Two years ago, I picked up the Sapiens mostly out of curiosity and the constant recommendation from my father. At first, I only saw Sapiens as a scary and complicated history book. However, the book truly opened my perspective on how different ideas and factors shaped the society today and lead me onto an interest of history.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari is a general history of humans from the evolution of humans themselves to the creation of modern society as we see it today. I enjoyed the book because it was not only a book that listed historical facts: majority of the book was analysis from Harari’s perspective on economy, technology, language, and so much more.
Personally, the book was mind-blowing because it answered several internal curiosities I internally had (and didn’t really think an answer too). I was often unsure about how several systems in our society today (money, thought, values) were structured, but Harari proved that were answers to the questions. More surprisingly, the book had a very simplistic approach to explaining these concepts. From this book, I expected complicated approaches to these often confusing topics, but Harari provided straightforward claims with clear examples, such as cowry shells for universal currency.
My favorite part of the book was the chapter “The Tree of Knowledge.” The chapter detailed the beginning of human’s dominance in the world as imagination. From the first doll to corporate companies today, many things exist only through the imagination but also tied to physical things. I was very confused at first, but several of these concepts were actually true. For example, several laws in place today are not physical, but thoughts that we set to follow. They can easily be broken, but influence tangible objects like money and they set an imaginary boundary for citizens to follow. I thought that humans just creating these concepts that seem so ordinary felt so powerful and made me reconsider the true power that thoughts can have.
One thing I felt was that many of Harari’s ideas could be seen in other books. I realized this a lot later when reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond that his ideas were seen in Sapiens. I understand that Harari was very influenced by Diamond, but I believed that there could have been more unique perspective on those similar ideas, such as the evolution of animals and lifestock.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in history. If one has already read this book, I would recommend Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert, and 21 Lessons from the 21st Century also by Yuval Noah Harari.
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