Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

The secret was probably the appearance of fiction. Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths.

At the time of the Agricultural Revolution, only about a hundred remained. Homo sapiens drove to extinction about half of the planet’s big beasts long before humans invented the wheel, writing, or iron tools.

The Agricultural Revolution certainly enlarged the sum total of food at the disposal of humankind, but the extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure. Rather, it translated into population explosions and pampered elites.

These plants domesticated Homo sapiens, rather than vice versa.

we have to consider how evolutionary success translates into individual experience.