Introducing Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Seventy thousand years ago, the species Homo sapiens was like a forlorn wanderer in the grasslands of Africa, minding only its own business. But today it can rule over a world. How did an "insignificant" creature that scraped by eating insects and the leftovers of carcasses hunted by large carnivores become the lord of the universe and godlike?

In "Sapiens," Yuval Noah Harari, by examining the history of three revolutions—the Cognitive, Agricultural, and Scientific Revolutions—presents a wondrous and captivating narrative of the impact of these three revolutions on humans and nature, and attempts to answer the question of how the all-encompassing dominion of Homo sapiens over the world became possible:

What is the difference between us and other creatures that has caused such tremendous and miraculous transformations? Harari believes that our distinguishing feature from other creatures is not at the individual level. At the individual level, we are embarrassingly similar to other primates like chimpanzees and baboons. With the caveat, of course, that other primates probably function better for survival and are superior to us. At the collective level, millions of Homo sapiens can cooperate with one another, but a group of more than one hundred and fifty primates will, sooner or later, split up. Cooperation beyond this number is found in bees and ants. But this cooperation manifests in an inflexible and rigid manner. Why do "ants feed on the remains of our food and chimpanzees are confined in zoos and research laboratories," while we are the masters of the world?

The secret of Homo sapiens' success was its unique language. "All animals have some kind of language. Even insects like bees and ants can communicate with each other in their own complex way and inform one another of the location of food." Although language was a fundamental factor in human progress, it was not sufficient:

"The key to this probably lay in the formation of the power of imagination. Large numbers of strange and unfamiliar individuals, by believing in common myths, can successfully cooperate with one another. ... Two Catholics who have never met each other can go on a crusade together ... because they believe that God became incarnate in human form and allowed himself to be crucified to redeem us from the burden of sin. Two Serbs who do not know each other at all might risk their lives for one another because both believe in the existence of the Serbian nation and the Serbian homeland."

Useful and shared myths, with the ability to create imagined realities such as human rights, money, nations, laws, norms, and values, enable the cooperation of large human groups.

"Sapiens" is the story of the construction and emergence of these shared myths. Money, the Agricultural Revolution, the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, empires, religions, writing, justice, capitalism, the meaning of life, and the history of happiness and the destiny of Homo sapiens are all narrated in an extremely captivating way.

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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Author: Yuval Noah Harari

Translator: Nik Gergeen

Publisher: Farhang-e Nashr-e No

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The book Sapiens has been translated into more than 30 languages and also won China's Wenjin Award in 2015.

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The Rise of Imagination – Introducing the Book Sapiens

Book Introduction Author: Ali Ahmadi

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