Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Sapiens is a great book following the evolution of us (Sapiens) as we either killed or assimilated ourselves all over the planet. The author does a good job of balancing science with story so that you do not have to be a history or evolution buff to enjoy the book.
One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations.
Humanity’s search for an easier life released immense forces of change that transformed the world in ways nobody envisioned or wanted.
Hives can be very complex social structures, containing many different kinds of workers, such as harvesters, nurses and cleaners. But so far researchers have failed to locate lawyer bees. Bees don’t need lawyers, because there is no danger that they might forget or violate the hive constitution. The queen does not cheat the cleaner bees of their food, and they never go on strike demanding higher wages.
Consistency is the playground of dull minds.
Homo sapiens, like other social mammals, a xenophobic creature. Sapiens instinctively divide humanity into two parts, ‘we’ and ‘they’. We are people like you and me, who share our language, religion and customs. We are all responsible for each other, but not responsible for them. We were always distinct from them, and owe them nothing. We don’t want to see any of them in our territory, and we don’t care an iota what happens in their territory. They are barely even human. In the language of the Dinka people of the Sudan, ‘Dinka’ simply means ‘people’. People who are not Dinka are not people. The Dinka’s bitter enemies are the Nuer. What does the word Nuer mean in Nuer language? It means ‘original people’. Thousands of miles from the Sudan deserts, in the frozen ice-lands of Alaska and north-eastern Siberia, live the Yupiks. What does Yupik mean in Yupik language? It means ‘real people’.
We have advanced from canoes to galleys to steamships to space shuttles – but nobody knows where we’re going.
Here is the Link to the Amazon book.
