There is a question that follows us throughout our existence. “Who are we and what does it mean to be human?” The mechanism that pushes human knowledge forward is fuelled by curiosity. Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari brings insights from science and the humanities together to answer the curiosity of what means to be human with his book: “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”.
The book is drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, palaeontology and economics. The author explores how our cultural history have shaped our human societies and why we engage in certain behaviours the way we do. The book covers sociology, history, anthropology, biology and more, but it’s far more complex than that. It tells the story of how homo sapiens came to be the dominant species on Earth from evolution to present day. This is an ambitious attempt to capture the complexities of human existence, all explained in fine lines of print.
As the book portrays, human history has been shaped by three major revolutions. Firstly, there was the Cognitive Revolution, which happened more than 70,000 years ago. The cognitive revolution allowed humans to maintain free will while creating common systems, such as money, that required only belief in order to be realized. When the Cognitive Revolution occurred, sapiens were able to imagine and describe things which do not exist in the real world. This “fictive language” has enabled all finance, culture, religion, and politics in the millennia since. The ability to believe in an afterlife can lead to a belief in morality, which can lead to a belief in human rights. None of these concepts exist in the natural world, they are all collective imaginations of humanity. Yet they all shape the destiny of our species and our planet, more than our genetic code ever has.
This period was followed by the Agricultural Revolution that took place 10,000 years ago. The author is referring to this period by building narratives from some of the first known hunter-gatherers to the first major agricultural civilization that led to the beginning of globalization. This was a period of technological improvement and increased crop productivity that occurred in Europe. During this period, the sapiens developed and implemented major inventions that spurred a shift in agricultural production and therefore improving our life standards.
Ultimately, the Scientific Revolution brought forward the period when humans made the transition to a scientific and factual approach towards life. According to the book, this period started 500 years ago and it is constantly improving. These revolutions serve as proof that humans were able to form ideas that no other life form was able to do, such as politics, religion and capitalism. Furthermore, the scientific revolution, which emphasized systematic experimentation as the most valid research method, resulted in developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, and chemistry. These developments transformed the views of society about nature. Also, those concepts contributed to the humans’ process of overcoming the forces of natural selection.
Interestingly enough, the author accepts the common view that our basic emotions and desires weren’t influenced by these revolutions. Here the author is referring to our fundamental sexual and romantic needs. The author also refers to our eating habits that haven’t changed much. However, this aspect can be argued by recent scientific and nutritional discoveries that lead to significant changes in our diet. For example, more and more people are shifting away from meat and sugar-based diets due to scientific discoveries that proved they do not contribute to a healthy lifestyle.
In contemporaneous times, ‘Sapiens’ represents the only remaining species of human. A very long time ago, 100,000 years ago to be more precise, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one – us, the Homo Sapiens. According to the book, Homo Sapiens rules the world because it is the only animal that can believe in things that exist purely in its own imagination, such as gods, states, money and human rights. And that shows the power of our thoughts and how this can manifest into compelling concepts that define our existence. Furthermore, Harari believes it was our unique cognitive abilities that made the difference. This aspect is strongly linked with the “Cognitive Revolution” mentioned above. Harari writes, which gave them the edge over their rivals to spread from East Africa across the planet.
Most humans assume that we were always the ones in charge. Naturally, we feel entitled to everything given our superior knowledge and intelligence when compared to animals. However, Yuval Noah Harari and his book serve as a reminder to us that long before we built the pyramids, wrote symphonies, or walked on the moon, there was nothing special about us. Our greatness as humans can be defined by achievements and milestones; the successes that we had in our endeavours. “The most important thing to know about prehistoric humans,” Harari writes, “is that they were insignificant animals with no more impact on their environment than gorillas, fireflies or jellyfish.”
It is important to note that other species also have big brains and certain intellectual capabilities, but the Homo Sapiens were successful due to their ability to cooperate on a large-scale. Humans have learnt how to organize as nations, companies and religions. This gave us the opportunity to act more efficiently together and to accomplish complex tasks and achieving greater things by working together. Other literary sources refer to this concept as ‘collective learning’.
Apart from science and intellectual capabilities, capitalism is undoubtedly another force to which humans identify with. The author argues that capitalism is different from wealth. Capitalism is when you take earnings from a venture and re-invest into production by opening more factories, hiring more labourers, investing, etc. In other words, when money is hoarded into a chest, that represents wealth and not capital. The book offers great explicative examples by referring to emperors who were unable to find capital to fund risky expeditions and a group of wealthy people came together to fund projects. This led to the foundation of joint-stock companies and the establishment of major stock exchanges where stocks of these companies could be traded. Centuries ago, the concept of capitalism was unknown to the human world. Today we cannot imagine the world operating without its capitalistic concepts. The reality is that whether we like it or not, our human existence is greatly influenced by finances.
The author also goes into discussing the notorious relation between money and happiness. Harari brings forward well-documented research that shows that a person’s happiness has little to do with material circumstances. But there is a catch: Money can certainly make a difference on a person’s happiness, but only when it lifts us out of poverty. Any more than that, it is proved that money has little to no influence on someone’s happiness and having more money after a certain point doesn’t mean anything. Money doesn’t bring happiness, but it can make the problems that make you unhappy to go away.
Happiness is a persistent theme in the book ‘Sapiens’. And that is only natural considering that it’s a book about humans and humans are obsessed with the idea of happiness. Harari is suggesting in the book that the lives lived by sapiens today may be worse than the lives humans lived 15,000 years ago. However, this argument seems absurd considering the comfort, technological capabilities, medical discoveries (only to name a few) that we can enjoy in our present times and which are facilitating an easier and happier life.
Differently from the material worlds, the author also talks about religion and makes some interesting observations. He goes on explaining the concept of dualism and monism. Monism refers to the concept of one omnipresent and all-powerful God. But Dualism argues that if God were all-powerful, why evil exists in our society? Dualism hence talks about the good and the bad, the God and the Devil. It argues that these two forces are always active and keep each other in check. This can be interpreted as the universal balance of spiritual forces. Whether we choose to believe or not the aspects that dictates our spiritual journey, we must admit that sometimes there is more to life than simply what walks the Earth’s surface.
Towards the end of the book, the author starts asking some pertinent questions that are relevant to the destiny of our species. One of the main questions is: what is next chapter for sapiens, for us humans? This question is difficult to answer because no one can foresee the future, but a certain trajectory for humans can be anticipated, taking into consideration our journey so far. Humans are destined for great things and nothing less. Our complexities are what makes us special and we should be proud of that. Certainly, there are things that we can improve upon, but life is a process and a beautiful one that is. So, sit back and enjoy the ride.
All in all, the author builds narratives from some of the first known hunter-gatherers to the first major agricultural civilization to the beginning of globalization. The latter half of the book is dedicated to predictions, sifting through human history to extract likely themes for the future. Harari makes no claims regarding the longevity of the human race, making “Sapiens” at once powerful and realistic. “Sapiens” subtly introduces broader ideas about cultural evolution, until the reader is forced to question their most basic assumptions about our society and its origins. Artfully crafted anecdotes blend together with sweeping rhetorical questions, making it easy, almost necessary, for a reader to doubt their views and start asking questions about their existence and the human’s existence overall. Although the book is billed as a short history, it is just as much a philosophical meditation on the human condition. One great overriding argument runs through it: that all human culture is an invention. The rules of football; the concept of a limited liability company; the laws relating to property and marriage; the character, actions and notional edicts of deities – all are examples of what Harari calls Imagined Order.
‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’ provides a wonderful framework and perspective for guiding and interpreting what we do and how we act as humans. Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our challenges and our achievements, our past and most importantly our future.
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