Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

Humanity’s search for an easier life released immense forces of change that transformed the world in ways nobody envisioned or wanted.

Human laws and norms have turned some people into slaves and others into masters.

Today most of us speak, think and dream in imperial languages that were forced upon our ancestors by the sword.

Nobody really knows how to solve this thorny question of cultural inheritance. Whatever path we take, the first step is to acknowledge the complexity of the dilemma and to accept that simplistically dividing the past into good guys and bad guys leads nowhere. Unless, of course, we are willing to admit that we usually follow the lead of the bad guys.

The Nobel Peace Prize to end all peace prizes should have been given to Robert Oppenheimer and his fellow architects of the atomic bomb. Nuclear weapons have turned war between superpowers into collective suicide, and made it impossible to seek world domination by force of arms.