Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

Overview

Official U.S. edition with full color illustrations throughout.

New York Times Bestseller

A Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg

From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.”

One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us?

Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas.

Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because over the last few decades humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us, but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become?

Featuring 27 photographs, 6 maps, and 25 illustrations/diagrams, this provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential reading for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062316097
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	02/10/2015
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	17,653
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Prof. Yuval Noah Harari is a historian, philosopher, and the bestselling author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, and Sapiens: A Graphic History. His books have sold 27.5 Million copies in 60 languages, and he is considered one of the world’s most influential public intellectuals today. The Guardian has credited Sapiens with revolutionizing the non-fiction market and popularizing “brainy books”.

In 2020 Harari joined forces with renowned comics artists David Vandermeulen and Daniel Casanave, to create Sapiens: A Graphic History: a radical adaptation of the original Sapiens into a graphic novel series that is bursting with wit, humour and colour (to be launched fall 2020). This illustrated book casts Yuval Noah Harari in the role of guide, who takes the reader through the entire history of the human species, accompanied by a range of fictional characters and traveling through time, space and popular culture references.

Born in Haifa, Israel, in 1976, Harari received his PhD from the University of Oxford in 2002, and is currently a lecturer at the Department of History, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He originally specialized in world history, medieval history and military history, and his current research focuses on macro-historical questions such as: What is the relationship between history and biology? What is the essential difference between Homo sapiens and other animals? Is there justice in history? Does history have a direction? Did people become happier as history unfolded? What ethical questions do science and technology raise in the 21st century?

Table of Contents

Timeline of History viii

Part 1 The Cognitive Revolution

1 An Animal of No Significance 3

2 The Tree of Knowledge 20

3 A Day in the Life of Adam and Eve 40

4 The Flood 63

Part 2 The Agricultural Resolution

5 History's Biggest Fraud 77

6 Building Pyramids 98

7 Memory Overload 119

8 There is No Justice in History 133

Part 3 The Unification of Humankind

9 The Arrow of History 163

10 The Scent of Money 173

11 Imperial Visions 188

12 The Law of Religion 209

13 The Secret of Success 237

Part 4 The Scientific Revolution

14 The Discovery of Ignorance 247

15 The Marriage of Science and Empire 275

16 The Capitalist Creed 305

17 The Wheels of Industry 334

18 A Permanent Revolution 350

19 And They Lived Happily Ever After 376

20 The End of Homo Sapiens 397

Afterword: The Animal that Became a God 415

Notes 417

Acknowledgements 429

Image credits 431

Index 433

Editorial Reviews

11/17/2014
Writing with wit and verve, Harari, professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, attempts to explain how Homo sapiens came to be the dominant species on Earth as well as the sole representative of the human genus. He notes that from roughly two million years ago until about 10,000 years ago, we were not the only humans on the planet; many species preceded us, and some overlapped our tenure. Harari argues persuasively that three revolutions explain our current situation. The first, the cognitive revolution, occurred approximately 70,000 years ago and gave us “fictive” language, enabling humans to share social constructs as well as a powerful “imagined reality” that led to complex social systems. The second, the agricultural revolution, occurred around 12,000 years ago and allowed us to settle into permanent communities. The third, the scientific revolution, began around 500 years ago and allowed us to better understand and control our world. Throughout, Harari questions whether human progress has led to increased human happiness, concluding that it’s nearly impossible to show that it has. Harari is provocative and entertaining but his expansive scope only allows him to skim the surface. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Sapiens takes readers on a sweeping tour of the history of our species…. Harari’s formidable intellect sheds light on the biggest breakthroughs in the human story…important reading for serious-minded, self-reflective sapiens.

Washington Post

Yuval Noah Harari’s full-throated review of our species may have been blurbed by Jared Diamond, but Harari’s conclusions are at once balder and less tendentious than that of his famous colleague.

New York magazine

Harari’s account of how we conquered the Earth astonishes with its scope and imagination…. One of those rare books that lives up to the publisher’s blurb...brilliantly clear, witty and erudite.

Ben Shepard

Thank God someone finally wrote [this] exact book.

Sebastian Junger

Sapiens is learned, thought-provoking and crisply written…. Fascinating.

Wall Street Journal

It’s not often that a book offers readers the possibility to reconsider, well, everything. But that’s what Harari does in this sweeping look at the history of humans.… Readers of every stripe should put this at the top of their reading lists. Thinking has never been so enjoyable.

Booklist (starred review)

Sapiens tackles the biggest questions of history and of the modern world, and it is written in unforgettably vivid language.

Jared Diamond

In Sapiens, Harari delves deep into our history as a species to help us understand who we are and what made us this way. An engrossing read.

Dan Ariely

The sort of book that sweeps the cobwebs out of your brain…. Harari…is an intellectual acrobat whose logical leaps will have you gasping with admiration.

John Carey

In this sweeping look at the history of humans, Harari offers readers the chance to reconsider, well, everything, from a look at why Homo sapiens endured to a compelling discussion of how society organizes itself through fictions.

Booklist Best Books of the Year

This was the most surprising and thought-provoking book I read this year.

Atlantic.com

An absorbing, provocative history of civilization…packed with heretical thinking and surprising facts. This riveting, myth-busting book cannot be summarised…you will simply have to read it.

John Gray

Engaging and informative…. Extremely interesting.

Guardian (London)

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a fun, engaging look at early human history…you’ll have a hard time putting it down.

Bill Gates

It is one of the best accounts by a Homo sapiens of the unlikely story of our violent, accomplished species.…It is one hell of a story. And it has seldom been told better…. Compulsively readable and impossibly learned.

Michael Gerson

Not only is Harari eloquent and humane, he is often wonderfully, mordantly funny

The Independent (London)

Harari can write…really, really write, with wit, clarity, elegance, and a wonderful eye for metaphor.

The Times (Ireland)

Full of…high-perspective, shocking and wondrous stories, as well as strange theories and startling insights.

Bryan Appleyard

Yuval Noah Harari’s celebrated Sapiens does for human evolution what Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time did for physics.… He does a superb job of outlining our slow emergence and eventual domination of the planet.

Forbes

The most idea-packed work of non-fiction I’ve read in years.

Dick Meyer

[I]nteresting and provocative…It gives you a sense of perspective on how briefly we’ve been on this earth, how short things like agriculture and science have been around, and why it makes sense for us to not take them for granted.

President Barack Obama

Sapiens takes readers on a sweeping tour of the history of our species…. Harari’s formidable intellect sheds light on the biggest breakthroughs in the human story…important reading for serious-minded, self-reflective sapiens.

Washington Post

★ 12/01/2014
This title is one of the exceptional works of nonfiction that is both highly intellectual and compulsively readable. Originally published in Israel in 2011, it has been translated into over 20 languages, including this polished English version. Harari (history, Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) takes the reader on a journey that begins with the dawn of Homo sapiens around 200,000 BCE and ends with the scientific revolution. The author covers the cognitive revolution, which allowed Homo sapiens, unlike our predecessors, to imagine what the author terms fictions—gods, laws, the idea of money, and so on. These concepts made it possible for large groups of the species to work together for their greater good. The author goes on to reveal the consequences of the agricultural revolution (beginning around 10,000 BCE) and the scientific revolution in the 16th and 17th century, which include everything from bureaucracy and slavery to the endless search for happiness. VERDICT Although Harari's ideas may be controversial for some readers, those who are interested in history, anthropology, and evolution will find his work a fascinating, hearty read.—Jennifer Stout, Virginia Commonwealth Univ. Lib., Richmond

Library Journal

★ 2014-11-15
Harari (History/Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) provides an immersion into the important revolutions that shaped world history: cognitive, agricultural and scientific. The book was originally published in Israel in 2011 and became a best-seller.There is enormous gratification in reading books of this nature, an encyclopedic approach from a well-versed scholar who is concise but eloquent, both skeptical and opinionated, and open enough to entertain competing points of view. As Harari firmly believes, history hinges on stories: some stories for understanding, others prompting people to act cooperatively toward common goals. Of course, these stories—" ‘fictions,' ‘social constructs' or ‘imagined realities' "—can be humble or evil, inclusive or self-serving, but they hold the power of belief. Harari doesn't avoid the distant past, when humans "were insignificant animals with no more impact on their environment than gorillas, fireflies or jellyfish," but he is a skeptic and rightfully relies on specific source material to support his arguments—though he is happy to offer conjectures. Harari launches fully into his story with the cognitive revolution, when our brains were rewired, now more intelligent and creative, with language, gossip and myths to fashion the stories that, from politicians to priests to sorcerers, serve to convince people of certain ideas and beliefs. The agricultural revolution ("lives generally more difficult and less satisfying than those of foragers") comes next and firmly establishes the intersubjectivity of imagined orders: hierarchies, money, religion, gender issues, "communication network[s] linking the subjective consciousness of many individuals." Throughout, the author revels in the chaos of history. He discusses the good and bad of empires and science, suggests that modern economic history comes down to a single word ("growth"), rues the loss of familial and societal safety nets, and continues to find wonder in the concept that "the keys to happiness are in the hands of our biochemical system." The great debates of history aired out with satisfying vigor.

Kirkus Reviews

"Harari is provocative and entertaining." —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Sapiens is learned, thought-provoking and crisply written…. Fascinating.

Wall Street Journal

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