by Rashi Goel
Sapiens is a brief, succinct, and crisp account of human history and evolution accompanied by the author’s speculation about the future. The title ‘Sapiens’ itself suggests that the author takes a scientific approach towards describing his ideas. It briefly describes the developments in history, anthropology, science, economics to philosophy, and psychology. The approach of the author is also seemingly reductionist and liberal.
The book is divided into four major parts: The Cognitive Revolution, the Agricultural Revolution, the Unification of Humankind, the Scientific Revolution. In the first part, the author takes us down an anthropological and evolutionary lane. Homo Sapiens in their latest form are rather nascent. There were others like Neandrethals that formed a part of the Homo species and co-existed with Sapiens years ago. The author describes why and how the other homo species faced extinction and at the end of the day ‘homo sapiens’ won the race of natural selection. Harari does a good job of explaining the conditions prevailing before the agricultural revolution. We get to sneak a peek into the lives of our forefathers which are constantly referred to us as hunters and foragers by the author. Linguistic developments were a major part of the cognitive revolution. The author takes stalk of cooperative abilities of human beings arising from beliefs in imagined realities like the nation, law, god, money, etc. which led to the development in and of society. This ability is also thought of as a feature that separates us from other species on the planet.
The author has a very interesting take on the agricultural revolution. It is regarded as the biggest ‘fraud’ of history which marked the onset of misery amongst human beings. The domestication of wheat in turn led to the domestication of people. According to the author, “a Faustian bargain between humans and grains” in which our species “cast off its intimate symbiosis with nature and sprinted towards greed and alienation.” The Agricultural Revolution brought about a worse diet, long working hours, risks of famine, and ugly forms of hierarchy. According to the author, we were better off in the stone age. But it did allow people to collect food which resulted in overall exponential multiplication of population. It did not just cause suffering for human beings but also for domesticated animals like cows, sheep and chickens as well. Thus, the author recognizes that the earliest seeds of capitalism were sowed with the advent of the Agricultural Revolution. Agricultural revolution corresponded with the birth of private property which was a major tool used by the bourgeoisie to exert their influence and created an underclass that would maintain the properties and lives of a select few. Harari stresses the point that the agricultural revolution created worries about the future like weather, crop yield, etc. This can again be related to the contemporary discourse on the “death of future” at the hands of financial capitalism.
The author also talks about how important the event of discovery of writing was in history. It helped us remember things better. The evolution of writing is an interesting segment. Another fascinating concept that the author introduced was how “unnatural” behavior is just a result of Christian theology and not biology. The author believes that if something is possible biologically, then it is natural.
Section three of the book i.e. “Unification of Humankind” focuses mainly on the growing unity between different parts of the globe. The most interesting parts of this section had to do with the creation of money and the development of religion and ideology. The massive role that religion played in global imperialism is well highlighted. His extrapolation of communism as a religion-like phenomenon is naive underwhelming.
The fourth and final part discusses the Scientific Revolution. It starts with the insight that the discovery of ignorance laid out the path to scientific developments. The moment people realised that they have been ignorant towards their surroundings and that they do not really know ‘anything’ sparked the curiosity to know more. Part four basically evaluates the world in terms of money. Imperialism, capitalism, and modern science. Towards the end of the book the author tends to delve into the philosophy of things. He poses a pertinent question here, i.e. whether the advancements in the society which involved doing away with the nomadic lifestyle result in the overall looming unhappiness amongst people. He discusses various meanings, theories, and factors inducing happiness. Focusing mainly on the Buddhist philosophy and scientific hormonal aspect of happiness. Harari talks about the meaning of life and how having a purpose makes life a little more livable but he also points out the intrinsic meaninglessness of it all by describing human life as a chance occurrence due to random biological processes and if the earth were to explode today the universe would still carry on with its business. In his final chapter, Harari walks the reader through some possibilities for our future but reminds the reader that we don’t really know what’s next, except that it will likely push humanity further than ever before: perhaps even into something that’s not human at all.
I would recommend this book to everyone whether they are interested in the history of things or not. It is a set of well thought out and thought-provoking stories and discussion. Whether one agrees with the hidden biases of the author is secondary. The book is informative and unlike most history books it is borderline interesting. It might initially have a textbook tone but it grows on the reader faster than they would imagine.