Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

Just 6 million years ago, a single female ape had two daughters. One became the ancestor of all chimpanzees, the other is our own grandmother.

It is doubtful whether Homo sapiens will still be around a thousand years from now,

Sapiens can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of strangers. That’s why Sapiens rule the world, whereas ants eat our leftovers and chimps are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.

Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths.

There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.

when it succeeds, it gives Sapiens immense power, because it enables millions of strangers to cooperate and work towards common goals.

Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, there hasn’t been a single natural way of life for Sapiens. There are only cultural choices, from among a bewildering palette of possibilities.

evidence of domesticated dogs from

about 15,000 years ago.

the two species co-evolved to communicate well with each other.

inter-subjective is something that exists within the communication network linking the subjective consciousness of many individuals. If a single individual changes his or her beliefs, or even dies, it is of little importance. However, if most individuals in the

network die or change their beliefs, the inter-subjective phenomenon will mutate or disappear.

Many of history’s most important drivers are inter-subjective: law, money, gods, nations.

The most important impact of script on human history is precisely this: it has gradually changed the way humans think and view the world. Free

association and holistic thought have given way to compartmentalisation and bureaucracy.

Crucial parts of their thought process take place not in the head, but inside computers or on classroom blackboards.

Despite its proclamation of the equality of all men, the imagined order established by the Americans in 1776 also established a hierarchy. It created a hierarchy between men, who benefited from it, and women, whom it left disempowered.

It created a hierarchy between whites, who enjoyed liberty, and blacks

and American Indians, who were considered humans of a lesser type and therefore did not...

hierarchy between rich and poor.

One hierarchy, however, has been of supreme importance in all known human societies: the hierarchy of gender.

‘Biology enables, Culture forbids.’

Whatever is possible is by definition also natural.

our concepts ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ are taken not

from biology, but from Christian theology.

‘sex’, which is a biological category, and ‘gender’, a cultural category.

superior social skills and a greater tendency to cooperate.

Though the gender gap is still significant, events have been moving at a breathtaking speed.

Myths and fictions accustomed people, nearly from the moment of birth, to think in certain ways,

to behave in accordance with certain standards, to want certain things, and to observe certain rules.

Unlike the laws of physics, which are free of inconsistencies, every man-made order is packed with internal contradictions.

Such contradictions are an inseparable part of every human culture. In fact, they are culture’s engines, responsible for the creativity and dynamism of our species.

discord in our thoughts,

ideas and values compel us to think, reevaluat...

Cognitive dissonance is often considered a failure of the human psyche.

In fact, it is a vital asset.

But these break-ups are temporary reversals in an inexorable trend towards unity.

The first universal order to appear was economic: the monetary order. The second universal order was political: the imperial order. The third universal order was religious: the order of universal religions such as Buddhism, Christianity and Islam.

religion has been the third great unifier of humankind,

The crucial historical role of religion has been to give superhuman legitimacy to these fragile structures. Religions

The insight of polytheism is conducive to far-reaching religious tolerance.

In contrast, over the course of the next 1,500 years, Christians slaughtered Christians by the millions to defend slightly different interpretations of the religion of love and compassion.

Protestants believed that the divine love is so great that God was incarnated in flesh and allowed Himself to be tortured and crucified,

thereby redeeming the original sin and opening the gates of heaven to all those who professed faith in Him.

Catholics maintained that faith, while essential, was not enough. To enter heaven, believers had to participate in ...

Whoever thinks that entry to heaven depends upon his or her own good deeds magnifies his own importance, and implies that Christ’s suffering on the cross and God’s love for humankind are not enough.

during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Catholics and Protestants killed each other by the hundreds of thousands.

On 23 August 1572, French Catholics who stressed the importance of good deeds attacked communities of French Protestants who highligh...

attack, the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, between 5,000 and 10,000 Protestants were slaughtered in less than twenty-four hours. When the pope in Rome heard the news from France, he was so overcome by joy that he organised festive pr...

to decorate one of the Vatican’s rooms with a fresco of the massacre (the room is current...