Asg19241053 Book Review

ASSIGNMENT: BOOK REVIEW Submitted to:

Prof. Md. Fazlur Rahman Adjunct Faculty Faculty of Business Studies Bangladesh University of Professionals(BUP)

Date of Submission: 18th June 2020 Submitted By Abdullah Ashik Adnan – 19241053 BBA in Management Studies, Section A Session :2018-19 Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP)

A book review for the book “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari. I can’t remember the last time I have read and finished a non-fiction book with such deep attention and concentration. I would have never imagined that it was possible to combine evolutionary anthropology, biology, psychology, physics, and history and write the history of mankind in such an exciting way, almost like a spy-thriller. This book has really shaken my world of thought to the very root, has totally changed how I view my ever-familiar world. In my opinion a Bangla translation of this book really, really essential and every citizen of 18 and above must read this terrific book. In Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari identifies three specific "revolutions" which were central to the development of the human species. The first was the Cognitive Revolution; taking place between 70,000 and 30,000 years ago, it was responsible for the development and use of language. The second was the Agricultural Revolution which saw homo sapiens abandoning, approximately 12,000 years ago, traditional foraging in favor of farming and permanent settlements. Finally, there is the Scientific Revolution, a much more recent and ongoing phenomenon occurring within the last 500 years. The driving force behind this Scientific Revolution was what Harari refers to as "the discovery of ignorance" - having realized and acknowledged the limits of human understanding, intrepid sapiens embarked on a quest for enlightenment. From the outset, Harari seeks to establish the multifold forces that made Homo (‘man’) into Homo sapiens (‘wise man’) – exploring the impact of a large brain, tool use, complex social structures and more. He brings the picture up to date by drawing conclusions from mapping the Neanderthal genome, which he thinks indicates that Sapiens did not merge with Neanderthals but pretty much wiped them out. ‘Tolerance’ he says, ‘is not a Sapiens trademark’ (p19), setting the scene for the sort of animal he will depict us to be. Harari's 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, along with numerous other megafaunas. 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. The writer has presented some totally outrageous or crazy claims after a few pages throughout the book, and about 100 or so claims has been presented quite beautifully and has been described quite neatly from the brief history of human kind from the beginning of creation till the modern

day. How humans have invented various mythologies for their own survival, how belief in common mythology have kept millions and millions of people under the same umbrella- I could not have seen it had I not read this book. According to this book, the American declaration of Independence is a mythology of this sort, the belief in which have kept all Americans under one umbrella. Let’s talk about a claim from the book’s last chapter: “The future of human kind is not in evolutionary theory, but is inherent in intelligent design theory.” When I was about to throw the book away after reading this right then I read the explanation: “Today, the 4-billion-year-old regime of natural selection is facing a completely different challenge. In laboratories throughout the world, scientists are engineering living beings. They break the laws of natural selection with impunity, unbridled even by an organism’s original characteristics. Eduardo Kac, a Brazilian bio-artist, decided in 2000 to create a new work of art: a fluorescent green rabbit. Kac contacted a French laboratory and offered it a fee to engineer a radiant bunny according to his specifications. The French scientists took a run-of-the mill white rabbit embryo, implanted in its DNA a gene taken from a green fluorescent jellyfish, and voilà! One green fluorescent rabbit for le monsieur. Kac named the rabbit Alba.” Today it is happening to rabbits, for sheep it is already done, just like this one-day humans themselves will design the next generation of humans. It is a regret for me because of limited lifespan I won’t be able to witness these advancements of science. But this book gives a rough idea how, where, and how far humans have come. To understand the pattern of human history and psychology this book is incomparable as a starter. The way this book will open one’s eyes by reading this will take one ahead very far! So, in my opinion, this book is a must read!

Book Name: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Writer Name: Yuval Noah Harari