Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

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.

High level, thought-provoking ideas, lucid exposition, engaging language, and interesting examples. I would recommend this book to ANYONE. In addition to reading, I also listened to the audiobook narrated by Derek Perkins - also highly recommended. The book focuses on "big" history, i.e., macroscopic historical patterns and principles, rather than individual or microscopic historical events and processes. Examples include the three major unification forces of human cultures (money, empires and religions) and the interactions between science, imperialism and capitalism that buttress Western empires' dominion since 1750. Each chapter is organized around these themes, rather than around individual historical regions, eras or institutions (eg, empires and religions) which seems to be the approach of most traditional history textbooks or even university curricula (as judged from for example the course offerings in the History Department of my university: https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA15/subject/HIST). [This paragraph contains some personally thoughts only marginally relevant to the book under review; feel free to skip it] Personally, I am utterly enthusiastic about the author’s approach while enormously frustrated about the traditional approach: the traditional approach is like stamp collecting, analogous to providing a long list of mechanical devices without teaching Newton's laws in the case of mechanics, or displaying a wonderful array of organismal diversity without mentioning the unifying principle of evolution in the case of biology, turns people into "scholars" rather than "thinkers" and defeats the overall purpose of our intellectual endeavors. IF there is some element of truth to my impression of history research and education as traditionally practiced having fallen to a lamentable state of stamp collecting, why so? As an outsider of the field I don’t know, and I am speculating that the major reason is we simply don’t know the principles with a level of certainty like that in mechanics or biology, and the minor reason is there is a culture of stamp collecting. In any case, I admire and support the author’s effort which helps to establish the “big history” approach. Once in a while, the author jumped out of any historical context altogether and provided some sweeping accounts on some central questions of history whose relevance holds for history as a whole. Examples include justice in history (Chapter 8), the arrow of history (Chapter 9) and the secret of cultural success (Chapter 13). My personal favorite on this is the chapter on happiness (Chapter 19), which examines the following question: are we getting happier as history rolls along and our power accumulates? By the end of an informative and thought-provoking discussion, the author claimed that the subject has traditionally been shunned by historians despite its central importance and he was trying to fill the gap; I personally believe the claim and think it attests to the author’s courage and intellectual prowess. Staying at the “big history” level, the book contains many thought-provoking ideas. Examples include the point of studying history is not to make predictions but to understand the vast possibilities of our future (in Chapter 13), and we Homo sapiens about to turn into superhumans (in Chapter 20). My personal favorite on this is Agricultural Revolution as history’s biggest fraud (Chapter 5) and the nature of human happiness and how to achieve it (Chapter 19). Connected, the two discussions tell me that humans’ choices and actions may sometimes be fundamentally antithetical and counterproductive to their long-term happiness, which holds profound philosophical and ethical implications to me. The exposition of the book is lucid and the flow natural. To supplement and concretize the discussions on macroscopic principles, the author provided many detailed (microscopic) examples, and here he exhibited great skills in zooming in and out between the two levels and choosing most telling microscopic examples. Examples fall into several categories. In demonstrating that social orders are of an imagined nature, he carefully chose the CASES of the Code of Hammurabi and the Declaration of Independence, and the result is an informative and intriguing comparison (Chapter 6). In showing that in fact the conquered are usually part of the imperial legacies despite their sometimes great reluctance in admitting so, he drew the STORY of siege of Numantia by the Roman Empire (Chapter 11). In explaining the emergence of credit, he concocted a TALE of the fictional characters McDoughnut, Stone and Greedy (Chapter 16). Moreover, the book is scattered with examples down to the more vivid and explicit level, such as a mathematical equation of Relativity to exemplify our mathematical cognition (Chapter 7) and an ingredient list of a hand cream to illustrate the modern industrial sophistication (Chapter 17). Occasionally for some difficult topics in the book it seems a clearer exposition would make it easier for me to understand the author’s argument (eg, on how language enabled us to enjoy competitive advantage over other Homo species and ultimately drive them to extinction (Chapter 2), and the sequence of events that got us trapped in agriculture (Chapter 5)), but having not thoroughly gone through those difficult parts a few times, I understand that it might actually be my understanding deficiency. Moreover, I am aware of some complaints over the potential handwaviness of some of the author’s arguments as exemplified by his overuse of the phrase “exceptions that prove the rule” (eg, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/11/sapiens-brief-history-humankind-yuval-noah-harari-review). In this my thought is the following: I see an AUTHOR’s primary duty as to provoke readers’ own thinking rather than to produce bulletproof arguments (this secondary duty of an author would be the primary duty of a SCIENTIST); in other words, if the author is writing an academic paper, he might need to tighten up his arguments, and since he is now writing a general history book, I think he has succeeded in his primary duty superbly. Lastly, I think it is hard to read through the book without noticing its literary appeal. This book is apparently an English translation that the author did himself from the original Hebrew version. The beautiful and idiomatic language adds much to the exhilarating reading experience. The book affects me nontrivially at a personal level. Aside from the philosophical and ethical implications from history on the relationship between our decisions and long-term happiness as mentioned above, the broad spectrum of social norms described in the book broadens my ethical outlook and makes me less dogmatic about whatever ideas I used to hold as absolute principles and cherish unwaveringly (a positive change I think), echoing the point of studying history which in the author’s opinion is to understand the myriad of possibilities (also mentioned above). I feel sincerely grateful to the author and the book in this. It is in part my wish of extending this positive impact of reading this book and understanding history in general to other people that prompted me to write this review. I can think of some minor improvements for the book. Aside from the potential refinements on the exposition and argument mentioned above, I think the book can be supplemented with more data and plots of them, to inject a more quantitative sense to the matters under study. Lastly, I think the Table of Contents should also include sections of each chapter, which I think would help us grasp the overall structure of the discourse and I provide below for the convenience of other readers. For example, with a listing of the sections of Chapter 12 on religion, one can easily see that the discussions go from the transition from animism to god-based religions, polytheism, monotheism, dualism, Buddhism and Humanism. Table of Sections I. The Cognitive Revolution 1. An animal of no significance a. Skeletons in the closest b. The cost of thinking c. A race of cooks d. Our brothers’ keepers 2. The Tree of Knowledge a. The legend of Peugeot b. Bypassing the genome c. History and Biology 3. A day in the life of Adam and Eve a. The original affluent society b. Talking ghosts c. Peace or war? d. The curtain of silence 4. The Flood a. Guilty as charged b. The end of sloth c. Noah’s Ark II. The Agricultural Revolution 5. History’s biggest fraud a. The luxury trap b. Divine intervention c. Victims of the revolution 6. Building pyramids a. The coming of the future b. An imagined order c. True believers d. The prison walls 7. Memory overload a. Signed, Kushim b. The wonders of bureaucracy c. The language of numbers 8. There is no justice in history a. The vicious cycle b. Purity in America c. He and she d. Sex and gender e. What’s so good about men? f. Muscle power g. The scum of Society h. Patriarchal genes III. The unification of humankind 9. The arrow of history a. The spy satellite b. The global vision 10. The scent of money a. How much is it? b. Shells and cigarettes c. How does money work? d. The Gospel of gold e. The price of money 11. Imperial Visions a. What is an empire? b. Evil empires c. It’s for your own good d. When they become us e. Good guys and bad buys in history f. The new global empire 12. The law of religion a. Silencing the lamb b. The benefits of idolatry c. God is one d. The battle of good and evil e. The law of nature f. The worship of man g. Humanist religions – religions that worship humanity 13. The secret of success a. The hindsight fallacy b. The blind clio IV. The Scientific Revolution 14. The discovery of ignorance a. Ignoramus b. The scientific dogma c. Knowledge is power d. The ideal of progress e. The Gilgamesh Project f. The sugar daddy of science 15. The marriage of science and empire a. Why Europe? b. The mentality of conquest c. Empty maps d. Invasion from outer space e. Rare spiders and forgotten scripts 16. The Capitalist creed a. A growing pie b. Columbus searches for an investor c. In the name of capital d. The cult of the free market e. The Capitalist hell 17. The wheels of industry a. The secret in the kitchen b. An ocean of energy c. Life on the conveyor belt d. The age of shopping 18. A permanent revolution a. Modern time b. The collapse of the family and the community c. Imagined community d. Perpetuum mobile e. Peace in our time f. Imperial retirement g. Pax Atomica 19. And they lived happily ever after a. Counting happiness b. Chemical happiness c. The meaning of life d. Know Thyself 20. The end of Homo Sapiens a. Of mice and men b. The return of the Neanderthals c. Bionic life d. Another life e. The singularity f. The Frankenstein prophecy

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.

★★★★★ Ambitious, Fascinating, and Constantly Thought-Provoking Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is one of those books that changes the scale at which you think. Rather than focusing on a single civilization, war, ruler, or invention, Harari steps back and asks a much larger question: how did Homo sapiens come to dominate the planet, and what has that domination meant for us and everything around us? What makes the book so compelling is Harari’s ability to connect anthropology, history, economics, religion, biology, politics, and philosophy into one sweeping narrative. He moves from the Cognitive Revolution to the Agricultural Revolution, the rise of empires and religions, the development of money and capitalism, and eventually into the scientific and technological age. The result is enormous in scope, but surprisingly readable. Some of the most memorable sections are those in which Harari examines the stories human beings collectively agree to believe. Nations, corporations, money, laws, and social hierarchies all depend, in one way or another, on shared ideas. Whether or not you agree with every conclusion he draws, the concept forces you to reconsider how much of human civilization depends on our unique ability to create and cooperate around imagined structures. I also appreciated that Harari does not treat human progress as an uncomplicated success story. The Agricultural Revolution, for example, is presented not simply as humanity advancing but as a development that may have made individual lives harder even while allowing civilizations to grow. Likewise, technological progress is repeatedly questioned rather than automatically celebrated. Are we actually happier because we have become more powerful? Has advancement improved the experience of being human, or merely changed it? That questioning is where the book is at its best. Harari writes confidently, and occasionally that confidence can make broad or debated ideas sound more settled than they really are. A book attempting to cover tens of thousands of years is inevitably going to simplify some extraordinarily complicated subjects. I found myself wanting to challenge or investigate certain claims rather than simply accept them. But I actually consider that one of the book’s strengths. Sapiens encourages curiosity. It makes you want to argue with it, research further, and reconsider assumptions you may never have thought to question. The Tenth Anniversary Edition is especially interesting because the book’s questions about technology, human power, information, and the future feel even more relevant now than when it was originally published. This is not simply a history book filled with dates and events. It is a meditation on what humanity is, how we became what we are, and where we might be headed next. Expansive, provocative, accessible, and deeply engaging, Sapiens may not provide the final word on human history—but it is an extraordinary place to begin thinking about it.

I am writing a review of the first half of this book having completed Parts I and II and will amend it later once I have finished Parts III and IV. The book is so full of ideas and goes in so many different directions at once, I feel that writing an initial review now will help me create a more complete and useful review once I am done with the entire book. My overwhelming impression at this point is that I have learned an awful lot I did not know and thought about a lot of things I have never given much thought to. It is well-researched and full of meaningful context and anecdotes. While at times I wish the back stories were even longer and more well-developed, I understand this could have easily doubled the size of the book, resulting in a much smaller audience. So I get why he kept things brief. He does seem to have provided a reasonable balance between presentation of information and context. This book goes far beyond providing novel encyclopedic knowledge though, it really does makes you think. And in particular it makes you think about the WAY we think and WHY we think that way. Reading this book you will start to see how the forces that shaped our evolutionary path serve as a powerful insight into they ways we behave as individuals, families, and even as whole societies. And it lays bare some of the fundamental reasons for the struggles we encounter within ourselves and with one another. One very powerful idea is that the key feature in the sapiens brain that has allowed us to essentially dominate all life on the planet in the mere blink of an eye, is simply our ability to construct and believe in... fiction. And the author makes his case quite strongly for this notion. I believe he may be correct. And it's truly a paradigm shattering idea. One that should cause the fiercest dogmatic believer in anything to pause and wonder: Am I kidding myself? I do have one rather harsh critique though. There is one chapter in these first two parts which veers wildly of the well-paved highway of analytical thought onto a deeply-rutted fire road of emotionally charged rhetoric. It's a helpful chapter in that it provides a revealing glimpse of the author's motivations. Perhaps if he'd been a more clever influencer he would have toned it down a bit. Unfortunately, with its inclusion, Parts I & II become a political cupcake with a rich icing of scientific inquiry smothered over it to make it more appealing to critical thinkers. This tipping of the author's hand is instructive even if unintentional. And it reveals a shocking hypocrisy as he creates a bit of his own fiction through emotional appeal and conjecture, abandoning the healthy counter-pointed arguments and solid logical reasoning in the early chapters. I'll give it 5 stars for now because it's clearly an important work and a Must Read either way. But we'll have to see if he redeems himself in Parts III & IV.

A contemporary, scientific view of life on earth differs dramatically from the biblical perspective. To begin with the earth is not at the center of the universe. Nor, is it even at the center of our peripheral solar system. All right fine, you may say, we know all of that. But then, what if we were to stretch this new scientific perspective into an entirely consistent world view from the vantage point of the singular event 14 billion years ago (the Big Bang) that we now consider the beginning? The result of such a Cartesian discourse is a serious stretch for most. Yet, this is the journey that Yuval Noah Harari takes us on in his book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. The journey and the revelations will be disconcerting to many. Harari though is an excellent guide and his style, that of a non-confrontational story teller, palliates the bitter truth. That at least is my view of his work. But then I am a fellow traveler. I wrote a book some years ago (2008), The Bridge, where I developed these same ideas and perspectives. To me it is most rewarding to see an historian of Harari's stature embrace such insights. I should confess here that I found myself speculating on how Wallace might have felt upon reading Darwin's publication. And memories of the ebb and flow of ideas. Perhaps I should continue by simply stating the case: What are these common ideas? To start with the Big Bang was an absolute beginning. It is meaningless to ask what came before, since time and even space began with the singularity. Following the Big Bang billions of years passed before the earth was even formed. Billions of stars were formed before our own sun was born. The conditions on our planet earth happened to be favorable for the emergence of life (although we still have difficulty even in defining what life is precisely). Life forms then evolved for a few billion years more before we Sapiens appeared. There is no direction to evolution or purpose underlying natural events or human history. Nature has no discernible purpose. Step by step Harari guides the reader through this chronology of events. In fact he includes a timeline of the story as an introduction. Harari goes on to explain that Sapiens then underwent a cognitive revolution through the development of speech and a greatly expanded consciousness. This cognitive revolution facilitated the growth of common myths that enriched the ability of communities to cooperate. For thousands of years though this cooperation remained at a local level. Once agriculture was invented further growth in the capacity for cooperation arose allowing a dramatic increase in social complexity. From that point on we enter the period of human history. Harari estimates that this cognitive revolution occurred about 70,000 years before the present, nearly 14 billion years after the Big Bang. The cognitive revolution has proven to be quite significant of course. Its impact has already reshaped life on earth (to the detriment of most other species). But, the inception of the revolution is inseparably bound together with the proliferation of myths. Many authors have dealt with questions of mythology and contemporary religions often with the intent of debunking unfounded beliefs. Harari examines this issue of social belief structures from a rather different perspective. First he expands the discussion to include much broader elements of social organization. All communities he says are fictive; they are imagined realities. Again, many will be comfortable with such arguments as a critique of religion. But how about race, or nation states or empires? Harari even offers the example of business corporations as fictive social structures. So, all social structures are ultimately based in fiction. Yet these fictions, these shared beliefs, allow groups to identify themselves as ‘we’ and to thus establish rules of engagement and cooperation. These fictions, therefore, permit the emergence of ever increasing degrees of complex interaction. Harari pursues the human story up to the present and beyond. However, he deals with history at a macro level considering major trends. His book is not about the twists and turns of history or the details of specific periods or regions. Rather he observes trends from a satellite perspective, as though an alien observer, and points out the turning points, the paradigm shifts. Quite correctly, I think, he suggests that history has been a progression of empires. Then, with the industrial revolution and the colonial period about five hundred years ago "The entire planet becomes a single historical arena." The trend since then is toward a single empire or some form of international governance. Despite hiccup-examples such as 'Brexit' this looks like a reasonable deduction. But, at this juncture Harari and I part ways. My personal inclination is to reflect upon how humanity might move from our current state toward a peaceful and just form of international governance. Harari observes that we may be incapable of reaching a consensus on the sort of future we want. Instead he looks for new discoveries or trajectories that will define our future, such as technology and genetic design. Humans themselves are today becoming gods capable of 'intelligent' design. But is rather impossible for us to predict how such new technology will impact the future. Regrettably he is probably right.

A great primer on human history that shows how we went from living in jungles to living in the technological age we inhabit today. There were some flaws I noticed which I'll start with. The first 25% of the book had very good depictions of prehistory, but the author contradicts himself a few times. He labels equality/morality/justice as nothing more than myths, but then makes emotional appeals to equality/empathy/justice in other chapters. In a few sections, he is a little heavy-handed with the promotion of progressivist myths, and carefully tiptoes around any viewpoints that could be considered taboo. Later in the book, he says that humans evolved to have a stable baseline of happiness regardless of conditions. But he doesn't seem to consider that this can extend to other mammals, including factory farmed animals. Instead he claims that they live lives of suffering, which is another possible contradiction. Aside from those issues, the midsection of the book is very good. The author smoothly weaves a fascinating and educational history of humanity using a variety of anecdotes, never shying away from both the light and dark sides of religion, science, and colonialism. I particularly enjoyed the parts of the book discussing the early modern period. The book ends with some thoughts on happiness and science-fiction predictions of the future. Nothing groundbreaking, but interesting nonetheless. Overall, it was well worth the read. Looking forward to checking out Homo Deus.

Quick Summary: Sapiens is a thought provoking history of human kind. It starts the story about 13.5 Billion years ago and walks us through a timeline of history that brings us to present. Why I enjoyed the book: The study of anthropology helps us understand how past events have led to the present. It helps put context around problems I see today (obesity, diabetes, gun control). This book is a great starting point to understand the world through Yuval Noah Harari’s research. How did the book change me? The book challenged me to think bigger. Reviewing activities from 13.5 billion years ago helps provide context to the shortness and importance of the decisions we make in such a large and diverse ecosystem. Thought Provoking Ideas: The order organizing our lives is imagined explained in three main ways: - The imagined order is embedded in the material world. - The imagined order shapes our desires - The imagined order is inter-subjective Critiques or Additional Commentary: - Above needs more exploration and it’s up to the reader to make connections to how the rise of capitalism has shifted the way we live from medieval times to current. Additionally, further exploration is warranted to understand the impacts of our material world on how we think, act and behave. - I don’t disagree. This is a thought provoking statement. The human species has created and defined the current governments, religions and economic practices that we all live with today. This has taken place through evolution. To me imagined and invented are interchangeable in this sense. By using the phrase imagined I think Harari is pushing the reader to challenge the assumption that the world has always or was pre-destined for it’s current situation. - We all believe in the current organization of the world I loved this book and how it walks through objective history. I am still cross walking the footnotes to understand the archeological support for history provided. Harari walks the reader eloquently through these physical and evolutionary historical observations helping shape how we have evolved into our current religious, political and economic environment today. I personally do not share the same views that our world is independently imagined. Harari seems to have tagged this phrase to support his belief that religion is imagined. While I cannot prove or disprove his theory I don’t think we can assume it’s true. For me the historical evidence that supports the recorded history of the canonized Bible is evidence that a spiritual God exists. I appreciate the historical story that Harari tells. If you are religious and believe in God I would encourage readers to accept that others have a different belief and seek to understand their perspective. This doesn’t alter the historical significance of Christ and does not have to change what you believe. It’s an opportunity for us to understand another perspective. Thoughts this book provoked: Communication is the most important tool we have. Focus education on the importance of working with others to accomplish our goals and getting things done. It’s important education is curated. Without constraint we are lost. Constraints provide us focus and opportunity. This is something we can never fully understand because I believe we have partial knowledge. Everything circles back to how to communicate, follow up and track. Communication, information, tracking and execution is everything. Religion, Philosophy, Economics and Science are all independent studies however they encapsulate society. We must build trust accross these domains. People will always exchange money when they feel like they are benefiting more for the object they are trading the money for. Communication tip: Draw a picture to show why the value is there and what the difference is between current state and future state. Ch 18 50:25 - discussion on how there are no major wars since WWII. The new wars are economic and now cyber. This is where we need to focus our education and resources. Need to preserve ecological resources. Games are how we learn with others traditionally. Need to incorporate game play into our everyday life. posted on bendickey.me

To me the strength of any book is that it makes you THINK. And boy does this make you THINK. Sometimes you need to hear different sides of a argument to reinforce or dismiss your "beliefs" In both areas I was either happy to let go some "beliefs" and happy to hold onto other "beliefs" Prof Harari's style of writing is interesting. Throughout each book ( Sapiens and Deus) he will pick a subject eg Agricultural Revolution and give all of the pros of his argument, no cons. Each of his arguments sounding very convincing and very logical. As I was reading through it, I found myself disagreeing with some of his points. As you read on, he shapes his arguments / logic / power of persuasion onto the negative / other side of the argument or the side where I initially disagreed with him. Its as if he was listening to my objections and then he answered them. Initially I found his approach a bit frustrating but this probably turned out to be the books main strength. It gave very strong / powerful arguments (where needed) for both sides of the topic under discussion. He covers every angle, some at great length and just touches on others. The Agricultural Revolution was where it "began to go wrong" , not a statement I agreed with but it is very hard to disagree with his powerful arguments but I am sticking to my guns. I have rarely read a book that was so well researched. If I had my way I would make this book compulsory reading in every school in the World. It is an absolute joy to read. From a social point of view it will give you more than enough info to make intelligent contributions to discussions and not sound geekish. Go buy it! I hope this helps you P.S. I had a humourous thought when reading the first chapters of the book as to how a white supremacist KKK member would react when he found out that Sapiens originated in Africa and Dinosaurs did not play football with us.

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Informative, interesting and simply written for those curious about evolution. To be read and reread

Brilliant!

I love this book as it has a lot of insight on many things that we may normally miss. It describes and breaks down human behavior and how it may have been developed and it sure DOES start RIGHT at the bottom. Very informative and I recommend this book!! The only thing that sometimes really throws me off is that (he may be right, but I doubt it) this man thinks he knows exactly how 'sapiens', or rather, those early stages of them, like neanderthals, used to act and behave all of those millions of years ago. That is, let's face it, completely impossible to EXACTLY know and/or interpret ... even for him. Anything could have happened back then. It can be compared to how people thought certain things about animals that in the end were completely different to what they actually did in the wild. I still recommend this book.