Sapiens

A Brief History of Humankind

#1 New York Times Bestseller • New York Times Readers’ Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21st Century • The Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama and Bill Gates

Official U.S. edition

From renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.”

One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us?

Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas.

Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because over the last few decades humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us, but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become?

Featuring 27 photographs, 6 maps, and 25 illustrations/diagrams, this provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential reading for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem.

Excellent Read

If you enjoy sociology, anthropology and read Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond this is an amazing book to check out. A bit less scientific tedium than in Diamond’s book, Yuval Harari’s cultural examination is made very accessible and digestible for all audiences with some profound yet almost intuitive insights. If you want an impactful read that will better shape your understanding of today’s world, look no further than “Sapiens”

all the history you really need to know

The book started out somewhat interesting, because the story of cavemen has become such a trope for me. But from the agricultural revolution onwards the big questions/reveals about who we are or came to be are raised. The part that speaks about 'imagined orders' is the real turning point. All the way from there until the explanation of capitalism and liberalism as the world's most successful religions/ideologies the book is absolutely riveting. Key events in history are described in detail and are often also accompanied by a pinch of humorous wit. I loved the way that the author looks at human history from the point of the observer and is able to keep it factual or at least without personal judgement. This changes however towards the end of the book when he speaks of the bio industry and one can clearly read/hear his opinion through the lines. Even though formulated in a factual manner it reveals his position on matters. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the tone changes. In the end, he starts to speculate about the future quite wildly which I feel is a bit detrimental to the succinct analysis of history. Some claims are made about resource scarcity and energy abundance without clearly linking the two. Some scenarios are painted about transcending our biology. I guess this is a setup for his other books because it leaves certain questions unanswered. Overall, it's great that he is able to draw several distinct lines of development through history, always referring back to certain key moments in which humans developed new cognitive/sapiens abilities. This actually creates better links for remembering how history developed, connecting events with their relative importance to the human development: the ability to organize in ever larger groups through the use of myths (imagined orders) which first were animal gods, became the science-military-industrial-complex, currently rests on the credit/growth/capitalist system that had the whole world in it's grip. I've taken a lot of insight from this book and even though it doesn't change a lot of my own conclusions about our kind, it gives me fodder to back those up.

Enlightening and greatly written

This book is full of knowledge. An amazing portrait of humanity without taking sides to any ideology.

Multidisciplinary Thinking

This book is probably the best collection of multidisciplinary thinking I've read since David Landes Wealth and poverty of nations or Jason diamond's guns, germs, and steel. It truly elaborates on and differentiates between the biological and philosophical nature of humans... at least homo sapiens. Hariri introduces multiple contrasting arguments in almost every chapter and explains why it's okay not to know everything. He elaborates on the pros and cons of money, imperialism, and religion (which I think the pros outweigh the cons). Hariri let's the reader decide what they want to believe. He just lays out what humans think we know in a digestible, and sometimes humorous, manner. This book gave me a great synthesis of what to expect from life, what happiness might be, and the type of animal homo sapiens really are (the record holder of destroying environments even before the industrial or agricultural revolution).

Well done Yuval Noah Hariri.

Should be required reading

The breadth, depth, and scope of the subject of humankind and its many subtopics was a surprise, as I had expected a book rehashing the evolutionary topics found in other works
However, the author explores and explains ideas that are rarely addressed, and yet are far more important than, most subjects commonly filling the minds of our populations.
The author takes the reader on a trip through the evolution of, and the variations of, political, economic, and other human-created ideas, and how we as a species interact among ourselves and with other species. Throughout, he addresses the question of the satisfaction - or lack there-of - in our individual and common lives and that of the social constructs we create and how they are interdependent
We can benefit from the understanding of the information here, which is quite artfully presented.
Definitely should be required reading. The future of all of Earth’s species are dependent on these matters.