Krishna
There are many books about evolution or evolution of man (and some of them are great : The Selfish Gene, The Ancestor’s Tale and Why the West Rules all come to mind) but this one has an entirely different take on the same subject.
The title should already tell you that he tracks the rise of the Sapiens and how they came to be the dominant species in the world and it makes an amazing reading. You come to know how Neanderthals for example have lived much longer than man and how they also had some skills (fire, implements etc). In addition, they were much bigger and stronger than home sapiens – us – but in the end, they got outmaneuvered. How? Read on. It opens your eyes to so much.
And he talks about why stories and imagination, including the invention of religion, gave humans an edge. This is a very interesting perspective. He also talks about how us humans are the worst thing ever to happen to the earth, ecologically speaking. We spread all over the world and in place after place (we are talking about the time before the western colonisation when the first humans spread all over the world) we proceeded to immediately destroy most of the megafauna species and killed biodiversity in an irreversible way. Fascinating arguments supported by solid evidence, circumstantial in some cases but nevertheless compelling.
The book takes root in your imagination at this point and you are hooked!
Interestingly he also says that agricultural society was not an improvement on the hunter gatherer variety. The workers were poorer, in poorer health, with poorer diets – all to help the richer people until they were organized into nations.
If people had it bad, the domesticated animals had it a hundred times worse. When you read that the people of old cut off the top of the mouth of calves so that they won’t suckle and take ‘all the milk from cows’ or when they did it to pigs to stop them from feeding elsewhere and be totally dependent on them or when you read that some even blinded pigs so that they won’t even be able to see where they are going (and so won’t run away, as their wealth in society was measured in terms of the number of pigs they owned) you realize sharply the cruelty of man to man.
He describes the common myths people pay respect to. Some of the ‘myths’ are amazing and he describes with full validity why religion, country, democracy, a corporation (Ferrari being an example quoted) monetary system, equality and many other concepts are myths, surviving only due to common agreement with a wide variety of people.
The discrimination that evolves in societies is impartially and accurately described. How did the caste system evolve among the Hindus? Why are the emperors in Japan the direct descendants of Amaratesu, the Sun Goddess? Why was the racial discrimination established in the US? Why were blacks, rather than, say, Europeans imported as slaves to the United States? Why did the writers of the constitution of the United States which recognizes ‘the equality of all men’ themselves owned slaves? Why are the notions of racial or caste superiority blended into both the religious beliefs as well as pseudo scientific ‘facts’? I cannot do justice to all of it in a review. This book is worth reading in the amazing amounts of cogent argument which explains the history of humans in a light that many of us have never considered before.
And how he describes money! Another brilliant vantage point. By simplifying these concepts into elementary principles he takes you straight to the heart of the matter. The explanations make you review what you know about many common subjects in a completely different light. This book enormously entertains and enormously instructs, both at the same time.
He talks about how religious beliefs were dominant. He talks about how monotheistic religions also had to invent subordinates (djinns, angels, saints etc) to look after the ‘common concerns’ of people since an all knowing God cannot take sides or deal with trivia. Nice. Page after page he makes you stop and wonder ‘Now, why did I not think of that?’. It also shakes your fundamental beliefs if you follow and accept the logic.
Another amazing concept is how politics (kings mainly) and science were separate until almost 500 years ago and how now they are entwined – government and business fund only research that helps industry or defense as opposed to earlier – often solo – pure science. He explains why the great warriors (Alexander, Napoleon) of yore were not interested in science and how today they are married to each other.
He talks about why the Western world captured far flung nations as empires when the Chinese and the Indians did not. He explains why the Inca and the other South American empires fell prey to just a band of a few hundred Spanish people – not even the royal people but a band of greedy privateers. It makes heartrending reading. And rings completely true.
He talks about Capitalism and how money use multiplies by use of credit. Great simplified examples bring it home to any layman. He also talks about why Capitalism is different from simply making money. (Reinvestment is the key)
He clearly describes how the unfettered capitalism created evils as slavery and animal cruelty. It is shocking to read that racism did not cause slavery but rather indifference and greed to maximize profits. Same thing for animal cruelty. It is suffering in the altar of commercial benefits. It is far more effective than preaching of the evils – the author’s historical narrative tone really strikes home.
As shocking is the revelation that Leopold’s ‘rape of Congo’ started with a charitable foundation with altruistic motives!
He describes how the government took over most functions provided by tribe and family in the old days and how war has become rare since the cost of war increased (more dangerous and expensive weapons) and benefits decreased (most valuable property nowadays is intellectual).
He near the end tackles why all the success in the world or most disability also will not impact happiness for long. It makes completely fascinating reading that one or the other of the delusions is what will make a person happy and fulfilled.
The book astonishes at every turn. What Yual says is common sense which you realize only after reading it. Fascinating insights pour from his pen in a nonstop flow and you are carried away in the erudite arguments until you come up for air every now and then, completely dumbfounded at the concepts herein.
Towards the end, when it speculates on how far we have come as a species and where we are going, it wanders briefly into the territory of his next book Homo Deus. Nevertheless, it is astonishing.
Summary? I have to be fair in my rating, and thinking about it, I do not know how one can write a better book on this chosen subject : it has erudition, clear explanation, keeps your interest throughout and keeps your jaw down on the floor all the way through with page after page of jaw dropping moments.
10 / 10
– – Krishna (Sep 2019)