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'Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind', published in 2014 (in English), was recommended to me by several friends for a decently long time. It was only in the middle of 2019 that I started reading it. It instantly took me by surprise. I was immediately engrossed to the point of spending sleepless nights.
What was so unique about this book compared to every other book I have ever read? Why did I find it so fascinating? If you have read the book, heard about it, or even read the title of this article, it has become obvious to you at this point that it is a historical narrative. So, I must be interested in history? Yes, absolutely! But it's not an everyday history textbook. Now the question is, what is so different about this particular historical recount? Personally, I believe, that history as a whole is designed to give you a deeper, more meaningful perspective of the present. It is through a historical study that sometimes people learn to avoid common mistakes and eventually do better than it was done before. Correct? Sapiens to me is precisely that. It gave me a broader perspective of how our world is shaped, or to put it in different words how it has come to be the way it is.
To present it to the uninitiated, I would quote a friend of mine who said it perfectly, 'It's a gem, for someone who is into anthropology and linguistics and demographics'. The book presents a historical summary of the evolution of humankind. Dr. Harari takes the reader on a ride right from the Big Bang traversing through migration, mass extinction, development of speech and communication, large groups of people co-ordinating to form societies, to society as we know it. There are strong and moving arguments about culture, religion, corporations, and humanity as a whole.
Although, individuals from different backgrounds and outlook of the world, who are more capable than me of dissecting the ideas presented and performing a fact check have done their due diligence and such columns can be found on the internet and in print. This article, however, does not present a fact check in any way or form. I want to exhibit what moved me the most personally which is as follows,
1) Mass Extinctions !!!!
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Akin to the generation I was born in, I from the bottom of my heart believe that we ('humans') being the more intelligent beings on the face of the earth, should 100% strive to save the endangered species of fellow animals. Not to mention the infuriating fact that we ('humans') are the sole reason for the endangerment of several species across the globe. Tigers, rhinos, polar bears, various magnificent mammals, insects, reptiles, amphibians, etc. due to last century hunting, present-day poaching, apparent medicinal reasons, climate change, destruction of vegetation, and all other modern-day reasons are now facing the threats of extinction. If you can think of any reason why and how one human can destroy the lives and generations of other animals, we ('humans') have probably done it.
Before I read this book, I thought that only the modern-day homo sapiens are dumb enough to cause life threats to other animals (naive much?). In my mind, in the olden times (really really really old times, prehistoric :P) we did live harmoniously with nature (which we are a part of b.t.w.). My belief was totally shattered. Apparently, we have been the cause of mass extinctions and species endangerment since ages ago. We have never ever been in perfect harmony!!!
"The moment the first hunter-gatherer set foot on an Australian beach was the moment that Homo sapiens climbed to the top rung in the food chain on a particular landmass and thereafter became the deadliest species in the annals of planet Earth."
Dr. Harari states that before homo sapiens arrived the Australian landmass was brimming with 200 Kg, 2 m wide Kangaroos, marsupial lions, tigers, giant koalas, birds, lizards, and snakes. These giants virtually vanished within a few 1000 years after the arrival of our ancestors. To be precise, according to Dr. Harari, 23 out of 24 Australian animal species weighing fifty kilograms or more became extinct. On the brighter side of things, homo sapiens were one of the few smaller animals to cross the ocean, leave the Afro-European landmass, and arrive at another shore. Progress? To which I wonder, has advancement ever taken place without harming someone or the other?
2) Healthy, happy lifestyle: Pros and cons of the agricultural revolution.
Are you a young person, by age or heart? Do you get affected by the current trends propagated through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media? Have you fallen prey to the live exercise and online yoga sessions during this lockdown? Do you feel that you are bombarded with adverts and billboards about healthy food choices and ecologically produced food? Welcome on board! We are all in this together. :)
This is precisely the reason why I was amazed when Dr. Harari suggests, that we did not master agriculture, agriculture captured us! If you read the chapter on the agricultural revolution, you might or might not agree with the author. It is a tough argument and very debatable (read Bill Gate's Notes). Having said that, to my health hungry, exercising fellow sapiens reading this, I can note the following,
- According to Dr. Harari, hunter-gatherers we supposedly healthy because their diets consisted of a wide variety of food items and changed on a day to day basis. Mainly depending on what they found to eat on that particular day. This allowed (forced? very circumstantial !?) them to consume all different kinds of vitamins and nutrients. Does the consumption of a wide variety of food make you healthy? Probably? Isn't this the precise idea behind all different balanced diets out there?
- Not to mention, hunter-gatherers spent their time out in the open, walking, climbing, running, chasing, and, doing all kinds of physical activities. In contrast, most of us spend time at a desk job sitting, sitting, sitting, and then sitting some more all day, all week long. Exercise much?
- We owe our carbohydrate and sugar craze to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Since food was not available in the supermarket next door, and carbs and sugar were found to be sustaining hunger pangs for a long time. Our ancestors developed the tendency to eat a lot of those sweet things they ever found in abundance. Well, thanks a ton! I cannot resist a cake for that reason!
3) History Vs. Females.
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I am a woman. I firmly believe in equality (read equal opportunity) for all. It is most astounding that Dr. Harari can present answers and explanations to some of the most complicated and mind-boggling events through history, but one! Why have women, as a part of every single society on this green-blue-beautiful planet of ours, being discriminated against? Why? More importantly, how and when did all the men on this earth communicate (even before modern-day mobile communication devices, emails, and chat services) and come to this common conclusion that everyone who does not have a particular part on their body does not hold the same standard, position, respect or place in the society?
The points of argument that are presented in the book are,
- Women were designated to the jobs of child-birth. So our boon is our bane?
- Women are anatomically weaker? Maybe, maybe not, exceptions exist.
Before the feminist in me starts rambling on and on and on, which will not be nice to read, I would like to quote the author himself,
" Since patriarchy is so universal, it cannot be the product of some vicious circle that was kick-started by a chance occurrence. It is particularly noteworthy that even before 1492, most societies in both America and Afro-Asia were patriarchal, even though they had been out of contact for thousands of years. ....... there is some universal biological reason why almost all cultures valued manhood over womanhood. We do not know what this reason is. There are plenty of theories, none of them convincing."
It seems we cannot find any convincing explanation for this universal (hopefully limited to earth) inequality. The best way forward is to ensure we as homo sapiens of today, do not hold a conscious or subconscious bias against the less fortunate.
There are a lot of other things that I really loved to read in this particular book, these were the 3 that hit me hardest. Thank you for reading :)
