Yuval Noah HarariHistory · Non-Fiction·b. 1976
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
- Pages
- 464
- Published
- 2011
- Language
- English
Synopsis
One hundred thousand years ago, at least six species of human shared the planet. Today there is only one. In Sapiens, historian Yuval Noah Harari traces the story of our species from insignificant African apes to rulers of the world, arguing that three great revolutions shaped that ascent: the Cognitive Revolution that let us imagine and cooperate at scale, the Agricultural Revolution that tied us to land and grain, and the Scientific Revolution that armed us with unprecedented power.
Ranging across biology, economics, religion, and politics, Harari asks how Homo sapiens came to believe in gods, nations, money, and human rights — shared fictions that let millions of strangers work together — and what those fictions have cost us and the rest of the living world.
Provocative and sweeping, Sapiens is a big-picture history of humankind that also turns its questions on the present: now that we are close to overcoming the constraints of biology, what kind of future do we actually want?
How it reads
- Writing4.0
- Impact5.0
- Ideas5.0
- Logic5.0
- Clarity5.0
Prose complexity 7/10
Readers say (1)Moderate · Dense · Thought-Provoking · Reflective · Intellectual
- I liked it, this book is an eye opener plus it's well written. The author is a great storyteller and know how to catch the reader. It took me almost a month to finish this book, I could have finished it in half a month, but I chose to take it slow. Because, one, there are too much informations, and two, I needed time to swallow all the data. When reading this book you will come to a realization that you are a tiny human being in a large world.
- One of the most formative books of my young adulthood. The ideas and arguments put forth in Sapiens are nothing short of revolutionary, albeit controversial at times. But there’s no doubt that this is definitely one of the most important books of the last decade.