We can make assumptions about human health according to the archeological finds we have, but these may be scarce – many burial sites for hunter-gatherers would naturally be spread about a wider area, rather than a single burial place, so the data we have may well be partial. If you don’t end up feeling terribly guilty for existing after reading the first few chapters of his book, then I will be deeply impressed with you.īut if you think about it carefully – there is no way of actually measuring human happiness when they were hunter-gatherers and after. He calls out Homo Sapiens for causing most large mammals and all the other human species to go extinct. He calls the agricultural revolution ‘history’s biggest fraud’, a victory of DNA spreading over human happiness. He is convinced that Homo Sapiens were healthier and happier as hunter-gatherers. His tone was that of an evangelizing fanatic, determined to contradict those who thought the Agricultural Revolution benefitted mankind. In fact, when I first read an interview with Harari, I decided I probably wouldn’t like his book. That said, his narratives, though they may be based on fact ( I use the word ‘may’ as his bibliography is patchy at times) are definitely not facts themselves.

Yuval Noah Harari is much more interested in the history of ideas that made humans what they are. If you want a short outline of events that leads up to now, you are in the wrong place. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is definitely not a work of history.

Is yuval noah harari vegan