Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

Homo sapiens drove to extinction about half of the planet’s big beasts long before humans invented the wheel, writing or iron tools.

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

Yet from the viewpoint of the herd, rather than that of the shepherd, it’s hard to avoid the impression that for the vast majority of domesticated animals, the Agricultural Revolution was a terrible catastrophe.