Sapiens. Brief history humanity Yuval Noah Harari

(No ratings yet)

Title: Sapiens. A Brief History of Humanity
Author: Yuval Noah Harari
Year: 2016
Genre: Foreign educational literature, Other educational literature

About the book “Sapiens. A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

One hundred thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was one of at least six human species living on this planet—an unremarkable animal that played no more role in the ecosystem than gorillas, fireflies or jellyfish. But about seventy thousand years ago, a mysterious change in the cognitive abilities of Homo sapiens turned him into a master of the planet and an ecosystem nightmare. How did Homo sapiens manage to conquer the world? What happened to other human species? When and why did money, states and religion appear? How did empires rise and fall? Why did almost all societies place women lower than men? How did science and capitalism become the dominant beliefs of the modern era? Have people become happier over time? What future awaits us?

Yuval Harari shows how history has shaped human society and the reality around him. His book traces the connection between the events of the past and the problems of our time and forces the reader to reconsider all established ideas about the world around him.

On our website about books lifeinbooks.net you can download for free without registration or read online book"Sapiens. A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari in epub, fb2, txt, rtf, pdf formats for iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle. The book will give you a lot of pleasant moments and real pleasure from reading. Buy full version you can from our partner. Also, here you will find latest news from the literary world, learn the biography of your favorite authors. For beginning writers there is a separate section with useful tips and recommendations, interesting articles, thanks to which you yourself can try your hand at literary crafts.

Book by Harari Yuval Noah - “Sapiens. A Brief History of Humanity” is written vividly and very popular. However, alas, this manner of verbosity is apparently adopted where the book was written. Maybe this is a circumstance, maybe there is primitiveness in the fact that they talk about Buddhism, communism and nothing is said about Taoism and very, very much about capitalism; there may be some, it seems, subconsciously breaking through, confidence that life in general for humanity is prosperous; Perhaps some pretentiousness creates the impression that this is an attempt to repeat the successes of the popular books of deep physicists S. Hawking and others, introducing a wide range of people to ideas about the Universe and Man’s place in it. But this is a worthy book by a thoughtful, honest person who is trying to impartially introduce a wide range of people to the history of mankind and the issues of the individual’s place in it. Alas, apparently the author’s position in the society where he is does not make it possible to comprehend the material presented more broadly, which affects the picture of the rather gloomy prospects for humanity at the stage of the planetary market and capitalism, when there are more questions than answers, more threats than hopes. And the situation of the individual, at best, does not improve over time, but simply some problems are replaced by others with dubious prospects for improvement. For the Russian reader, the book makes a particularly vivid impression when the population of a huge country was defamed and destroyed the purpose and meaning of life, imposing “universal human values” in the spirit of “Love yourself,” offering ideas of religions developed for people 2000 years ago. But this also allows, moreover, forces us to develop the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, dialectical materialism, taking into account the latest achievements and ideas of the most profound scientists, despite the diligent burying of defamed ideas by the offended, those in power, masters and lackeys of various stripes and ranks. According to the ideas of deep scientists, it is inevitable for humanity to develop those ideas on the basis of which the construction of a society was desperately begun, opening up prospects for humanity and the individual. The scope of the commentary on the book does not allow us to present, much less prove, theories and conclusions from them, although they are very important, but after what has been said, it is simply necessary to point out certain points! The USSR has practically begun to solve the immediate problems of Humanity. 1. Solving the food problem and, with the growing human population, the environmental degradation of life on the planet through substitution agriculture to a factory, industrial form of production from simple elementary substances at the beginning of the introduction of new technologies - with the help of bacteria and chemistry. Several factories for the production of protein using bacteria were built, but they were not developed before the plunder of the state. 2. The solution to the environmental degradation of the planet due to industrial waste and the fundamental solution to the limitations on the possibilities of human development and industrial activity imposed by the second law of thermodynamics through the exploration of the infinity of space. Outstanding space technology has been created: the most powerful rocket - Energia, an automatic space shuttle, designs for nuclear-fueled rockets have been developed to test the technology of moving production into space. 3. Development of the ideas of dialectical materialism and Marxism-Leninism. This question turned out to be fatal, because something happened that happens to a person during adaptation to new conditions in demi-season weather - a virus is introduced, alas, which turned out to be lethal for the state - a virus of ideological degradation - selfishness. The book indicates the place of the History of mankind in a fairly broad area of ​​ideas about the external world, but this is not enough to rethink History and step beyond the current moment, although an unbiased comprehension allows us to see many significant points in it and, especially, in the current moment. Undoubtedly, the next stage in the formation of humanity after realizing itself separately from environment, in order to coexist with it, this improvement of thinking instead of manipulations with pictures, images, a transition to manipulations with signs, designations, names. This opened up the prospect of information compression, storage, the speed of its processing, and the removal of storage, exchange and processing of information outside the individual. In fact, this is the beginning of the history of mankind, which squeezed out all competing species from the planet. At the same time, it is worth noting a tragic circumstance - apparently, humanity came from a species with not the best physical data, which allowed them to further development have great success, but they were supplanted by creatures of a species that lived more intensively and therefore mastered new level use of information, which turned out to be a more valuable factor. If we not only mention and track the ideas of philosophy as changes in fictions, but realize the applied method of historical dialectics and become more familiar with modern science, then the development of dialectical materialism and Marxism-Leninism will become not a scarecrow, but a natural thing. The external world of Man, or, more generally, of a certain system, exists in three-dimensional space and time, so to speak, in matter given to us in sensations. This is materialism. There is a soul, God, gods, in general - not material. This is idealism. There is information as a property of the totality of movement of material systems. The external world has two important interdependent sides - the material and information side, the facet of the existence of material systems. During the functioning, movement, change of material systems, dissipation, degradation, dissipation, transformation into homogeneity of energy and, as a consequence of interconnection, of matter occurs. When using information, its quantity can increase and it can become concentrated. Humanity has mastered a chain of logical concepts connecting, so to speak, a material object - mass with energy - the potential for doing work, movement. Energy is related to entropy - a measure of the ordering of matter. Ordering is already an informational property... Starting from the largest material heterogeneity - the “big bang” in cosmogonic concepts, the dispersion of energy and matter occurs. In this case, the dispersion flow leads to condensation, inhomogeneities of matter and the emergence of material systems. In these systems, direct and feedbacks, which in fact is the emergence of a new category of the world - information. In chemistry, these are autocatalytic processes. Minimum information. In biology, single-celled individuals have many orders of magnitude more information and it is used to maintain systems and thereby maintain their quantity and essence. For the animal world there is still a manifold increase in the volume and role of information. We can talk about humanity as a system for mastering a special information resource in order to maintain the system in a state of further mastery of this resource, which has a property opposite to dissipation, as a guarantee of self-preservation. These ideas give meaning to the existence of the individual as a part of humanity, included in the general historical process of the relationship: information - matter. The situation with what is mentioned in this book is reminiscent of the situation in physics with quantum effects. On the one hand, the same phenomenon is described in one way, on the other hand, the same phenomenon is described in a completely different way. Although when describing this phenomenon in the representations of more complex space and time, there will be no such dualisms.

Thousands scientific works, secrets, research and historical facts became the basis for writing the book “Sapiens. A Brief History of Humanity,” authored by Yuval Harari, an Israeli military historian. The history of the emergence of man and society as a whole has been troubling us for a thousand years. The author found answers to many questions that have concerned humanity throughout all the years of its conscious existence.

It is known that at the beginning of its existence, Homo sapiens was no different from other inhabitants of the planet. Appearance, mental abilities and the way of life was similar to that of animals. After a huge amount of time, during the course of evolution, man managed to become more intelligent, which changed him externally, internally and radically changed his way of life. We see these changes clearly, and we cannot imagine that our ancestors were like gorillas. We can see this only in pictures in history books, in films, in historical museums. Today man is the master of the planet. How did he do it? After all, his chances were exactly the same as those of a jellyfish or any other species of animal on our planet. Or is it special kind person, among many others? Then what happened to the others? The author describes in detail and very clearly the stages of development of Homo sapiens. The advent of money, the formation of social classes, the division between men and women, especially the inferior position of women in contrast to men. Yuval Harari explains what has become the dominant beliefs in modern world and wonders whether a person has become happier because of the changes that have occurred to him over many millennia? The question becomes especially important: what will evolution lead to, what awaits us in the future? What should all of humanity think about?

A brief history of humanity will answer many of your questions. It will help you recreate all stages of education modern society and help you secure your future.

Book:"Sapiens. A Brief History of Humanity"

Original title: Sapiens. A Brief History of Humankind

Out: 2016

Publisher:"Sinbad"

Language: translation from English

About the author

Yuval Noah Harari (born February 24, 1976) is a professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 1993 to 1998 he studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, specializing in the history of the Middle Ages and the history of wars. He received his PhD in 2002 from Jesus College, Oxford. From 2003 to 2005, he conducted research at the expense of Charitable Foundation Rothschild Yad Hanadiv in Israel. Currently, Harari’s area of ​​interest is world history and macro-historical processes.

About the book

“No, we didn’t domesticate wheat. She is the one who domesticated us.” Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens. A Brief History of Humanity."

Israeli historian Yuval Harari's ambitious project to write a concise, popular and comprehensive history of all humanity has immediately drawn comparisons to Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. Of course, the similarity of names is provided by the author. At the beginning of the book, Harari talks about global challenges. It is the job of physics to describe what happened from the Big Bang to the formation of atoms and molecules; after that, chemistry comes into play; with the appearance of the first living beings, biology comes into play; and with the advent of culture, history comes into play.

The problem is that it is impossible to write the history of humanity in the same way as to write the history of proteins, atoms or the universe - there are too few general laws, there are no equations and experiments are almost impossible. Harari reminds himself of this throughout the first third of the book. The story begins with the appearance of the Homo species on Earth - all its species, from Australopithecus to Homo sapiens. For Harari, it is very important to convey to the reader that we are not alone: ​​the only child in the family, sapiens is actually an orphan who has lost brothers, some of whom even lived at the same time as him. But at the end of the first third of the book, Harari comes to a discussion of cultural phenomena and how they govern human life. And here there is no room for reservations: the author cannot resist striking but controversial conclusions.

What happened to sapiens from hunter-gatherer to Neil Armstrong and (Harari never forgets this) seamstress worker in a Chinese sweatshop? The author takes the reader through a series of key, in his opinion, events in history: cultural revolution(not the one with the Red Guards, but after the invention of language), the agricultural revolution, the birth of capitalism.

The author is categorical; the habit of placing references to other people's work at the end of the book, rather than at the bottom of the page, makes it sound even harsher. The author's political beliefs (Harari is a committed socialist) and his attitude towards everything from financial instruments to liberalism shine through the text. In addition, the entire book is imbued with nostalgia for the times of gathering and hunting: short working hours, an abundant and varied diet, and property equality are much more attractive for Harari than the unevenly distributed benefits of modern civilization. You can read it with great interest, but with extreme caution: Harari goes beyond his limits dozens of times. professional competence, delves into the fields of ethology, psychology and macroeconomics.

The key problem of the book is the connection between human biology and its behavior as a species. More precisely, the absence of such a connection. If individual people, the author writes, still show their animal origins, then in groups of more than 150 people they act as completely different creatures.

Wondering about last pages question about the future of humanity, Harari writes: “What could be more dangerous than disappointed, irresponsible gods who have not realized what they want?” Coming with the author to the problem of life after the onset of the technological singularity, it is important for the reader to remember: this problem concerns not only Yuval Noah Harari.

About the publication

The book was published in the Big Ideas series by the Sinbad publishing house.

One hundred thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was one of at least six human species living on this planet - an unremarkable animal that played no more role in the ecosystem than gorillas, fireflies or jellyfish. But about seventy thousand years ago, a mysterious change in the cognitive abilities of Homo sapiens turned him into a master of the planet and an ecosystem nightmare. How did Homo sapiens manage to conquer the world? What happened to other human species? When and why did money, states and religion appear? How did empires rise and fall? Why did almost all societies place women lower than men? How did science and capitalism become the dominant beliefs of the modern era? Have people become happier over time? What future awaits us? Yuval Harari shows how the course of history has shaped human society and the reality around it. His book traces the connection between the events of the past and the problems of our time and forces the reader to reconsider all established ideas about the world around him.

An inconspicuous animal.
About 13.5 billion years ago, matter, energy, time and space appeared: the Big Bang occurred. Physics deals with the history of these fundamental phenomena of the Universe. After 300 thousand years from the beginning of their existence, matter and energy began to form complex complexes with each other - atoms, and they began to be combined into molecules. Chemistry deals with the history of atoms, molecules and their interactions.

Approximately 3.8 billion years ago on planet Earth, certain molecules came together to form large and complex structures - organisms. Biology studies the history of organic life. About 70 thousand years ago, organisms belonging to the species Homo sapiens gave rise to something even more sophisticated - we call it culture. And the science of history itself is interested in the further fate of human cultures. The course of human history was determined by three major revolutions. It began with the cognitive revolution, 70 thousand years ago. The agricultural revolution that occurred 12 thousand years ago.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part one. Cognitive revolution
Chapter 1. An unremarkable animal
Chapter 2. The Tree of Knowledge
Chapter 3. One day in the life of Adam and Eve
Chapter 4. Flood
Part two. Agrarian revolution
Chapter 5. The Greatest Deception in History
Chapter 6. Construction of the pyramids
Chapter 7. Memory Overload
Chapter 8. History is unfair
Part three. Uniting humanity
Chapter 9. Vector of history
Chapter 10. The smell of money
Chapter 11. Imperial Dream
Chapter 12. The Law of Faith
Chapter 13. The secret of success
Part four. Scientific revolution
Chapter 14: The Discovery of Ignorance
Chapter 15. Union of science and power
Chapter 16. Creed of capitalism
Chapter 17. Gears of Industry
Chapter 18. Permanent revolution
Chapter 19. And they lived happily
Chapter 20. The end of Homo sapiens
Afterword. Animals who became gods
Notes

Download the e-book for free in a convenient format, watch and read:
Download the book Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind, Harari Y.N., 2016 - fileskachat.com, fast and free download.

• The perfect storm, Technology of state destruction, Gazenko R.V., Martynov A.A., 2016
• Essays on the history of the Reformation in Finland, 1520-1620, Makarov I.V., 2007
• History of Russia, Difficult questions on the exam, Zakharov V.Yu., 2005

The following textbooks and books.