Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

Sapiens tells the story of humankind from the Stone Age to the twenty-first century, trying to find an answer to the question of why humanity, in particular, has risen to dominate the world.

The author divides human history into four epochs:

1. In the cognitive revolution, humans developed the imagination that enabled them to create abstract things like gods, money, nations, trade networks, corporations, and human rights. It was the shared belief in these stories that enabled people to work together in large numbers.
2. With the agricultural revolution, people began to reshape their environment actively. They increased food production, and population growth accelerated rapidly.
3. Unification of humanity: People living in once-independent tribes began to build cities, empires, and trade networks – culminating in a global empire as we know it today.
4. During the scientific revolution, humanity began to explore the workings of the world and gradually replace the religiously based worldview with an objective one. This ultimately led to the rapid technological progress we are currently experiencing.

Despite all the progress, the welfare of humankind has not continuously improved. The agricultural revolution, for example, led to a far more one-sided way of life and diet than that of the hunter-gatherers.

Other animals suffered and continue to suffer from progress to this day. Many species have been wiped out, while others live in squalid conditions as mere food producers.

Humanity has reduced hunger, diseases, and wars in recent decades indeed – there are also efforts to improve the welfare of animals. But whether this is a sustainable trend remains to be seen.

This very insightful book ends with a brief glimpse into the future, which the author will explore in-depth in his follow-up work, Homo Deus.

🎧 Suitable as an audio book? Yes.

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Genres

Evolution Human Behavior Philosophy