Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Author: Yuval Noah Harari

This book can be best described as the philosophical musings of a person who has learnt a good deal from the history of life on earth. Surprisingly, the first thing I learnt from this book is that "sapiens" means wise!

Yuval's prose is lucid and he will get you thinking as you read the many interesting theories of how we came to dominate this planet. For instance, Yuval presents convincing arguments that humans crossed over from Siberia to Alaska and got to the Americas somewhere near 12000 BC. Within 3000 years of this crossing, they had occupied all of the Americas, all the way down to Tierra del Fuego and “drove to extinction about half of the planet’s big beasts long before humans invented the wheel, writing, or iron tools.”

I like the way he views the advent of Agriculture as a luxury trap. It was a bad deal for the early hunter gatherers. However, once they were hooked on Agriculture, there was no turning back. The settled life and the availability of cereals allowed them to have many kids and multiply rapidly. The common man who worked the fields day and night was no better off. However as a gene pool we dominated by sheer force of numbers.

There are many parallels to the above discussion in the life we lead today. Does our hyper-connected life with mobile phones and the Internet really mean we are better off individually? We can certainly point to productivity improvements for the population as a whole, but are we, as individuals, leading a more relaxed life? Yuval clearly feels that we are not!

There are many nuggets of wisdom all through this book and it certainly got me thinking. For instance, Yuval argues that happiness does not depend on objective conditions but rather on whether or not our subjective expectations are met.  In the old days, we compared ourselves to our neighbors and there were relatively few of them. Today we are bombarded with pictures of beautifully clad, stunning celebrities that leave us feeling inferior and unhappy. So are we really better off today with all our technological advancements?

I found many memorable pieces of information that I have saved up, like “Each year the US population spends more money on diets than the amount needed to feed all the hungry people in the world” followed by the irony of how it is good for the economy in that “Instead of eating little, which will lead to economic contraction, people eat too much and then buy diet products - contributing to economic growth twice over”.

Read this book for a different view into our history that will leave you scratching your head and wondering if you are really better off than some of our early ancestors. You will find plenty of arguments that are bound to challenge the way you feel about life and happiness.