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
Yuval Noah Harari has some questions. Among the biggest: How did Homo sapiens (or Homo sapiens sapiens , if youre feeling especially wise today) evolve from an unexceptional savannah-dwelling primate to become the dominant force on the planet, emerging as the lone survivor out of six distinct, competing hominid species? He also has some answers, and theyre not what youd expect. Tackling evolutionary concepts from a historians perspective, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, describes human development through a framework of three not-necessarily-orthodox Revolutions: the Cognitive, the Agricultural, and the Scientific. His ideas are interesting and often amusing: Why have humans managed to build astonishingly large populations when other primate groups top out at 150 individuals? Because our talent for gossip allows us to build networks in societies too large for personal relationships between everyone, and our universally accepted imagined realities--such as money, religion, and Limited Liability Corporationskeep us in line. Who cultivated whom, humans or wheat?. Wheat. Though the concepts are unusual and sometimes heavy (as is the book, literally) Hararis deft prose and wry, subversive humor make quick work of material prone to academic tedium. Hes written a book of popular nonfiction (it was a bestseller overseas, no doubt in part because his conclusions draw controversy) landing somewhere in the middle of a Venn diagram of genetics, sociology, and history. Throughout, Harari returns frequently to another question: Does all this progress make us happier, our lives easier? The answer might disappoint you. --Jon Foro
