Author : Yoval Noah Harari
Genre : Non-Fiction
What is it about? : The book traces the evolution of Humans from the earliest species to the present. This it does in a different way than the many other books on the same subject. This books takes an idea or a phenomenon and wraps the history of people around it. A unique approach.
How I came to read it : One of my friends suggested the book to me.
Did I like it? : No, I did not like it. Having heard so much about it from friends and family I had high expectations but it was a let down for me. I understand its a best seller but there are flaws in it that simply disappointed me.
Why/views/summary : The author divides the whole books into 4 parts keeping in line with his view that Humankind had 4 key moments in its history. These 4 parts are:
1. The Cognitive Revolution
2. The Agricultural Revolution
3. The Unification of Mankind
4. The Scientific Revolution
Some of the ideas presented in this parts are brilliant. Take, for example, domestication of wheat. Harari states that Humans did not domesticate wheat. It is wheat that has domesticated us. This is supported by the fact that since wheat was grown humans had to stay at one place to look after it and protect it from diseases and animal attacks. Also Humans were always looking for ways to improve the yield and as the yield increased so did the population it supported. This multiplied over the years and slowly wheat was everywhere. Today it remains one of the most grown crops on Earth. This is a quite brilliant take on wheat. There are many more such ideas presented in the book. But at the same time at some points Harari verges on the boundaries of hyperbole like where he states that Agriculture is History's biggest fraud. Now stating that Agriculture changed how Humans lived and turned their life for the worse (Harari's views) is one thing but to call it History's biggest fraud is exaggeration and quite simply being careless. For me, as soon as I read that line I did not want to read further but I continued as I wanted to finish what I started.
Some good points that I found in the book are the way he talks about free market and how saying that in times of ethical issues free market will take care of itself is quite foolish. He elaborates on this point by giving the example of Slave trade in the past. Now when the Slave trade was rampant during the 16th to 19th century it was simply viewed as an economic thing. Importing cheap labor was something that helped the businessmen. Nobody thought anything was wrong in it. This was an instance that needed intervention which was beyond the economic or financial factors. It was an ethical one. Similarly, today there are a number of ethical dilemmas that the business world faces which needs intervention but some people say leave it the market itself because the free market will take care of such things. No it does not.
Then there is the point about 3 major unifying factors in History. They are Economic, Political or religious. No matter what instance you take in human history if humans gathered to do something together it has to be because of one of the 3 reasons mentioned above. Even today these stand as huge unifying figures. Then there is an explanation of how the small countries of Europe like Spain, Netherlands, France and Britain dominated the world in the 16th to 18th centuries. Their rise is attributed to the start of the credit system. Many expeditions that started in those times were sponsored by credit in these countries. Leading this were the Dutch. They soon became world leaders in the world before the British caught up with them. Interestingly there is mention of VOC also called the Dutch East India company. Its not mentioned in the book but VOC remained the worlds largest company for 200 years since its inception. It is said that many of the corporate practices that we see today are direct descendants of the VOC model. Its a topic that deserves a separate blog post. I had the chance to see VOC era buildings in a small town called Pulicat in India. Heres more about that trip.
One of the biggest flaws of the book is the complete disregard of the Islamic Golden Age of cultural,economic and scientific growth that happened from the 8th to the 14th Century in the middle east. Harari states that the scientific growth only started from the 16th century in Europe completely skipping the Islamic Golden Age. This is unthinkable. If purely talking about only the scientific impact of the Islamic Golden Age it is huge. One has to simply look at the contributions of Nasir-al-din-al-Tusi(Astronomy), Ibn al-Haytham(Physics), Al-Kindi (Chemistry) to how huge is that contribution. Biology alone produced such geniuses as Ibn al Nafis, Rhazes, Ibn Khaldun and Avicenna. (More about some of them in my post here). Most damning is that fact that there is not even a passing mention of the Translation movement of 9th century. It is largely forgotten in the west but for a book which claims to outline the History of whole mankind leaving out the translation movement if not the whole Islamic Golden Age is quite unpardonable.
Another point is how Harari passes over the Indian Independence Movement in just 2 or 3 lines. He is guilty of oversimplifying key events in history in a couple of lines completely ignoring the years, the factors and the complex geopolitical dynamics involved. He does this for may other events in History.
All in all, Sapiens does produce some brilliant passages, compelling ideas and notions but I think this book is a bit pompous in its claims and the author is guilty of sensationalism, oversimplifying complex issues and just pure carelessness.
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