Book: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Author: Yuval Noah Harari, Harper Collins, 2015
Review by: Cedric Suzman, retired founder and director of programming, World Affairs Council of Atlanta
An Israeli and Oxford PhD, Yuval Harari, has written a fascinating and eminently readable book. In spite of its rather grandiose title, it succeeds wonderfully in explaining how our species, homo sapiens, has come to dominate, and possibly destroy, our planet.
The book is divided into four sections: “The Cognitive Revolution,” “The Agricultural Revolution,” “The Unification of Mankind,” and “The Scientific Revolution.” Each lays out explanations for our evolution that are at the same time simple but not at all obvious.
For example, he attributes the advent of inequality in wealth to the fact that the agricultural revolution required serfs to farm the land and gather the crops for the landlords. The population expanded rapidly in this sedentary lifestyle, so the added food supply never quite kept up with the demand. The crops and cattle could also be counted and taxed, to the enrichment of the princes and servitude of the serfs. Crops needed to be protected and neighbors’ land plundered, so walls, castles and armies were built.
Harari concludes that things didn’t turn out for the better, as hoped for, and that, “People were unable to fathom the full consequences of their decisions.” This indeed, could be the theme of the entire book!
He points out how the desire for knowledge of the greater world drove Western Imperialism and how the “conquest of knowledge and the conquest of territory became evermore intertwined.” The Scientific Revolution was built of the notion of progress and “the belief in a growing global pie” while the central tenant of capitalism itself is that “economic growth is the supreme good.” Money, he posits, is a supremely efficient “system of trust” built on a history of political and economic networks. All the while, however, he warns that without the infusion of constant raw materials and energy, this global system is at risk of collapse.
He concludes with some unpleasant thoughts on our treatment of other species, namely domesticated animals in our food chain, and then adds a discourse on “happiness,” its relationship to biochemistry, and the frightening (for me) prospect that homo sapiens may be capable of breaking free from their biologically determined limits.
For me, the book introduced a wide range of challenging and thought-provoking ideas, ranging far beyond the current immersion in depressing political debate. I have only dipped into the well of ideas he presents and found it totally refreshing and worth reading.
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