One of the best books I have read!! I first saw this book at a friend’s house in the UK and was soon told that his teenage daughter had first read it and he loved it as well. It is an easy read, with lots of details and storytelling and is fairly objective. I found this book to be engaging, respectful and informative. I will be reading it again and marking the book extensively to be able to use it as a reference.
A fresh perspective of how present-day “homosapiens” evolved to dominate the world over the course of 70,000 years. Yuval Noah Harari provides an insight unparalleled on how agriculture and industrial revolutions changed the course of human history. His take on religion, human rights, money and many other present-day facts are quite unique and leave you wondering. He calls them myths and you sort of agree with him if you can take your bias out of the way. An open mind can enjoy the book most, however, a closed one would find it blasphemous. Based on our past, it provides a very pessimistic end to humanity – which we prove time and again with our environmental and political ways to govern ourselves.
I will discuss the first part of the book on this blog. The Cognitive Revolution:
13.5 Billion years ago BING BANG happened. Matter, energy, time and space came into being. (Physics)
About 300,000 years after, matter and energy started to coalesce into complex structures, called atoms, which then combined into molecules. (Chemistry).
About 3.8 billion years ago, certain molecules combined to form particularly large and intricate structures called organisms. (Biology).
About 2.5 million years ago, humans first evolved in East Africa. We (Pre-historic humans) were no more important and impressive than other mammals. Homo Sapiens means “wise man.” From about 2 million years ago until 10,000 years ago, multiple human species roamed the earth together. The depiction of man evolving from hunched over to upright incorrectly displays human evolution as a linear trajectory. In fact, the species lived simultaneously.
Humankind was very much in the middle of the food chain until 400,000 years ago and didn’t leap to the top of the food chain until 100,000 years ago. Most animals at the top of the food chain made it there gradually over millions of years. Humans, however, jumped to the top relatively rapidly. This means that the rest of the food chain wasn’t ready and neither were we. Hence we feel anxious and stressed because we aren’t used to being at the top. We were able to talk about things we had never seen, touched, or smelled. Think religions, myths, legends, and fantasies.
There are two theories of how Homo sapiens evolved: Interbreeding theory and Replacement theory. The reality is probably a combination of both theories. Harari reasons this is why Homo sapiens wiped out the Neanderthals: “They were too familiar to ignore but too different to tolerate.”
About 70,000 to about 30,000 years ago, the Cognitive Revolution occurred. Homo sapiens started to communicate at a level never seen before in language. Homo sapiens started to form even more elaborate structures called cultures. between 70,000 to 30,000 years ago. Our brains evolved brains more than the rest of the living beings. Ever since we have been living in a dual reality: the physical reality and the imagined reality. We are able to coexist in large numbers by changing our stories and fantasies: religion, culture, laws….. (History)
Chimps, our closest relatives, can’t form groups of more than 50 or so. For humans, the group size is usually 150 or so. Beyond that, you can’t rely on gossip and personal communication. You need something more to get large numbers of people working together. Large numbers of people can collaborate by sharing common myths and beliefs.
One thought which stayed with me “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.”.
There have been three major revolutions in human history: the cognitive revolution, the agricultural revolution, and the scientific revolution. About 12,000 years ago, the Agricultural Revolution sped the cognitive revolution up. Just about 500 years ago, the Scientific Revolution, may well end history and start something completely different.
This book tells the story of how these three revolutions have affected humans and their fellow organisms.
To be continued…..
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