Sapiens (Hardcover)

Six human species once shared this planet, and Yuval Noah Harari opens by asking why only one of them is still here. Sapiens runs from the earliest humans through the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific Revolutions, drawing on biology, anthropology, palaeontology and economics to explain how shared fictions such as money, nations, laws and religion allowed strangers to cooperate at scale. Harari is as interested in the costs as in the achievements, pressing on whether any of it has made people happier and on what the coming centuries might do to the species. This is the hardcover edition. The big picture: • A single-volume history running from prehistory to the present day • Argument built on shared fictions as the basis of large-scale cooperation • Draws on several disciplines rather than conventional historiography • Hardcover edition suited to keeping or gifting For readers of big-picture history, popular science and social theory. Available from Boipoka.