Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind

Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind

Published:
2014-10-28
Categories:
ISBN:
9780771038525
Meeting:
FBC Recommended R2.036
Pages:
512
File size (e-book):
9.4 MB
Download URL:
Book Availability:
available
Pre Order Availability:
no
Accessibility Features:
enabled

Description:

**NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

100,000 years ago, at least six species of human inhabited the earth.  Today there is just one. Us.  Homo Sapiens.

How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance?  Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms?  How did we come to believe in gods, nations, and human rights; to trust money, books, and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables, and consumerism?  And what will our world be like in the millennia to come?

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?

Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our power...and our future.

Featuring 27 photographs, 6 maps, and 25 illustrations/diagrams, this provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential reading for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem.

Author Details:

Professor Yuval Noah Harari is a historian, philosopher, and the bestselling author of "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind", "Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow", "21 Lessons for the 21st Century", and the series "Sapiens: A Graphic History" and "Unstoppable Us". His books have sold forty-five million copies in sixty-five languages, and he is considered one of the world’s most influential public intellectuals working today. Born in Israel in 1976, Harari received his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford in 2002 and is currently a lecturer at the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He co-founded the social impact company Sapienship, focused on education and media, with his husband Itzik Yahav.