Sapiens is one of the best book I have ever read and I seriously think there won’t be any other book which would keep me hooked as sapiens did.
The book Sapiens is a Treasure trove of knowledge and attempting to summarize the book in one single post is a tedious task.
About The Author
Before diving into the summary let’s first look about the magical hands who wrote this book Yuval Noah Harari.
Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli historian and a professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is also the author of the popular science bestsellers Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.
Outline of the Book
The simple Outline of the book Sapiens is simply this-
Atleast 6 humans inhabited the earth. Yet Sapiens only survived. Humans were also at the middle of the food chain years back. Soon it reached the top. How did humans really reach at the top of the chain? and How Humans used thoughts and actions in power to be the most powerful animal on earth?. The Book also talks about the future of humans and about what’s in store for us humans in the future.
SAPIENS SUMMARY
An animal of no significance
About 13.5 billion years ago matter energy and time came into existence and about 70,000 years ago Homo sapiens began to start out complex structures. Homo sapiens in its definition means “wise man”.
While we used to think that we were the only human species, archeology proved us wrong by discovering various species of humans such as homo erectus which lived for 2 million years on this planet making it the most durable human species.
Yuval Noah Harari points out that Homo sapiens won’t survive for another 1000 years let alone a million.
The 3 major revolutions
There has been 3 major revolutions which shaped us human beings.
1.Cognitive revolution
2.Scientific revolution
3.Agriculture revolution
While most of us think that different human species lived on different timelines is totally absurd as many human species existed simultaneously in this planet at one point of time.
Complexity Of The Human Brain
Yuval Noah Harari details us about the complexity of the brain showing that it accounts for 3 percent of the body size but still used 25 percent of the energy intake.
All the animals in the top of the food chain made it up to the top only after millions of years in a gradual and slow manner, But Homo sapiens reached that place in a rapid pace.
Humans were actually in the middle of the food chain until about 400,000 years ago and they reached the at the top of the food chain just before 100000 years.
The Discovery of Fire
The discovery of fire by the sapiens increased the pace of us ruling the food chain, Humans used it at start for warming themselves and cooking food and slowly they used it to burn entire forests down after they started knowing the true power of fire.
The advent of fire also caused humans to evolve and have smaller intestinal track and larger brains.
The Two Theories on How Other Humans Evolved
There are two theories on how Homo sapiens evolved. They are-
1.Interbreeding theory
2.Replacement theory
Interbreeding theory
The interbreeding theory tells us about how sapiens mingled and had sexual with other human species such as Neanderthals. The Neanderthals were large and muscular when compared to sapiens and sapiens merged with them when they spread out to the lands of Neanderthals.
If that’s the case most of the people in this world are not pure sapiens but a combination of the above two.
The Replacement Theory
It is altogether a different story which is more bloodier and genocidal, The sapiens might have found Neanderthals to be annoying and they were genetically different and hence could no mate. If this is the case all humans are indeed pure sapiens
If replacement theory is true it is well the first ever human genocide on earth.
Yuval Noah Harari quotes: “They were too familiar to ignore, but too different to tolerate.”
And the last human species other than us got extinct 12000 years ago.
Why Humans rule this planet?
Why do humans rule the planet instead of any other animal?
Humans were able to rule this planet because of their unique ability to communicate with a well defined language.
The most accepted theory is that accidental genetic mutations caused sapiens brains enable to think in unique ways which no other animal could.
The Power of Myths
The cognitive revolution occurred between 70000 to 300000 years ago.
While all other animals too had a language it wasn’t as sophisticated and well defined as sapiens language and sapiens are the only living things which can talk about things we have never seen heard or smelled.
The Myths, Legend and Religion are all the ideas of humans. No other animals have the concept of the above three.
Gossip theory is one of the important Element which evolved the language.
I have written more about the summary of sapiens here-
https://www.lostonhistory.com/2021/06/sapiens-brief-history-of-humankind-book.html