Did we domesticate corn or did corn domesticate us??!! Thoughtful reflections on the hows and whys of humankind up to now - SocioBioHistory 101. I particularly enjoyed the parts about the rise and fall of empires and meditations on the future of humanity, will have to pick up Homo Deus for more of that.
100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens. In Sapiens, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical – and sometimes devastating – breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, palaeontology and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come?
