Sapiens : a brief history of humankind
Yuval N. Harari (Author)
100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens. How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights; to trust money, books and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come? In Sapiens, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical and sometimes devastating breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, palaeontology and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come? Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our power ... and our future
Staff pick
443 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9781846558245, 9781846558238, 9780099590088, 1846558247, 1846558239, 0099590085
890244744
Ebook version:
Timeline of history
Part 1. The cognitive revolution. An animal of no significance
The tree of knowledge
A day in the life of Adam and Eve
The Flood
Part 2. The agricultural revolution. History's biggest fraud
Building pyramids
Memory overload
There is no justice in history
Part 3. The unification of humankind. The arrow of history
The scent of money
Imperial visions
The law of religion
The secret of success
Part 4. The scientific revolution. The discovery of ignorance
The marriage of science and empire
The capitalist creed
The wheels of industry
A permanent revolution
And they7 lived happily ever after
The end of homo sapiens
Afterword: the animal that became a god
Translation of: Kitsur toldot ha-enoshut. 2011
Translated from the Hebrew