Book Review | Sapiens
A Brief History of Humankind | Part 2
Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli Historian, Author and Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was born on February 24, 1976 in Israel. He completed his PhD degree from University of Oxford in 2002. His most famous book is “Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind”. Other books include “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow”, and “21 Lessons for the 21st Century”.
The second part is called “Agricultural Revolution”. In this part, the writer explains the reasons and possibilities of why humanity shifted from hunting and gathering to the Agricultural Revolution due to which they began to settle in villages and towns. With the rise of agricultural revolution, the life of ancient people became difficult over time. People had to struggle harder in order to support their families. Does agricultural revolution make the life of people easier or does it lead them to even more difficult life.
As the people living in different societies and cultures, they began to believe in certain things. Such as empires, money and religion. With every new coming generation the beliefs of the people change. With the passage of time the memory they stored in their minds exceeds so the concept of writing was invented. With the help of writing people save their records such as records of a large empire which can be forgotten if they didn’t save them by writing.
One more point in this part is about differences and equalities among humans. Why do humans divide themselves on the basis of castes, religions, cultures, color of their skin or even on the basis gender. Throughout history, we see that one type of people always controls others by making them believe in certain things. Many questions need to be answered like why humans rule the world, or why white people are considered more intelligent than blacks, or why always men control the states and empires, and why not women?
“The pursuit of an easier life resulted in much hardship, and not for the last time. It happens to us today. How many young college graduates have taken demanding jobs in high-powered firms, vowing that they will work hard to earn money that will enable them to retire and pursue their real interests when they are thirty-five? But by the time they reach that age, they have large mortgages, children to school, houses in the suburbs that necessitate at least two cars per family, and a sense that life is not worth living without really good wine and expensive holidays abroad. What are they supposed to do, go back to digging up roots? No, they double their efforts and keep slaving away.”
“History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets.”
“Money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised.”
“We did not domesticate wheat. It domesticated us.”
“One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations.”
