This was so good, I'm reading it again, and it's blowing my mind for the second time. It's as if Dr Harari isn't even human, he's so adept at examining our species from the broadest view, with the widest possible perspective. He's like an alien anthro-pologist, and that is a huge, huge compliment. Also, I'm pretty sure he's about as bright as it's possible for any life-form to be. "Every once in a while, a book comes along that has the capacity to radically change the way we think about matters of substance. This book is one of them." Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens. How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights; to trust money, books and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come? 

In Sapiens, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical – and sometimes devastating – breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, paleontology and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come? 

Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our power ... and our future.