Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

contentious.

utopia.

vehemently

egalitarian

flimsy

myriad

anthropological

extrapolating

patrilineal

belligerent

bewildering

Talking Ghosts

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humdrum

lascivious

tomb.

charisma

pomp

prosaic

Rorschach

shrouds

ecstatic

they shaped the world around us to a much larger degree than most people realise.

The foragers were there before us and they brought about dramatic changes even in the densest jungles and the most desolate wildernesses. The

exuberance.

archipelago

aeons

The journey of the first humans to Australia is one of the most important events in history, at least as important as Columbus’ journey to America or the Apollo 11 expedition to the moon.

expunged.

marsupial

exonerate

vagaries

scap...

alibi,

flux.

menace.

irrefutable.

recuperated,

abyss.

thrived.

blitzkrieg

menagerie

posit

abetted

inseminate

Wheat demanded a lot of them. Wheat didn’t like rocks and pebbles, so Sapiens broke their backs clearing fields. Wheat didn’t like sharing its space, water and nutrients with other plants, so men and women laboured long days weeding under the scorching sun. Wheat got sick, so Sapiens had to keep a watch out for worms and blight. Wheat was attacked by rabbits and locust swarms, so the farmers built fences and stood guard over the fields. Wheat was thirsty, so humans dug irrigation canals or lugged heavy buckets from the well to water it. Its hunger even impelled Sapiens to collect animal faeces to nourish the ground in which wheat grew.

We did not domesticate wheat. It domesticated us.

Cultivating wheat provided much more food per unit of territory, and thereby enabled Homo sapiens to multiply exponentially.

This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions.

abstinence