Sapiens - Summary (Audio)

A summary of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is a book by Yuval Noah Harari, first published in Hebrew in Israel in 2011 based on a series of lectures Harari taught at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and in English in 2015.
The book, focusing on Homo sapiens, surveys the history of humankind, starting from the Stone Age and going up to the twenty-first century.
The account is situated within a framework that intersects the natural sciences with the social sciences.The book has gathered mixed reviews.
While it was positively received by the general public, scholars with relevant subject matter expertise have been very critical of its scientific and historical claims.Hararis work situates its account of human history within a framework: he sees the natural sciences as setting the limits of possibility for human activity and sees the social sciences as shaping what happens within those bounds.
The academic discipline of history is the account of cultural change.Harari surveys the history of humankind in the Stone Age up to the twenty-first century, focusing on Homo sapiens.
He divides the history of Sapiens into four major parts:The Cognitive Revolution (c.
70,000 BCE, when imagination evolved in Sapiens).The Agricultural Revolution (c.
10,000 BCE, the development of agriculture).The unification of humankind (c.
34 CE, the gradual consolidation of human political organizations towards one global empire).The Scientific Revolution (c.
1543 CE, the emergence of objective science).Hararis main argument is that Sapiens came to dominate the world because it is the only animal that can cooperate flexibly in large numbers.
He argues that prehistoric Sapiens were a key cause of the extinction of other human species such as the Neanderthals and numerous other megafauna.
He further argues that the ability of Sapiens to cooperate in large numbers arises from its unique capacity to believe in things existing purely in the imagination, such as gods, nations, money, and human rights.
He argues that these beliefs give rise to discrimination – whether that be racial, sexual or political and it is potentially impossible to have a completely unbiased society.
Harari claims that all large-scale human cooperation systems – including religions, political structures, trade networks, and legal institutions – owe their emergence to Sapiens distinctive cognitive capacity for fiction.
Accordingly, Harari regards money as a system of mutual trust and sees political and economic systems as more or less identical with religions.Content:THE COGNITIVE REVOLUTION1.
AN ANIMAL OF NO SIGNIFICANCE2.
THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE3.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ADAM AND EVE4.
THE FLOODTHE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION5.
HISTORY’S BIGGEST FRAUD6.
BUILDING PYRAMIDS7.
MEMORY OVERLOAD8.
THERE IS NO JUSTICE IN HISTORYTHE UNIFICATION OF HUMANKIND9.
THE ARROW OF HISTORY10.
THE SCENT OF MONEY11.
IMPERIAL VISIONS12.
THE LAW OF RELIGION13.
THE SECRET OF SUCCESSTHE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION14.
THE DISCOVERY OF IGNORANCE15.
THE MARRIAGE OF SCIENCE AND EMPIRE16.
THE CAPITALIST CREED17.
THE WHEELS OF INDUSTRY18.
A PERMANENT REVOLUTION19.
AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER20.
THE END OF HOMO SAPIENS