“War menschliche Gewalt in antiken Agrargesellschaften noch für 15 Prozent aller Todesfälle verantwortlich gewesen, so sank dieser Wert im Laufe des 20. Jahrhunderts auf fünf Prozent und liegt Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts weltweit bei nur noch einem Prozent. [...] Wenn Regierungen, Unternehmen und Privatleute an ihre unmittelbare Zukunft denken, dann ist für viele zum ersten Mal in der Geschichte Krieg kein wahrscheinliches Ereignis. Die Atomwaffen haben einen Krieg zwischen Supermächten zu einem wahnsinnigen Akt kollektiven Selbstmords gemacht und deshalb die mächtigsten Nationen auf Erden dazu gezwungen, nach anderen, friedlichen Formen der Konfliktlösung zu suchen.”

“Im 18. Jahrhundert erteilte Marie Antoinette den hungernden Massen bekanntlich den Rat, wenn sie kein Brot hätten, sollten sie doch einfach Kuchen essen. Heute nehmen die Armen diesen Vorschlag für bare Münze. Während die reichen Bewohner von Beverly Hills sich an Gartensalat und gedämpften Tofu mit Quinoa erfreuen, stopfen die Armen in den Slums und Ghettos Schokoriegel, Käsesnacks, Hamburger und Pizza in sich hinein. Im Jahr 2014 waren mehr als 2,1 Milliarden Menschen übergewichtig, während 850 Millionen an Unterernährung litten. Für 2030 geht man davon aus, dass die Hälfte der Menschheit Übergewicht haben wird. 2010 starben rund eine Million Menschen an Hunger bzw. Unterernährung, während der Fettleibigkeit drei Millionen zum Opfer fielen.”

 

For familiar friends, Harari is on his usual, brilliant form. If you have yet to hear of Yuval Noah Harari, his latest book is an excellent introduction. With an eclectic array of topics in 21 Lessons (2018) (1), Harari has presented a volume that geographers can dip in and out of for insight on politics, climate change, and economics.

His previous books first traced the consequences of humankind’s abrupt evolution in cognitive abilities (Sapiens, 2014) (2), and second how technology will be woven with the human body in a number of ways, creating mechanical-organic cyborgs with extended lifetimes (History of Tomorrow, 2017) (3).

His latest, 21 Lessons, does not disappoint the following Harari has gained from his previous works. Harari surveys our current global political situation and does something rather interesting; from a geopolitical perspective, he scales it right back down to the body. He places focus on the individual body and reminds us we are more than our pigment, flesh, or clothing but we are a biological machine of neuro-chemical-hormone interactions. Simply put, one of the things I find that Harari wants to talk about is emotion and affect.

 

More absurd political events, more breath-taking technologies, and more devastating climatic events are inevitable in the coming decades. Harari leads us through his chapters at a breathless pace, offering topic after topic but coming back to the same point: if we don’t take the time to care for our bodies, our minds, our souls, we will fall victim to the insidious mechanisms of power. We cannot care for our families, we cannot write our books or work our hours, and we cannot solve the problems of tomorrow if we do not scale our priorities back to the layers beneath our skin.

I, for one, am inspired to take Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century advice to meditate and see if I am any more insulated from powers’ ambitions to influence my mind.

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

I read Harari’s two other books (“Sapiens” and “Homo Deus”), and quite liked them, so when this one was available, I couldn’t help but request it. It did turn out to be an interesting read as well, dealing with current problems that we just can’t ignore: global warming, terrorism, the rise of harmful ideologies, etc. It’s definitely not seen through rose-tinted glasses, and it’s a good thing, for it’s time people in general wake up and—to paraphrase one of the many things I tend to agree with here—stop voting with their feet. (Between the USA and Brexit Country, let’s be honest: obviously too many of us don’t use their brains when they vote.)

I especially liked the part about the narratives humans in general tend to construct (nationalism and religions, for instance, being built on such narratives)—possibly because it’s a kind of point of view I’ve been holding myself as well, and because (as usual, it seems), the “narratives of sacrifice” hit regular people the most. Another favourite of mine is the part played by algorithms and “Big Data”, for in itself, I find this kind of evolution both fascinating and scary: in the future, will we really let algorithms decide most aspects of our lives, and isn’t it already happening? (But then, aren’t we also constructs whose functioning is based on biological algorithms anyway? Hmm. So many questions.)

I don’t necessarily agree with everything in this book, and to be fair, there was too much matter to cram everything in one volume, so some of it felt a little hurried and too superficial. I’ll nevertheless recommend it as an introduction to the topics it deals with, because it’s a good eye-opener, and it invites to a lot of introspection, questioning and thinking, which is not a bad thing.

It's an excellent book with all the facts and figures which we don't know. This book is thought-provoking and changes one's thoughts about history. The author tries to sum up as much as he can in this book but in my opinion, a single book is not enough for the brief history of humankind. It never will be.

Although, the book is filled with the author's opinions. He believes that Earth is better off without humans. Some part of the book is very intriguing and some are so boring that you wish to stop reading. There is a lack of information about Neanderthals which made me unsatisfied. I like the scientific revolution part very much. This book tells how we evolve and about our genes and other interesting stuff. It's a must-read.

This is the thrilling account of our extraordinary history - from insignificant apes to rulers of the world in which fire gave us power, gossip helped us cooperate, agriculture made us hungry for more, mythology maintained law and order, money gave us something we can really trust, contradictions created culture and science made us deadly.

Read more - https://bookscharming.blogspot.com/2018/09/book-review-sapiens-brief-history-of.html