this is the book review of sapiens-a history of mankind

1. Book Review: Sapiens-A
History of Humankind
-Yuval Noah Harari
Group Members:
Jalpa Gajera (17BCH012)
Nand Desai (17BCH009)
Raj Parikh (17BCH039)
Deep Modi (17BCH024)
Jaimin Raval (17BCH040)

2. About the Book
Author : Yuval Noah Harari
Publisher : Harper
Publication : 2014 (2011 in Hebrew)
Price : 19 $
• Sapiens was published in Hebrew in
2011 and English in 2014, and
quickly became one of the most
talked-about non-fiction titles of
recent years.
• This book is having very complex
subject matter, though it is an ideal
book to read who has interest in
anthropology, human history or
evolutionary biology.

3. About the Author
 Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli
historian and professor.
 He studied medieval history and
military history at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, before
completing his PhD at Jesus
College, Oxford in 2002.
 He is currently a lecturer at the
Department of History, the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. His books
have sold over 23 Million copies
worldwide.
 Much of his work focuses on the
topics of free will, consciousness
and intelligence, and he has given
numerous lectures on human
history.

4. Introduction
 Sapiens starts with explaining the events that shaped history and how we the 'homo
sapiens' became the dominant species on the planet and not any other human specie like
the Neanderthals.
 Then the book explains about the three revolution which shaped the history - The
cognitive revolution, the agricultural revolution and the scientific revolution and how
they spread. It also breaks a lot of myths associated with them .
 It is written in the book that agricultural revolution shaped up simultaneously at
different parts of the earth at the same time ,in contrast of the popular belief that it is
shaped up in a single part and then spread to the other parts of the world .
 Sapiens says to connect past developments with present concerns and to ask question
our basic narratives of the world.
 After that it explains about the "unification of humankind and factors leading to it " .
Likewise our ability to believe in fiction and our ability to gossip were important factors
which helped us build large communities!
 At the last the book explains about the scientific revolution and explains why it is the
most groundbreaking of all .But the book sums up with a question about our beliefs of
the future . "How exactly do we want our future to look like ?! "

5. Book Review
 13.5 billion years ago, matter, energy, time and space came into being ,
About 300,000 years after their appearance, matter and energy started
to convert into complex structures, called atoms, which then combined
into molecules..
 About 3.8. billion years ago, on Earth, these certain molecules
combined to form particularly large structures called organisms.
 About 70,000 years ago, organisms belonging to the species Homo
sapiens started to form even more elaborate structures called cultures.
The subsequent development of these human cultures is called history.
 Three important revolutions shaped the course of history

6. 1. The Cognitive Revolution
 It started history about 70,000 years ago, Harari says the cognitive revolution
to the ability of Sapiens language to communicate about fictions.
 It began the power of Sapiens to tell stories of its real experience to tribal
members who did not share the experience directly and then to tell tales of
imaginary experiences, which fascinated everybody but never actually
happened to anybody.
 Eventually, it converted into the religions and political ideologies.
 Harari gives the standard history of humans from about 70kya to about 12kya.
Sapiens spread out of Africa, decimating and replacing many populations in
the way, including both megafauna and other humans.
 Some of them managed to contribute genes to modern Sapiens, like
Neanderthals, but this is likely cold comfort to animals, peoples, and cultures
buried by rivals that were not individually stronger, but more suited to large-
scale conflicts.

7. 2. Agricultural Revolution
 Harari has given the history of the start of agriculture.
 This is one of the major trends that Harari identifies he says that the
path of history is that stronger collectives absorb or destroy weaker
collectives.
 He has also written that history's choices are not made for the benefit
of humans. There is absolutely no proof that human well-being
inevitably improves as history rolls along. There is no proof that
cultures that are beneficial to humans must inexorably succeed and
spread, while less beneficial cultures must disappear.

8. 3. Scientific revolution
 Modern day science is a unique tradition of knowledge. It openly
admits collective ignorance regarding the most important questions.
After centuries of extensive scientific research, biologists admit that
they still don't have any good explanation for how brains produce
consciousness.
 Harari speculates that evolution has changed our minds and bodies to
the life of hunter.
 Sapiens challenges that human, western civilization, and world history
have all become too complicated, large, and cumbersome in an age of
unreason versus political correctness to serve as subjects for at least
survey courses.

9. Conclusion
 Harari does not announce his doubts about humanity’s survival this
explicitly, but his evidence does.
 In the end of Harari’s book it gives a hope for humankind.
 It imagines a future that postulates another order of Cognitive
Revolution.
 Overall, the book is remarkably even-handed and broad, which is
difficult when talking about the possibilities of the future, including the
values that we might take on.
 I found this book interesting, I suggest that anyone who wants to think
deeply about Moloch, values, or the project of socially determining
values would benefit from reading the book.