Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

By Yuval Noah Harari

Harari traces the evolution of Homo society from prehistoric hunter-gatherers to modern global society through the development and evolution of new patterns of cooperation and competition.  He argues that these new patterns of cooperation and competition have led to both the “unification of humankind,” (i.e. the growing perception of ourselves as having a single unifying identity), and the possibility that we will collectively destroy ourselves. He discusses how money, empires, and organized religions helped unify large groups of people under common frameworks, which made it possible to develop larger societies. These larger societies tended to dominate smaller ones, by either incorporating them or destroying them, and in so doing they laid the foundations for increased cooperation and increased capacity for destruction. As empires, trade networks, and belief systems connected more and more previously disconnected human populations, we created the modern world with all its wonders and problems. The foundations of modernity (science, capitalism, individualism) brought immense power, but in the process, they have eroded traditional sources of meaning, community, and certainty, leading to a modern existential crisis, but also opening up the possibility of a more humane global civilization, and the continued evolution and development of Homo sapiens.