Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari is an extraordinary work of non-fiction that illustrates human history from a macro perspective rather than narrating discrete historical events, showing a trend of constant global connection over time. Using humorous language and abundant historical evidence, Harari provides readers with an exhilarating unveiling of how humans flourished with logic and cooperation. 

Harari points out three significant turning points in human history: the cognitive revolution, the agricultural revolution, and the scientific revolution. These events witnessed human beings, or homo sapiens, developing from an inconspicuous species to the dominant masters of the world. The author proposes a few astounding statements and examines their validity, like “trust is the sole backing for most of the money in the world” (343) and “egoism is altruism”(348). This book, thus, refreshed my soul and even shifted my perspective toward history and our current world. In this review, I will demonstrate how Sapiens’ exploration of history and biology, the imagined order, and the definition of happiness impress and inspire me. 

First, although history and biology seem like two isolated subjects, they closely intertwine with each other, helping anthropologists better understand the development of homo sapiens. In the prehistoric era, homo sapiens outcompeted other human species such as Neanderthals, and monopolized a vast amount of natural resources. How sapiens’ dominance came about is a subject of scholarly controversy:  anthropologists have proposed both the Interbreeding Theory, which states that modern humans are the offspring of both sapiens and other human species, and the Replacement Theory, which argues that we are “pure sapiens,” to identify the lineage of modern humans. However, the true origins of homo sapiens remained controversial until geneticists mapped the Neanderthal genome. 

Geneticists collected intact Neanderthal DNA from fossils, made a broad comparison with modern human DNA, and concluded that the Interbreeding Theory is mostly correct. Additionally, no matter how magnificent sapiens’ achievements are, they were still subject to Charles Darwin’s evolution theory and restrained by the laws of nature. Using an evolutionary perspective to view the overall progress of sapiens, as a result, can explain how they adapted to various environments and why they inhabited places with extreme climate conditions like Antarctica and North America.

 As compelling as the genetic evidence is, this evolutionary evidence has conspicuous limitations for fully explaining sapiens’ development. As Harari indicated, “[Evolutionary biology] judges everything by the criteria of survival and reproduction, with no regard for individual suffering or happiness.” (104) Other factors, in addition to biological science, must also be taken into consideration. Still, advanced biotechnology boosted the breakthrough of historical discoveries and offered an interesting perspective to observe history. 

The imagined order, the most important product of the cognitive revolution, was an astounding insight offered by Harari, and it broadened my horizons. The appearance of the fiction conception, which means invisible ideologies such as myths, distinguished sapiens from other animals, enabling people from different tribes to unite and “cooperate successfully by believing in common myths” (30), which laid the foundation of human civilization. These myths include mythologies and legends about Zeus and Apollo, as well as modern ideas such as human rights, liberty, and democracy. Although these ideas are not objects that we can see and touch in our daily lives, their power to motivate and influence mankind is extraordinary. Thousands of believers struggled and sacrificed for these ideas, and vivid examples like the American Revolution kept emerging throughout the book. 

Unconsciously, imagined order has shaped us. Before reading Sapiens, I considered traveling to different countries and enjoying distinct cuisines as a common behavior and originating from natural human instincts. But after reading the book, I realized that these behaviors are predicated on an imagined order, constructed around the idea of romantic consumerism. This imagined order is unbreakable; since only an imagined order can unite people together and achieve something extraordinary, one has to create a more dominant imagined order to abolish or supplant the current order. 

The power of the imagined order doesn’t stop here. Money, including every type of currency used to represent an object’s value, prevailed because humans generally trust the value of it. It too is an imagined order. Initially, the currency is circulated locally, to facilitate equal trade between neighbors. But, after sapiens established connections between different far-off regions, the demand for a universal currency emerged and gradually prompted the unification of global money. 

While reading Sapiens, I felt a little uncomfortable because of the feeling that I was being manipulated by invisible hands. This sense of incapability suddenly overwhelmed me. After contemplating for a moment, however, I was relieved. Since the imagined order is the underlying logic of human societies and we cannot change it, why not just peacefully accept it? We ought to pay respect to the laws of society and history, rather than only to natural science. 

Although the title of the book is A Brief History of Humankind, the author also discussed philosophy and psychology, including the definition of happiness. There is a perennial question humans ask ourselves: Were people happier in the past? One might answer: “No way! Technology and medical treatment have improved a lot during history, making life better over time.” However, these objective improvements cannot be considered as the sole criteria for measuring happiness. Rather, we should deliberate the role of subjective experience. 

People today do not necessarily enjoy mental happiness; mental disease is commonplace. “Rather [solely depending on materialistic condition],” the author argues, “[Happiness] depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.” I fully agree with this point of view. Just like the marginal utility diminishing effect in microeconomics, it is becoming increasingly difficult to bring us satisfaction as we acquire more physical wealth. The only way to prevent this endless cycle is to minimize our expectations and accept and cherish our daily lives. Buddha further developed this idea and admonished people to give up avoiding negative emotions to maintaining positive emotions. Only calmly dissecting our feelings as an impartial inspector without extra judgments or emotions, I firmly believe, can bring human beings the most happiness. The author’s insight toward this ultimate philosophical question resonated with me, deepening my understanding and reforming my attitude toward the world and my life. 

After analyzing a wide range of subjects and long periods of history, it is impressive that Harari maintained a clear logic across Sapiens. Overall, this book not only expanded my knowledge of global history but also offered me invaluable philosophical inspiration. It shows that history is not the simple accumulation of details. Rather, Harari models a rational thinking method that enables us to absorb experiences from the past in order to build a more promising future.