures into themes that border on philosophy, yet, as welcome as these forays may be, they lack the analytic and logical rigor one would expect from professional practitioners of that field. The appeal of the book lies in all the neat information it conveys and the many striking claims it puts forward. For example, Harari argues that our ability to coordinate large groups of individuals has given us a leg up on all other animals, and, in turn, what has enabled this coordination is our mental capacity to be moved by "fictions," such as the notions of nation and money. These are certainly very interesting proposals. But Harari does not adequately address obvious counterexamples that may occur to the reader, such as huge herds of animals that flock or migrate together and arrange for mutual defense, etc. (He mentions insects.) And the notion of what counts as a fiction definitely requires more careful analysis, not to mention what other animals are capable of cognizing. But what's really good about the book is that the broad theme and even the shaky claims do give the reader a different perspective from which to view everyday life and current events. There is no question that certain salient observations can easily enough be made if one simply looks at the big picture -- just as certain things in the landscape where you've lived your whole life will pop out at you as novelties if you but peer down from a high peak. Thus, for example, simply to consider the changes in the human condition of the last two hundred years against the backdrop of our total history as a species can truly make the mental jaw drop. Above all, this book has impressed me with the absolutely unbelievable advances our animal species has made in a mere blip of time, and with the mystery of what could have so distinguished us even from the other species in the genus Homo. It's enough to make one believe in black monoliths! To his credit, Harari also poses the question of whether all of our undeniably amazing accomplishments have served us sapiens well and, even more to his credit, the other species with whom we share the planet. He makes a strong case for the negative. But, not to worry -- Harari explains at the end that Homo sapiens may itself be history in another blip of time.

Enjoyed this book quite a lot. The 1st third felt like a history lesson I was never quite given. His writing style has an almost teasing quality because you know deep down he has strong opinions on the subject matter, but he works hard to just deliver the facts. If I read it right, Sapiens have been rather... well, is naughty a good word?... from the get-go! I'll be rereading this to better understand what we really are.