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    Sapiens: Uma breve história da humanidade
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    Sapiens: Uma breve história da humanidade
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    Sapiens: Uma breve história da humanidade
    Ebook662 pages12 hours

    Sapiens: Uma breve história da humanidade

    By Yuval Noah Harari

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    O que possibilitou ao Homo sapiens subjugar as demais espécies? O que nos torna capazes das mais belas obras de arte, dos avanços científicos mais impensáveis e das mais horripilantes guerras? Yuval Noah Harari aborda de forma brilhante estas e muitas outras questões da nossa evolução. Ele repassa a história da humanidade, relacionando com questões do presente. E consegue isso de maneira surpreendente. Em "Sapiens", Harari nos oferece não apenas conhecimento evolutivo, mas também sociológico, antropológico e até mesmo econômico. Ele se baseia nas mais recentes descobertas de diferentes campos como paleontologia, biologia e antropologia. Esta edição traz dezenas de imagens, mapas e tabelas que deixam este best-seller mundial ainda mais dinâmico.
    LanguagePortuguês
    PublisherL&PM Editores
    Release dateMar 20, 2015
    ISBN9788525432407
    Unavailable
    Sapiens: Uma breve história da humanidade

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    Reviews for Sapiens

    4/5

    2,174 ratings97 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Book #32. 2015. A good review of human history. More like a review of the vast themes of humanity like the Agricultural Revolution, religion, and industrialization rather than a list of dates when things happened. He got a little preachy at the end but still a good read.
    • 5/5
      One of the best books I have read in the last 30 years.

      I see lots of other people say that it has changed their lives. It has certainly changed how I think about people, both individually and especially collectively. How nice to have refreshing honesty about who and what we are.

      Simply the best non-fiction I can ever imagine
    • 5/5
      One of the more extraordinary books I have read. Written in accessible language, Sapiens sets out how we, humans, went from a minor ape like creature trying to hold on in a dangerous world to the master of the planet.I didn't necessarily agree with some of the conclusions Harari reached but one couldn't help be impressed with the depth of his writing and the breadth of topics he touched on. Who would have thought that Truganini would feature in such a history spanning book?
    • 4/5
      Does just what it says on the tin: gives a crash course in human history. I enjoyed the beginning bits immensely, but the farther along it went, the less engaged I became. That may say more about me than about the text; I think I'm just exponentially more interested in Neanderthals than I am in cyborgs. At any rate, I was educated and entertained, and what more can you ask for from nonfiction?
    • 4/5
      The book starts off slow with a lot of conjecture and not a lot of facts. But then it becomes interesting once he starts reaching the age of history and he is able to give actual facts. There is a lot of bias in the book. When I actually knew about a topic, I was aware of the bias so I must assume that the other sections also had bias. And yet it was thought provoking. I would recommend the book, but I would suggest skimming the beginning.
    • 4/5
      I think its hysterical that the negative reviews for this book have been upvoted so hard. Some people clearly take the idea that humans and our civilization aren't actually perfect very personally.
    • 5/5
      This book! My mind is blown. I was enraptured in the genius of it. I feel like I need to reread a few times just to let everything sink in. It's a very scientific factual approach to the history of life. It's not biased in any way. I highly recommend.
    • 3/5
      Go back 100,000 years and you would find six separate species of human scattered across the earth. Today there is a single one left; homo sapiens. In this book, Harari looks at how we rose not only to become the only Homo species but also the dominant creature on the planet. He considers how our genetic makeup is still closely tied to the original hunter-gatherer way of life and how our innovations in farming, civilisation and science have made us all powerful. Modern life has brought us many benefits but there is a darker side; we have enslaved people and wrought pain and misery on countless people throughout history and even now are slaves to the clock and consumerism.

      It is a broad-brush book as Harari draws on economics, anthropology and palaeontology to complete the history of our species. He also considers our future as humans, looking at the medical advances that could mean we live longer than ever and other technologies like genetic modification that could make some of people life more comfortable. Sadly though, there are flaws. He seems to come up with some daft conclusions, there are sweeping generalisations concerning subjects like the economy whilst there is very little on our effects on the climate. It has immense amounts of detail in some subjects and then rushes through on others, but it is a good stab at a subject with so much history and offers the potential of so much more.
    • 4/5
      This book was a challenge for me in much the same way as Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of Time. The difference is, I finished this book; I didn’t finish Hawking’s book. From hunter gatherers to cyborgs, Harari covers mankind from beginning to predicted end, and much of what he has to say about the future isn’t very encouraging. This is the kind of book I feel I should probably read again. I read it over too long a period of time (nearly a month) to get as much out of it as I feel I should have. It was a challenging read for me, but I enjoyed it.
    • 4/5
      One of those wonderful books it’s impossible to classify. My edition has gone for ‘popular science’. Nice try, if you take science to be knowledge generally. You might call it history, if you take history to be ‘researches’ as Herodotus meant it.History does run through the book chronologically like a chain, most prominently in the early parts where Harari deals very well with everything up to the agricultural revolution, but the real delight of the book are the great tangents he heads off on, like pendants from a chain. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book that asks so many questions and makes me ask so many too.Harari has a very particular point of view, but one thing I particularly appreciated was how he would very fairly put forward multiple arguments where things are not certainly known. Some of the things he discusses are quite technical, but he explains these things clearly and I actually learnt rather a lot.Well worth a read if you want to have your brain woken up. I’d have given it five stars but want to give myself wiggle-room in case Homo Deus is even better.
    • 5/5
      Wow! This is an excellent book.
      Harari tells the story of mankind, of homo Sapiens as opposed to the other species of Homo who once roamed the earth, sometimes in limited ranges, but who now are extinct.
      His history is not bound in the DNA alone but combines the DNA of our past with the language, mythology and culture of ur past. As such, it offers a more complete picture of the development of humanity over the millennia. It does not give the specifics of various important events, but instead describes the backdrop that created certain eras of Sapiens, the beliefs that motivated certain behaviors and the results of those behaviors.
      In the most poigniant events of history, the culture of one race came against the culture of another resulting in disaster for one of the cultures. Sometimes, cultures gave men opportunities, other times, it kept them from seeing those opportunities. Religion sometimes helped Mankind and other times was the cause of his greatest misdeeds.
      Harari traces at least three major "revolutions," the agricultural, the intellectual and the technological and their impact of how we got to where we are today and how they point to where we might be in the future. This latter area something he will take up in his sequel which I plan to read soon.
      This is a thoughtful book, one which offers a fresh take on understanding the rise to ascendency Sapiens have achieved.
      To me, its most important insight was not that Sapiens had larger brains which was not true when comparing Sapiens to Neanderthals, but because Sapiens applied their superior intelligence differently, particularly in the use of symbolic language to create better understanding s and communication tools. It is a great insight which explains a great deal about our past.
      Sapiens is well researched and documented. While I may not agree wholeheartedly with all of its conclusions, it still made me think and consider how I reached my own ideas about many things and I believe this book will have a similar impact on other readers.
    • 5/5
      Very interesting read tracing humankind from the origin of the universe to the present. The author goes into some detail in describing the evolutionary process and the ancestry of modern Homo sapiens. He focuses heavily on turning points for the species and the societies and civilizations it has constructed.The Cognitive Revolution (roughly 70,000 years ago) saw the emergence of language and of the concept of history.The Agricultural Revolution (12,000 years ago) allowed the creation of permanent settlements with the start of the domestication of plants and animals.The Scientific Revolution (500 years ago) allowed mankind to question previously accepted authority and to acquire an increasing grasp of the principles underlying the physical world.With the Industrial Revolution (barely 200 years ago), we developed powerful tools and technologies which accelerated the growth of society.And during my own lifetime, the Cyber Revolution has revolutionized the very nature of information storage and communication. The author discusses the implications of each of these monumental changes. Only 150 years ago, educated persons began replacing the theory of Intelligent Design explaining life with the concept of Natural Selection. Ironically, however, we're now at the point where Intelligent Design is becoming a reality . . . but with the Intelligence being Homo sapiens rather than a undemonstrable deity. At the same time, though, scientists are forming an increasing consensus that we ourselves have triggered our planet's sixth great extinction.Lots of good stuff to think about.
    • 4/5
      This is a complicated book to review. I found it often compelling, sometimes annoying, mostly well researched, and certainly well written. The writing style is not overly academic, though also not overly simplistic. This is a good middle ground read that works for both casual and serious readers.The first part of the book, in which we trace the evolution of the various human-like species, was the most compelling aspect for me. Here the author takes us on a journey. We follow along as Homo Sapiens conquer their surroundings and eventually become the only people walking the earth. During this journey, the author makes interesting suppositions as to how and why various religions formed and evolved. I was intrigued by his ideas here. He offers some unique input on this topic. At the same time, some of the content seems too far-reaching in his conclusions, and some is clearly there to spark controversy. An important thing to remember is that this book is more a work of journalistic social science than it is history. The author mixes fact with conjecture, stating both with equal conviction. Yet we simply cannot know what early man was thinking, any more than we can know what our neighbor is thinking today. Some of the authors assertions are merely educated opinions, and those do not belong in a history book.At times, the author's biases are too heavy-handed. I found this particularly irritating within his political discussions. Harari claims that all liberals believe in the Christian God, and that, without God, a liberal's belief system of individual rights collapses. Many atheist, Jewish, and Buddhist liberals would likely disagree. There is quite a lengthy section in which he berates liberal beliefs. He does the same with socialism. Though, oddly, he makes absolutely no mention of conservatism. Harari also seems to have little understanding of certain societal problems. He claims that poverty is no longer much of an issue for developed countries, and that people are more likely to die of obesity than starvation. While this argument has some merit, it's far too simplistic. Here he completely overlooks those people dying of malnutrition-related diseases, where obesity is in fact a side effect of cheap, processed foods. Poor people in developed countries might not be starving for food, but they are still starving for nutrition.The last part of this book, in which the author looks at the future direction of humankind, certainly gives us a lot to consider. Here we have content that will likely be the basis of much conversation and perhaps a little fear of what's to come.Overall, this is an entertaining read on a complex subject.A word of caution for the strongly religious readers: The author calls all religions myths, perhaps in a bit of a mocking tone, which might be offensive to some.
    • 5/5
      I highly rate this history for content but the writing is fun and provocative as well. The author has written a history with a biological perspective. He grounds the species within its genus. He mentions the problems of industrial agriculture for both out species and others. There's a section called "life on a conveyor belt" which discusses the mass culling of chicks in the chicken processing industry. The last chapters have a bit of science fiction flavor because he speculates about where the biological sciences may change humankind.

      The material about our imagined communities and the mythic structure of our culture is the most provocative to me. He uses Peugeot as an example of the mythic construction of the legal fictions of out culture. As he points out all the manager, employees, and stockholders of Peugeot could die but the company would still exist as a legal fiction until a court mandates its demise. From a biological perspective all talk about human rights and human nature are suspect. Destiny is an mythic concept. He writes an essay about the undone work of the study of happiness in history - human and non-human.

      I found the book dense with new ideas but accessible and worthwhile.
    • 5/5
      Imagine that you are hosting a dinner party with several of your close friends, all of whom are accomplished professionals in their various disciplines. In addition to good food and good wine, these occasions are also the source of much good conversation. Tonight’s topic is particularly intriguing: How did mankind get from where it began to where it is today? One of your guests is particularly well-versed in this area, with training in anthropology, biology, and economics in addition to his primary role as an historian. How do you think he would convey to the gathering everything that he knows about the subject? Very likely it would be with charm, wit, warmth, and considerable erudition, but with none of the dry academic discourse or condescending diatribe that we all fear being trapped by in such circumstances.Although admittedly loose, the preceding metaphor gives a sense of my reaction to reading Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari’s masterful and engaging summary of man’s first few million years on the planet. Audaciously subtitled A Brief History of Humankind, the author manages to deliver just that and more in the relatively compact space of some 400 pages. His focus is on the ascent of the genus Homo and why the Sapiens species—as opposed to, say, Neanderthals or Erectus—emerged supreme, as well as both the positive and negative consequences of that development. The story is not always pretty, or even especially flattering to us Sapiens, but it is always well-told and nicely paced. One of Harari’s most impressive talents is to weave together so many diverse schools of thought into something that seemed more like an expertly produced tapestry than a straightforward, linear narrative. A framing device that I found particularly useful was to divide the history of human development into three distinct regimes: the Cognitive Revolution, when mankind first became aware of its talents and surroundings; the Agricultural Revolution, when mankind domesticated plants and animals for its own benefit (or was it the other way around?); and the Scientific Revolution, the last 500 years during which most of mankind’s breathtaking technological advances have occurred. As Harari explains, an important feature of this history was the creation of imagined orders, which explain many diverse cultural and economic constructs including organized religions, multinational empires, and modern corporations. As much as anything, the human ability to imagine social, political, and economic organizations is what underscores the remarkable tale the author tells.If you accept the notion that one hallmark of a great piece of writing is to provoke in the reader a profound degree of thoughtfulness, then Sapiens is nothing short of a rousing success. For the most part, the facts, connections, and speculations presented in this book were new to me and I found myself trying to fit everything I read into my existing view of the world. Even when Harari touched on familiar areas—I am a financial economist by training—I found his insights to be fresh and sometimes challenging. I was especially taken by the last few chapters in which he addresses such philosophical issues as whether mankind’s progress over the millennia has made us any happier or the ethical dilemmas associated with the myriad skills and opportunities we have created for ourselves. At the risk of stating the obvious, this is book that I highly recommend without any hesitation. If nothing else, it will give you a lot to talk about at your next dinner party.
    • 5/5
      Interesting and provoking thoughts on where we are as a species.
    • 3/5

      Liked the first half. In the second half he touches too briefly on topics, and seems to just pick examples that fits his narrative rather than do a thorough examination of his claims.



    • 3/5
      I would like this intelligent book, which compresses a history of homo sapiens from first appearance to the present into roughly 400 pages of text but for a tone which increasingly irritated me the further I read. Harari does point out that we should be contemplating and discussing some very profound questions but are not. At least he raises those questions, and I urge people to read the book, or the llast couple of chapters, as a first step.
    • 5/5
      Very interesting read about humankind. I listened to this book on audible and quite enjoyed it! I chose it because it was a pick from Mark Zuckerberg's book club. A book that I thought would be a little boring but once I got into it I found it very interesting and hard to put down. I think everyone should pick this one up at some point.
    • 4/5
      This history of the human species by turns fascinated, depressed, and infuriated me. The early chapters about how homo sapiens developed things like agriculture were the most interesting to me (perhaps because they presented the most information I didn't already know), and the second half was a slog of depression and irritation. I disagreed with little of Harari's facts and larger conclusions, but the way he presented the material (often in a manner that seemed designed to shock) I feel elided a lot of nuance and sometimes privileged the rhetorical choice of shocking the reader over following the logic of his own arguments. Which makes me cross. So, a mixed read for me, and kind of a disappointing one, as I was looking forward to it. It *did* make for a lively and interesting conversation at book club, so that was nice.
    • 4/5
      Makes you think

      Overall a solid read. There are a few points where Harari seems to have his facts out of order, but in general the book does a good job of covering over 100,000 years and introducing the unanswerable questions about the future.
    • 4/5
      Interesting early but I felt a little long winded and preachy later.
    • 4/5
      This is such a wide ranging book, it is hard to categorize (probably why it is in the Cs) or even wrap my head around. I couldn't quite on down Harari's point of view; is he an optimist? A pessimist? Skeptic is about as far as I got and then just settled in and listened with an open mind.I think I might have absorbed more if I had read the print book instead of the audio version.
    • 4/5
      I was expecting a book on paleo-anthropology or anthro-paleontology, or something like that. But instead it was a sprawling, opinionated, necessarily depressing sweep of the history of humankind. The remote, observational tone was refreshing, and the author had the knack of expressing the obvious as unique and creative theses.
    • 4/5
      An excellent popular science book about the development of humankind that is written in a very readable style and that covers a lot of ground in a very accessible manner. Having been given the book by my brother-in-law for my birthday, I read it in a week or so and have passed my paperback copy to my son and offered to buy my daughter a copy for her Kindle.It is popular science and may not be rigorous enough for some who have already read/studied specific areas in greater depth, so you should be sceptical about the assertions made, as Harari would encourage you to be as this is a scientific book. It may not be 100% correct, but you are usually clear where Harari is putting forward his interpretation on the current evidence. Evidence can be interpreted in different ways and its interpretation changes are further evidence becomes available.It is very readable overview of a complex subject and Harari puts forward a cogent interpretation.
    • 5/5
      Part natural science, part history, and part philosophy, this is a thought provoking read. It is careful not to make value judgements, but it is not reluctant to ascribe unknowable motivations to groups of people. Some of these motivations I thought reasonable, others not so much. I did have a few issues with some distinctions (and lack of distinctions) being drawn. The biggest was that the author uses a VERY broad definition of the word 'religion', which he defines as "a belief in a superhuman order." Distinctions that I, and I think most others, would make between religion, ideology, and philosophy, he lumps together as forms of religion. By his definition, Christianity, Islam, Confucianism, Stoicism, Cynicism, Epicurianism, Liberalism, Communism, Naziism, Humanism... are all forms of religion. Admittedly, the distinguishing line between such things is far from sharp, but grouping them under the umbrella term of 'religion' implies more similarity than they seem to be to have to me. The term 'belief system' would have been a better choice. His terminology may be what leads him to define humanism, for example, as a group of religions that "worship humanity." I doubt many Secular Humanists (which, oddly, is not one of the three varieties of humanism he identifies) would agree that they 'worship' humanity or regard it as 'sacred'. Humanism, in this respect, is simply the philosophical position that human codes of behavior are human based. Whereas a theistic religion may maintain that laws, taboos, commandments, and other such things are dictated by a god or gods, humanism maintains that such things have their origins in human imagination, cultural evolution, and human biology. There's not a lot of worship going on in this, unless he's also using an atypical definition for that word as well.
      But despite a few issues with terminology, I found this to be a well written, well organized, and thought provoking book. I highly recommend it.

      (P.S. the picture on page 287 of the edition I read is either upside down or the caption is incorrect. The map as shown is oriented with north at the bottom, so Europe is not in the upper left corner as the caption states.)
    • 5/5
      This is not an easy book to present or review. It dissects so many parts of human life and culture, that it would be complicated to discuss on that basis alone. And yet one comes to feel that Harari addresses history largely in the service of offering deeply-held critiques and challenges that unfold over the course of the book.Let me just mention that the hardcover first U.S. edition is an admirable physical specimen. Most notable to me is the feel of the paper. I don't know the accurate words to describe it, but it may be a premium glossy high-lustre paper that feels extremely comfortable to handle. This book fits clearly into the emerging area of historical study some call Big History. It concerns itself with the broad sweep of the human career. Not quite as broad as the view of David Christian who doesn't limit himself to the human part of the story, but broad in that Harari starts with our proto-human ancestry and concludes with a consideration of a potential trans-human future.Let's be clear: I found no original scholarship here. Harari hews to familiar if wide and inclusive intellectual terrain. He owes a great debt to people like Jared Diamond, David Christian, and numerous authors who have come before. The Cognitive Revolution, the Agricultural Revolution, civilization, modernity. Science and its overthrow of the belief that was no more to discover about the universe. The interplay between science, capital and government. And on.This is not a criticism. Harari is an articulate and forceful purveyor of ideas. Sometimes he fails to make clear the distiction between scholarship and his own opinions, but for the most part he can be forgiven; his playing fast and-loose can be frustrating (eg. the chapter on the Agricultural Revolution is titled "History's Biggest Fraud"; "having so recently been one of the underdogs of the Savannah we are full of anxieties over our position, which makes us doubly cruel and dangerous"; "the leading project of the Scientific Revolution is to give humankind eternal life"), but it often feels like quibbling in the face of the questions he raises. Or alternatively, one tends to agree but knows inside that there is less certainty in his assertions that he lets on.Harari spends a lot of time on the notion of human success being due to what he calls inter-subjective phenomena, meaning fictions we agree upon, like money or countries but unlike electrons. He wants to remind us of how much of what we take for granted about ourselves and the world -- and which has resulted in our numerical proliferation and material aggrandizement -- is in a deep sense imaginary. He emphasizes the (familiar) dark side of the Neolithic (and post-Paleolithic in general): longer hours, disease, the false lure of acquisitiveness, etc. He suggests that happiness ought to be the barometer of how we live. Are people happier now than they were before giving up the migrant hunter-gatherer life and becoming sedentary participants in civilization? (Acknowledging however that there's no going back) He is forceful in his criticisms of religion and government. His account of money, capital and banking is especially cogent. He emphasizes repeatedly our insensitivity to the emotional harm our practices have on animals. This book is meant to challenge, to be a cautionary tale. There is a dark -- but not necessarily unfair -- thread running through the text. About our potential future as powerful beings: "Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don't know what they want?"; and "But since we might soon be able to engineer our desires too, the real question facing us is not 'What do we want to become?', but 'What do we want to want?'. Those who are not spooked by this question probably haven't given it enough thought."In the end, this is a thought-provoking book. He may not be right about everything, he may blur the lines between scholarship and interpretation, but his critiques are well worth considering. For a thorough introduction to Big History, I prefer David Christian's Maps of Time. For a challenging critique of the human past and future, this book must be reckoned with.
    • 4/5
      For the last couple of years, I haven't eaten beef or pork. Part of this was dietary but the larger portion was due to my distaste with the way these animals are dealt with in the food industry. After reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind I have decided to stop eating all meats for good. I'd be quite surprised if others reading this book didn't feel the same way. (This will make sense later.) This book covers exactly what the title says. Yuval Noah Harari touches on almost every aspect of what it means to be human. I can see why this book could be contentious in some circles as he is of the belief that consumerism, imperialism, and communism are religions instead of merely ideologies. He has a no holds barred attitude about the way in which humans have ravaged the planet and taken advantage of others of our species as well as flora and fauna. (Remember the no eating chicken thing?) What was most intriguing about Sapiens were the questions that he raised about the nature of happiness. There have been many books about how to be happy but no research into how happiness is measured and its trends throughout the years. (Maybe he has an upcoming novel in the works.) If you're interested in culture, human evolution, and a unique perspective of the world then you're likely to enjoy this book. I will say that a lot of this was common knowledge and/or already known to me as an Anthropology major. The second half of the book is where it got really interesting. I love a good thought experiment and trying to figure out answers to seemingly unsolvable problems is my idea of a good time. :-) I'd give this book a solid 8/10.
    • 5/5
      An amazing history book that is well written and easy to read. It's not a dry recitation of facts, but really a study of why things happened and which aspects of life have an important impact on history. A must read!
    • 4/5
      "Consistency is the playground of dull minds." This is one of the many sentences in this book that challenged me and got me thinking. I'm not sure I agree with it but you have to read his argument leading up to it to decide what you think.
      I was given this book and thought it would probably stay unread on my shelves for a long time. 'A Brief History of Mankind' isn't (for me) a very grabbing sub-title. But the reviews made it sound more interesting than the title suggested. And they were right. It's the best kind of 'pop' history - intelligent and immensely knowledgeable but written with a light touch, plenty of dry humour and a series of hypotheses that get you thinking. For example, his argument that our language evolved as a way of gossiping. Or, that obesity is a natural state inherited from our hunter-gatherer ancestors who had to binge-eat when they found a supply of food, for example a tree full of ripe fruit, because they couldn't carry much of it and it would probably be eaten by other humans or animals by the time they returned to it. There's also some wonderful anecdotes including one about Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong meeting a Native American while they were training in the desert for the moon landing. I won't spoil it by repeating it here.
      Part of my enjoyment of the book was disagreeing with a lot of Harari's more iconoclastic theories including those concerning imperialism and the state of global capitalism. This is a book that will teach you a lot but also help you to formulate your own ideas about our past, present and future.