Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

It took quite a while to get through this book because I needed to stop after each chapter to try to process what I’d learned. I’d describe this book as popular science, in other words, scientific thought made accessible with clear writing, good story telling and examples, and patient logical explanations of complex issues. It traces the rise of humankind through revolutions: the cognitive revolution (put simply, the emergence of complex language that gave us the ability to imagine), the agricultural revolution, the unification of humankind (who said globalization was something recent?), and the scientific revolution. While I know the detail won’t stay with me – indeed most of it has disappeared already :( - what has stayed with me is the sense of human beings as mere animals who have exploited evolution to rise to dominance. There is no guaranteed future for us. I’ve often described myself as a humanist but although it is obvious if you think about it, I’ve never before considered that this puts homo sapiens on a pedestal above other life forms. As a humanist I am saying that the individual is the centre of all things. I’m really not sure how comfortable I am with this. So this is a book to get you thinking about all sorts of things about the human condition. It warrants re-reading.