Book Review- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

 

 Human beings are the happiest when wandering

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Disclaimer- This book review is majorly a self-contemplation. The personalized meaning derived from books vis-à-vis life experiences. The quotes are used directly from the book. 

Ever guessed why do we love sweets or amaze that individual freedom was propagated to make us buy more stuff or wonder that human beings were the happiest when we were wanderers. 

This book is a kind of panoramic view of human evolution that is full of polemics and puzzling revelations. It took me nearly one month to skim this book. The time and analysis are required to sink in with the author’s idea and revelations, to enjoy the journey of our evolution through time on Earth, and be wholly immersed in the wondrous intellect and lightning wit that define Harari’s work. 

The idea that holds me throughout the book is - Homo sapiens rule the world because it is the only animal that can acknowledge things that exist purely in imagination, such as gods, states, status, money, and human rights. 

Starting from this provocative idea, Sapiens goes on to retell the record of our species from a completely raw perspective. It explains that money is the vastly pluralistic system of mutual trust ever devised; that capitalism is the most profitable religion ever invented; that the treatment of animals in modern agriculture is perhaps the worst crime in history; and that even though we are far more powerful than our ancient ancestors, we aren’t much happier. It is a speculative reconstruction of human evolution, supplemented by the author’s thoughts on recorded history and the human condition. 

In brief, it helped me uncover why we are the way we are. Taking both the macro and the micro view, Sapiens- the book conveys not only what happened and why, but also how it felt for individuals. 

I would recommend this book to those who are willing to dare their prevailing belief and notion on human evolutionary history and are ready to broaden the view to look at the world around them. 

Some of my favorite lines from the book are- 

“Consistency is the playground of dull minds.” 

“The romantic contrast between the modern industry that “destroys nature” and our ancestors who “lived in harmony with nature” is groundless. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving the most plant and animal species to their extinction. We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of life.” 

“Happiness does not depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health, or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.” 

“Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. Any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city, or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination.” 

“A meaningful life can be extremely satisfying even amid hardship, whereas a meaningless life is a terrible ordeal no matter how comfortable it is.”