November 2019 – Sapiens – a brief history of humankind

What Petr Beneš, a member of the Red Button network, says about the book.

The book traces revolutionary shifts in the human journey from the emergence of Homo sapiens to the present day from a long-term perspective. It tells the dramatic story of an insignificant ape who, two million years ago somewhere in a corner of Africa, gained consciousness, wiped out his natural cousins, and conquered the entire planet. The basic life parameters of humans are biologically determined but offer amazing potential. It is not biology but culture (collective belief) that is the key to understanding humanity’s dramatic development. Only culture enables cooperation among large numbers of people who do not know each other. After the first cognitive revolution 70,000 years ago, other surprising turning points followed in history – the discovery of agriculture, money, social mythology, imperial societies, capitalist credit and belief in the future, the emergence of science, technology, and genetic engineering. It seems history has a direction – after all, trade and capitalism, science and technology, planetary communication, and geopolitical awareness have united the world into a global village.

"If I were a high school teacher and had to choose just one mandatory book for graduation, I would reach without hesitation for Harari’s Sapiens. In five hundred pages of this modern multidisciplinary textbook, you will understand the connections that shaped human development and why we have reached where we are today after two million years. I have never before experienced so many eye-opening aha moments in a single book," describes Petr Beneš.