plants:
domestication of 77–8, 80, 81, 83, 85, 97, 100, 211–12
genetic engineering of 401
mechanisation of 341–2
Polynesians 73, 283
population numbers 47, 59, 79, 83, 84, 86, 87, 98, 190–1, 247, 277, 292, 295, 301, 305, 333, 336, 351
Portugal 59–60, 194, 198, 283, 284, 297, 316, 318
postmodernism 243
poverty 130–1, 143, 214, 224, 264, 265–6, 332, 382, 384
progress, the ideal of 264–7
Protestant Church 137, 216, 318
Purusa 135
Qin dynasty 103, 105, 357
Qing dynasty 280, 316
Qín Shĭ Huángdì 197
quantum mechanics 21, 131, 252, 256, 258, 259
quipu 125–6, 125, 127
race 15, 134–5, 135, 138, 140–4, 145, 196, 232–6, 234, 241, 253, 277, 301, 302–4
railways 205, 205, 281–2, 337–8, 354
raw materials 48, 50, 92, 180, 333, 334–6, 339–41, 342, 364
Rawlinson, Henry 298–9, 300
religion 18
Agricultural Revolution and 90–1, 90, 211–13
animism and see animism
birth of 18, 24, 54–5, 60
definition of 210
dualism 220–3
free will and 220–1
happiness and 394–6
hierarchies and 138–9
hindsight fallacy and 238–9
humanist 228–36
hunter-gatherers and 54–5
language and emergence of 24–5, 27, 28
local and exclusive 210–11
monotheistic 213, 214, 215, 217–21, 222, 223, 227, 230, 231–2, 237, 238,
239, 401
natural-law religions 223–7, 228
patron saints 219–20
polytheistic viii, ix, 212–16, 217, 218–20, 223, 238
Problem of Evil 220, 221
science and 252, 253, 254, 255, 266–7, 271, 272, 273, 274, 348, 349
syncretism 223, 230
see also mythology and under individual religion name
Replacement Theory 14–16
research, funding of scientific 271–4
Roman Empire ix, 18, 55, 95–6, 102, 103, 104, 105, 153, 167, 183, 184, 188–9, 192, 193–4, 196, 198, 199, 200–1, 202, 203, 208, 214, 215, 216, 218, 219, 222, 238, 239, 244, 262–3, 279, 284, 289–90, 291, 302, 370
romantic consumerism 115–16
Rousseau, Jacques 393
Royal Navy 153, 277, 284
Royal Society 275–6, 277
sacrifice, human 52, 58
Safavid Empire 280, 296
Salviati World Map, 1525 289
Samarkand 209
Samoa 73
Sargon the Great ix, 103, 194–5
Sassanid Persian Empire 222, 241, 242, 262, 354
Scientific Revolution ix, 3, 244, 245, 247–414
Scotland 193, 220, 256–8, 296
Scottish Widows 256–8
script, partial and full 124–7, 124, 130
scurvy 276–7
sea levels 7, 64, 69, 167, 351
Second World War, 1939–45 234, 261–2, 326, 354, 366
Seleucid Empire 188, 263
Seneca 193
Severus, Emperor Septimius 200
sexual relations 4, 14–15, 16, 17, 34, 35, 40, 41–2, 43, 45, 84, 93, 141, 143, 145, 146, 147, 148–9, 150, 151, 152, 153, 159, 179, 186, 226, 232, 360–1, 377, 386, 393, 400, 411
Shaw, George Bernard: Pygmalion 136–7
shells, trading in 35, 36, 103, 174, 177, 178, 179, 180
Shudras 135, 136, 144
Siberia 7–8, 16, 62, 67, 69, 70, 196, 275, 340, 402
silver shekel 107, 120, 182
singularity 409–11
skeleton, effect of Agricultural Revolution on human 10, 80–1
slavery 74, 96, 104, 106, 107, 110, 111, 120, 133, 134, 136, 138, 140–3, 154, 156, 181, 182, 186, 188, 209, 279, 292, 305, 330–1, 332, 333, 338, 343, 361, 372
Smith, Adam 113, 271, 283, 311–12, 329; The Wealth of Nations 311–12, 329
social structure 11, 21, 25, 34, 41, 60, 61, 77, 94, 120, 144, 282, 342, 364, 396, 402 see also hierarchies
socialist humanism 231–2, 233
Solander, Daniel 276
Solomon Islands 73
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander 165
Song Empire 263
South Africa 78, 135, 135, 194, 200, 218, 275
South America 71, 78, 126, 168, 284, 291–6, 318, 370, 371, 374
Soviet Union 176, 196, 198, 272–3, 369–70
Spain 125, 126, 168, 170, 173, 189, 194, 198, 201, 247, 248, 283, 284, 286, 291–6, 297, 298, 312, 316–21
species, classification of 4–5
St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, 1572 216
Stadel Cave: lion-man in 21, 23, 23, 28, 32, 39, 400
statistics 256–9, 269, 366
Stoicism 223
Stone Age 12, 39, 41, 42, 55, 67, 377
Sudan 60, 95, 196
Suez Canal 326
Sullivan, Jesse 405, 406
Sumer/Sumerians 122–6, 128, 129n, 181, 267, 308
Sungir, Russia 56–8
superhuman order 210, 223, 228, 229
superhumans ix, 233, 236, 403, 410
Syria 42, 106, 183, 194, 200, 201, 209, 363, 364, 370, 371
Tacitus 193–4
Tahiti 276
Taj Mahal 193, 206, 206
Talmud 193
Tasmania 163, 167, 168, 277, 278, 279, 379
taxes 29, 103, 104, 120, 121, 124, 126, 127, 129, 165, 174, 178, 180, 183, 191, 198, 220, 241, 249, 273, 309, 314, 316, 320, 328, 336, 357, 358, 359, 373
Tenochtitlan 294, 295
Teotihuacan 167
Theism 55 see also monotheism; polytheism and dualism
Theory of Relativity 131, 229, 256
thought-control 406–7
Tierra del Fuego 70
time, modern 352–5
Toltecs 292
Tonga 73
tools, first stone viii, 7, 9–10, 11, 14, 19, 20, 33, 35, 38, 42, 61, 85
tourism 115–16
trade 35–6, 38, 46–7, 64, 103, 119, 140, 141, 170, 172, 175, 176, 177, 178, 181, 185, 186, 198, 212, 240, 272, 289, 310, 313, 316, 318, 319, 321, 322, 326, 330, 331–2, 333, 343, 373–4, 415
Trajan, Emperor 200
Truganini 278, 279, 279, 379
Turkey 77, 89, 194, 201, 203, 209, 283, 327, 338, 371
unification of humankind, the 161, 163–244
United Nations 32, 370
United States 4, 18, 30, 43, 64, 105, 105, 107–9, 110, 111, 112, 118, 133, 134, 138, 140–3, 144, 145, 150, 151, 165, 172, 184, 196, 197–8, 199, 230, 234, 239, 248, 249, 261–2, 272–3, 280, 281, 282, 285–6, 297, 304, 346, 348, 369, 376, 381, 384, 405–7 see also America
US Civil War, 1861–5 111, 141
US Constitution 141
universal orders 55, 170–2 see also money; empires and religion
University of Mississippi 142–3
V-2 rocket 261, 261
Vaishyas 135
Valence, Emperor 167
van Leeuwenhoek, Anton 248–9
Vasco de Gama 284
Vereenigde Osstindische Compagnie (VOC) 321–2, 325, 332
Verne, Jules 248
Vespucci, Amerigo 287–8
Victoria, Queen 326
Vietnam War, 1956–75 297, 369
Voltaire 111
Waldseemüller, Martin 288
Wall Street 38, 322, 323, 323, 374
Wallace, Robert 256–8
war, disappearance of international 370–5
Waterloo, battle of, 1815 268
weaponry 260–4, 277
Webster, Alexander 256–8
wheat, Agricultural Revolution and 12, 51, 77, 78, 79, 80–1, 83–8, 89–91, 97, 179, 183, 313, 336
women:
Agricultural Revolution and 86
hierarchies and 133, 134, 143, 144–5, 146, 147, 148–59
hunter-gatherer 10, 41, 51, 52–3, 72, 80, 84, 86
liberation of the individual and 360
sex and gender 148–59
Wrangel Island, Arctic Ocean 67
writing, evolution of 119–32
Wu Zetian of China, Empress 153
Yoruba religion 214
Yupik 196
Zheng He, Admiral 290–1, 296
Zimrilim of Mari, King 127
Zoroastrianism 221–2, 237, 238
Zulu Empire 194
Acknowledgements
For their advice and assistance, thanks to: Sarai Aharoni, Dorit Aharonov, Amos Avisar, Tzafrir Barzilai, Katherine Beitner, Noah Beninga, Suzanne Dean, Tirza Eisenberg, Amir Fink, Einat Harari, Liat Harari, Pnina Harari, Sara Holloway, Benjamin Z. Kedar, Yossi Maurey, Eyal Miller, David Milner, John Purcell, Simon Rhodes, Shmuel Rosner, Rami Rotholz, Michal Shavit, Michael Shenkar, Ellie Steel, Ofer Steinitz, Claire Wachtel, Hannah Wood, Guy Zaslavsky and all the teachers and students in the World History programme of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
I am particularly indebted to Idan Sherer, my devoted research assistant, and to Haim Watzman, a master wordsmith, who enriched my English with style, punch and humor, and who helped hone my arguments for publication outside Israel.
Special thanks to Jared Diamond, who taught me to see the big picture; to Diego Olstein, who inspired me to write a story; and to Itzik Yahav and Deborah Harris, who helped spread the story around.
About the Author
Dr. YUVAL NOAH HARARI has a PhD in history from the University of Oxford and now lectures at the Department of History, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in world history. His research focuses on broad historical questions, such as: What is the relation between history and biology? Is there justice in history? Did people become happier as history unfolded?
Sapiens was originally published in Israel in 2011, quickly becoming a huge bestseller. It is now being translated into more than twenty languages. Thousands of people have taken Dr. Harari’s online course, A Brief History of Humankind, and his YouTube lectures have drawn hundreds of thousands of views worldwide. In 2012 he was awarded the Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality in the Humanistic Disciplines.
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Credits
COVER DESIGN © SUZANNE DEAN
Copyright
SAPIENS. Copyright © 2015 by Yuval Noah Harari. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Translated by the author, with the help of John Purcell and Haim Watzman.
First published in Hebrew in Israel in 2011 by Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan, Dvir.
Previously published in a slightly different form in Great Britain in 2014 by Harvill Secker, a division of the Random House Group Ltd.
FIRST U.S. EDITION
ISBN: 978-0-06-231609-7
EPub Edition February 2015 ISBN 9780062316103
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* Here and in the following pages, when speaking about Sapiens language, I refer to the basic linguistic abilities of our species and not to a particular dialect. English, Hindi and Chinese are all variants of Sapiens language. Apparently, even at the time of the Cognitive Revolution, different Sapiens groups had different dialects.
* A ‘horizon of possibilities’ means the entire spectrum of beliefs, practices and experiences that are open before a particular society, given its ecological, technological and cultural limitations. Each society and each individual usually explore only a tiny fraction of their horizon of possibilities.
* It might be argued that not all eighteen ancient Danubians actually died from the violence whose marks can be seen on their remains. Some were only injured. However, this is probably counterbalanced by deaths from trauma to soft tissues and from the invisible deprivations that accompany war.
* Even after Akkadian became the spoken language, Sumerian remained the language of administration and thus the language recorded with writing. Aspiring scribes thus had to speak Sumerian.
* An ‘intimate community’ is a group of people who know one another well and depend on each other for survival.
* Paradoxically, while psychological studies of subjective well-being rely on people’s ability to diagnose their happiness correctly, the basic raison d’être of psychotherapy is that people don’t really know themselves and that they sometimes need professional help to free themselves of self-destructive behaviours.
Dedication
To my teacher, S. N. Goenka (1924–2013),
who lovingly taught me important things.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
1 The New Human Agenda
PART I Homo Sapiens Conquers the World 2 The Anthropocene
3 The Human Spark
PART II Homo Sapiens Gives Meaning to the World 4 The Storytellers
5 The Odd Couple
6 The Modern Covenant
7 The Humanist Revolution
PART III Homo Sapiens Loses Control 8 The Time Bomb in the Laboratory
9 The Great Decoupling
10 The Ocean of Consciousness
11 The Data Religion
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Author
Also by Yuval Noah Harari
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
1. In vitro fertilisation: mastering creation.
1.Computer artwork © KTSDESIGN/Science Photo Library.
1
The New Human Agenda
At the dawn of the third millennium, humanity wakes up, stretching its limbs and rubbing its eyes. Remnants of some awful nightmare are still drifting across its mind. ‘There was something with barbed wire, and huge mushroom clouds. Oh well, it was just a bad dream.’ Going to the bathroom, humanity washes its face, examines its wrinkles in the mirror, makes a cup of coffee and opens the diary. ‘Let’s see what’s on the agenda today.’
For thousands of years the answer to this question remained unchanged. The same three problems preoccupied the people of twentieth-century China, of medieval India and of ancient Egypt. Famine, plague and war were always at the top of the list. For generation after generation humans have prayed to every god, angel and saint, and have invented countless tools, institutions and social systems – but they continued to die in their millions from starvation, epidemics and violence. Many th
inkers and prophets concluded that famine, plague and war must be an integral part of God’s cosmic plan or of our imperfect nature, and nothing short of the end of time would free us from them.
Yet at the dawn of the third millennium, humanity wakes up to an amazing realisation. Most people rarely think about it, but in the last few decades we have managed to rein in famine, plague and war. Of course, these problems have not been completely solved, but they have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. We don’t need to pray to any god or saint to rescue us from them. We know quite well what needs to be done in order to prevent famine, plague and war – and we usually succeed in doing it.
True, there are still notable failures; but when faced with such failures we no longer shrug our shoulders and say, ‘Well, that’s the way things work in our imperfect world’ or ‘God’s will be done’. Rather, when famine, plague or war break out of our control, we feel that somebody must have screwed up, we set up a commission of inquiry, and promise ourselves that next time we’ll do better. And it actually works. Such calamities indeed happen less and less often. For the first time in history, more people die today from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals combined. In the early twenty-first century, the average human is far more likely to die from bingeing at McDonald’s than from drought, Ebola or an al-Qaeda attack.
Hence even though presidents, CEOs and generals still have their daily schedules full of economic crises and military conflicts, on the cosmic scale of history humankind can lift its eyes up and start looking towards new horizons. If we are indeed bringing famine, plague and war under control, what will replace them at the top of the human agenda? Like firefighters in a world without fire, so humankind in the twenty-first century needs to ask itself an unprecedented question: what are we going to do with ourselves? In a healthy, prosperous and harmonious world, what will demand our attention and ingenuity? This question becomes doubly urgent given the immense new powers that biotechnology and information technology are providing us with. What will we do with all that power?