Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens.

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?

In Sapiens, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical – and sometimes devastating – breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, paleontology and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come?

Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our power ... and our future.

Title : Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Edition Language : English
ISBN : null
Format Type :

    Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Reviews

  • Maciek

    Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is a book bound to appear on a large number of coffee tables and favorite lists, and be picked up even by those who normally would not find the time for reading. ...

  • William2

    This book is a superficial gloss on human history. Nice try but it excludes too much data in favor of an overarching conceptual view to be deeply interesting. Stopped reading for reasons detailed belo...

  • Emily May

    Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don't know what they want? What a fantastic book. I can see why everyone from Bill Gates to Barack Obama was raving abo...

  • Marc Gerstein

    Had I stopped reading after the first section, I’d have given this a five stars and whined that the Goodreads platform doesn’t aloe reviewers to go higher. But I didn’t stop. I kept reading, . ....

  • Moran

    I believe I am relatively familiar with history in general, and I'm usually not very excited about reading more about it. But this book was something else. Beautifully written and easy to read, this b...

  • Liad Magen

    This book had changed my life, the way I think, the way I precept the world.I think it should be an obligatory book for everyone on this planet....

  • Manny

    I see many people complaining about the wild leaps of logic and the lack of footnotes - but honestly, what did you expect in a 500 page book, not even with small print, that's supposed to give you a s...

  • Adina

    It is again unpopular opinion time! It seems it becomes a rule for me not to enjoy a book that everyone seems to love. Well, someone has to. Here we go with the review. Prepare your tomatoes and raw e...

  • Michael Finocchiaro

    History and Sociology for Dummies, this book is almost irrecoverably watered down intellectually. [and for all those commenters that think I am calling them dummies, I am simply referring to the popul...

  • BlackOxford

    Choose Your Fictions CarefullyThere are far too many fascinating assertions in this book to even mention. But for me the most fascinating is Harari’s idea of the Cognitive Revolution which took plac...