This book was pretty good. I highly recommend it for anyone that likes learning about the history and evolution of humans. Yuval Noah Harari presents the history of humankind from about 100,000 years ago until the modern day, with a look at where things are heading into the future. Pretty comprehensive. The book has a certain dry humor and a very matter of fact attitude (especially in regards to religion) that may turn off some readers.
He starts out with what makes homo sapiens better than the other humans who have popped up during the ages. Oddly, sapiens were actually not the best adapted for world domination at first. Neanderthals and some of the others were better for different environments. We did not have an edge.
And then something happened around 70,000 years ago: the Cognitive Revolution. Harari posits that sapiens brains underwent a change. We were able to imagine. He spends a good portion of the first part of the book explaining why this was so important. Without the ability to use imagination we could not work in large groups (giving authority to a centralized figure means we have to believe the person actually has authority). It becomes a little hard to think about at first, but he does a great job of explaining it.
Next he talks about the Agricultural Revolution. It had some odd effects. We like to think that it was probably the greatest thing to happen to sapiens, but in reality, it was actually pretty bad. Our diet became worse, we had to work longer & harder to produce food, not to mention the environmental issues.
The other main stages are the unification of humankind (which he says is the natural progression–despite what we may think, there are actually less small groups of people today and we are slowing going towards a single, global empire) & the Scientific Revolution (which started around 1500 CE and has been the driving force for the last five hundred years).
I definitely think people should check out the book, it is fascinating and if you read Guns, Germs, and Steel, you will love it.
