A book review of ”Sapiens – A Brief History of Humankind ”
This book, written by the Oxford historian Yuval Noah Harari, gives a super macro perspective of human history. It couldn’t go into details when the development from our life on the Savannas of Africa to today’s world are covered on 470 pages. But it is very, very interesting reading; the best book I have read for a long time. It doesn’t contain many names and years, except for when used as examples of the author’s point. Instead it contains the broad lines. How could this particular monkey, that calls itself Homo Sapiens, develop the ability to take over the world? Why did we become farmers after 200 000 years of hunting and gathering? Why did we invent money, religions, nations, ideologies etc.etc. And much much more of course.
Harari points out three main revolutions that have been crucial on this path. Of course it is not the French, American and Russian revolutions. They are almost like details in the big picture. It is the cognitive revolution, the agricultural revolution and the scientific revolution.
The cognitive revolution – About 70 000 years ago. Humans started to develop the ability to believe in “imagined realities”; i.e. to think in more abstract ways. They started to think about, and believe in, non-physical things like gods, myths, social orders etc. This was a precondition for developing cultures and religions and, much later, countries, ideologies, companies, organisations etc. And it made it possible to cooperate with strangers.
Harari points out that all ideas of social orders are built on myths and imagined realities (it is not about if we like the particular myth or not). Later came the myths of Human rights, Liberalism, Capitalism, Communism, Nazism, Islam, Christianity or Hammurabi’s’ division of the Babylonian society into “superior people, commoners and slaves”. All these ideas differ from each other but they are all created by Homo Sapiens, which was possible due to the ability to imagine abstract, non physically existing things after the cognitive revolution.
Imagined orders, unlike natural laws, only exist as long as people believe in them. That is why police forces, militaries etc were created to protect the current imagined order. Rather obvious in modern times but the historical perspective in the book is interesting.
The Agricultural revolution – About 10 000 years ago Harari claims that through history, the average farmer probably had harder and longer working days than the average gather/hunter. The agricultural revolution might have been a big trap with no way back. After becoming farmers the number of humans increased very quickly. (Farming gives more food, and hunting/gathering would not have been able to support all the new people). Also, after just a few centuries in a world without written language, people might not even know that their ancestors had lived in a completely different way. The first of the chapters in the part of the books that deals with the Agricultural revolution is actually named “History’s biggest fraud”.
So, why did we become farmers? It didn’t happen overnight. Harari suggest that perhaps each step in the process seemed reasonable for that particular generation. Or maybe humans believed in a higher power who wanted them to to this. Religious beliefs have made humans do things that might seem irrational on many occasions through history, so why not here?
Of course we don’t know these things for sure, which Harari admits. But he presents plausible theories.
Harari points out three main factors that contributed to the fact that the world has gotten more unified over the millennia; the evolvement of money, religions and empires. Perhaps I would add the technological development but that only kicked in the last few centuries and, as I understand it, Harari claims the unification of the world has been going on for much longer. (Just one such example is that the idea of a universal human order become more popular with the rise of monotheism. When most people were polytheists, the idea of universal ideas was not as important. Sometimes other people could have other gods – no problem. The idea of a universal order might have started with monotheistic religions but can today take other expressions; ideas of communism, liberalism, human rights etc.)
The scientific revolution – About 500 year ago The scientific revolution quickly led to the industrial revolution, European expansion, capitalism and a change of human life not seen since the days of the agricultural revolution. Why did it start in Europe and why at that particular time in history? Harari tries to give some possible answers. I will not go into more details, read the book for yourself. 🙂
This is of course a very short summary of some of Harari’s main points. There is much more in the book. Even though the book is written by a scientist, who often admits that we don’t know for sure but have plausible theories, it is easy to read. The author has a PhD in History from Oxford University which adds to the credibility. Now he lectures at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
