In the previous blog From the very beginnings, we talked about who we are and how we evolved from the Apes and settled in different parts of the earth. This book was written by Yuval Noah Harari is the best book to know about Human history as a species, you can say if an alien visited the Earth this book is enough to know about Humankind and their horrors. From stone age to the modern era how we transformed from hunters and gatherers to Farmers to modern workers. How from small groups to villages to societies we populated the Earth. How we developed small religious groups and set out to spread our religion across the world and conquered it.
This Book takes a neutral point and describes the history. From this point, history looks very disturbing. It pops our bubble of ignorance to the damage that we as a species have caused to nature. The book describes human development or rather say the transition from one state to another in three revolutions. I’ll give a brief Idea about each. Before going further this is my views and not intended to hurt anyone, this blog should be treated as a personal opinion.
Cognitive revolution
The Cognitive revolution kick-started history 70000 years ago. This part tells us how from the apes we evolved to humans. How the language developed and most importantly how we survived as a species. According to the book, the most important thing that increased our survival rate was our ability to imagine and to cooperate with each other. Along with cooperation perseverance to continue hunting was also the main factor. During those times we lived in small bands or troops that travel from one place to another. On average humans spend 3 to 4 days to hunt and collect food and other things and rest of the week in peace, Although A cave, darkness, and constant fear of wild animals can hardly be called peace.
We might think that we Homo sapiens were the only species evolved from Apes, we normally think that evolution is a linear process that first Apes, then intermediate human species and then Homo sapiens. But this thinking Is wrong we had brothers and sisters as well, belonging to the same Homo genus. Homo erectus, Homo Neanderthals, Homo habilis, and many more, all were humans. The book describes how they went extinct some naturally and some killed by us (Homo sapiens).
Agricultural Revolution
Agriculture revolution sprang up from different parts of the world around 12000 years ago. This is the main part of the book. It describes how humans changed their way of life from hunting to farming. How humans created villages and settled in one land and abandoned their traveling life. One consequence of the agriculture revolution was population explosion and humans increased from 1 million to more than 7 billion. Book describes how religious ideologies shaped the modern world we live in today. Creation of money and bootstrapping the economic world is also greatly explained in this part. The most important thing in this part is how religion works and spreads around the world. The rise of monotheism and the defeat of Roman Empire, From Building pyramids to writing literature and the rise of racism and discrimination, and many aspects are researched in the book.
This is the essence of the agricultural revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worst conditions.
Scientific Revolution
Scientific revolution describes the shift in perspective from ignorance to discovery, the fact that we don’t know enough about the world we live in was considered and thus began new chapter. We may think that science is now a free entity and that it discovers new laws and theories as the scientist wills and where their curiosity leads them, but the truth is rarely this beautiful. Scientific discoveries are very much influenced by politics and the ruling government. This unification of science and empire is greatly explained in the book. The rise of capitalism and how totally free market leads to slavery is discovered in this book.
One of the history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations
This part asks one important question what was the result of the transformation of humanity from hunters to farmers and to workers and ends with somewhat philosophical note.
This blog is unable to cover all the topics so it is my personnel request to read the full book and then form the opinion. If you’ve already read the book, then comment down your thoughts.
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