Sapiens

**ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY**

Nick Day's Review 

Make sure you read this book before his latest book is released. Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (available from September 10th).

The book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, is a brief but engaging examination of some 2.5 million years of human history.  Harari’s writing is balanced, easy to understand and always compelling, challenging us to question and reassess our perspectives on various significant historical themes.

Years after first reading Sapiens, there is still one specific historical topic that has stayed with me: the dark secret of homo sapiens and the disappearance of our ‘homo-cousins.’ The book includes a rational examination of current theories on this such as ‘Replacement Theory’ and ‘Inter-breeding Theory.’ Harari does not take sides: he puts forward the various arguments and lets us draw together the pieces about a potential mass extinction of our ‘homo-cousins.’  Considering the mass genocides throughout modern human history, our role in this extinction appears plausible. Harari's ideas continue to make me reflect on what kind of species we really are. 

I also appreciated how Harari flips commonly held ideas from books such as Guns, Germs & Steal by Jared Diamond. He suggests that rather than humanity domesticating wheat as postulated by Diamond, it is wheat that has domesticated us. Using his tongue-in-cheek humour, Harari explores the ‘Faustian bargain’ that humans have made with wheat, requiring more effort to cultivate, process, store and protect, than we ever needed as hunter-gatherers.

While it’s hard to do justice to such a complex book in a couple of paragraphs, I hope this whets the appetite for what is a highly recommended read.

Publisher's Review 

What makes us brilliant? What makes us deadly? What makes us Sapiens? This bestselling history of our species challenges everything we know about being human.

**THE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLER**

'Interesting and provocative... It gives you a sense of how briefly we've been on this Earth' - Barack Obama

What makes us brilliant? What makes us deadly? What makes us Sapiens?

Yuval Noah Harari challenges everything we know about being human.

Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a fraction of that time, one species among countless others has conquered it- us.

In this bold and provocative book, Yuval Noah Harari explores who we are, how we got here and where we're going.

PRAISE FOR SAPIENS

'Jaw-dropping from the first word to the last... It may be the best book I've ever read' - Chris Evans

'Sweeps the cobwebs out of your brain... Radiates power and clarity' - Sunday Times

'It altered how I view our species and our world' - Guardian

'Startling... It changes the way you look at the world' - Simon Mayo

'I would recommend Sapiens to anyone who's interested in the history and future of our species' - Bill Gates