What am I? How did I end up here? Why? What is humanity? If I am at this place in my life right now, were my ancestors doing the same when they were my age? If not, what else were they doing? Was their life better and easier than mine?
We ask all these questions to ourselves often when we come back from our 9 to 5 job or while sitting in front of the TV, tired from the day’s work yet mentally preparing to do the same job the next day. We often find ourselves spiralling down the hole of existential crisis. All these thoughts often make us wonder about our existence and the journey of human beings over millennia. Yuval Noah Harari helps us with these questions by telling us a story, a story of the history of humankind.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is exactly what you would expect it to be. It starts by taking us back in time to our ape-like ancestors gathering fruits and hunting animals. Then over the course of the book, we witness them evolving until they eventually create the world in which we exist today. Harari shows us how the discovery of the things that we take for granted today, like fire and language, impacted history and changed the destiny of Sapiens eventually forming the society of today.
When the book starts, we are present in the world of 14 billion years ago as a spectator. We then swiftly travel time and reach the first out of four milestones of humanity mentioned in the book, the cognitive revolution. It is at this point that we meet our simian forefathers and start observing their actions over the course of centuries. This journey through time not only debunks various myths related to our hunter-gatherer forefathers but also helps us understand why we started believing those myths in the first place. Apart from helping us grasp a better understanding of the world of billions of years ago, it also gives us an insight into the latest political hot topics of today like gender, race, nationality and religion by mentioning human experiences from centuries ago that resulted in these issues. The narrator constantly draws comparisons between the lives of these ape-like humans from the past and the sapiens of the technologically advanced world of today.
The author writes the historical account in a manner in which the reader sees a species evolving and eventually taking over the planet.
The book does not give an impression of a history book, but rather a storybook with a narrator who has a good sense of humour yet is able to seriously convey the knowledge. A fine example of the witty sense of humour of the author is displayed where he explains that a bigger brain (in Neanderthals) eventually evolved into a smaller one because of its size and the energy it consumed. The author expresses it by saying “a jumbo brain is a jumbo drain on the body”. Thus the writing style keeps the reader interested as they drift through time and space through this book.
The narrator conceptualises the image of the society of centuries ago by occasionally drawing a contrast between the lives, society and habits of our hunter-gatherer forefathers and ourselves. It makes the reader realise that even after millennia of evolution, our minds still work in a very similar way to those of our forefathers. Despite all the facilities we have developed for ourselves, learning the history of our ancestors has the potential to make us envious of their lifestyles.
For instance, the book mentions the difference in work ethic and the work-life ratio of a modern human being and a forager from thousands of years ago which emphasises the fact that an average life for a common human being is more difficult today than it was centuries ago. For example, one statistic mentioned in the book is as follows:
“While people in today’s aʀuent societies work an average of forty to forty-five hours a week, and people in the developing world work sixty and even eighty hours a week, hunter-gatherers living today in the most inhospitable of habitats – such as the Kalahari Desert work on average for just thirty-five to forty-five hours a week.”
Factors like these eventually result in the unhappy lifestyle of sapiens as well as many other species which otherwise seem to have succeeded on the evolutionary front but are lacking in the quality of lifestyle they spend on this planet alive.
It is a well-known idea that humans have been the cause of exploitation throughout history, whether it is of their own mates or the resources of the earth including other species. In this book, Harari explains why we and our ancestors have acted in such destructive ways. He then goes on to answer why no one stopped it all from happening. Apart from that, this book presents another way of looking at the situation.
The author describes how this situation can be looked at from another perspective where we will be able to see that despite all of our preconceived notions, the roles have been reversed and now it is humans who are being exploited by a couple of animal and plant species. This is an example of the author’s ability to see the situation from multiple angles and then presenting a conclusion. Most importantly, these rather complex ideas are elaborated in an easily understandable manner.
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The author talks about the current situation of human existence where we are living in a dual reality. He gives us an account of the sequence of events that have led up to our current state where on one hand humans perceive “the objective reality of rivers, trees and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations and corporations.” Understanding this concept helps broaden our outlook on life. This realisation urges the reader to reflect on their priorities and ideologies in life.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is a knowledge-imparting as well as a thought-provoking book. The writing is easy to understand and the vocabulary used is not complex. The history of evolution is explained in an uncomplicated way making the experience a smooth sail. I will recommend the book to anyone who is curious about the topic. It is one of those books which changes your outlook toward life and humanity.
Laiba Obaid is a rising content writer. Pursuing her passion for literature, she has done her Bachelors in English Literature from GCU Lahore. Her educational background along with her hobby of book reading has equipped her with the essential writing skills. She particularly enjoys presenting her opinion about books by writing book reviews.
