Key insights from
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Audio available
13 minute read
Published Feb 10, 2015
What you'll learn
Seventy thousand years ago, organisms from the species Homo sapiens emerged on the scene. The study of their development and activities is called history. In his ambitious study, Yuval Noah Harari explains that human history has been propelled forward by three revolutions: the Cognitive Revolution, the Agricultural Revolution, and the Scientific Revolution. Humans have shown their capacity for profoundly impacting their environment, and each of the three revolutionary thresholds that we have crossed increased this capacity. Humankind ignores its powerful and often destructive tendencies at its own peril and the planet’s, but there is still reason to hope for a better tomorrow. Time will tell which path humanity will take.
Key insights
- • What you'll learn
- 1 Homo sapiens used to share the stage with other species of human.
- 2 Capacity for language and imagination made Sapiens dominant.
- 3 The Agricultural Revolution is the grandest hoax in human history.
- 4 History is a story of the gradual unification of economies, civilizations, and faiths.
- 5 The Scientific Revolution has brought discovery, a spirit of optimism, and a hunger for progress.
- 6 Capitalism has led to booming business, but not without oppression.
- 7 For the first time in history, supply is outpacing demand.
- 8 The Industrial Revolution has created a pattern of continuous radical change.
- 9 We are becoming powerful, aimless gods on Earth.
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