How did humans get here? Historian Yuval Noah Harari is thrilled to tell you

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2022

⏱️ 7 minutes

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Summary

Historian Yuval Noah Harari wrote a book back in 2015 that looked at the entirety of human history; from hunter-gatherers to space exploration. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind packs all of this into a mere 400 pages. Harari noted to NPR's Arun Rath that humans have done a great job cultivating power – but where we tend to fall short is translating that power into happiness.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's book of the day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Today's guest is historian
0:07.2	Yuval Noah Harari. And when I say historian, I really, really mean it. He specializes in history
0:13.9	from ages ago. His book, Sapiens, A Brief History of Human Kind, explores the beginnings of our
0:20.3	time on this planet.
0:22.0	And he said something in this 2015 interview with NPR host Arun Roth that has me thinking a lot
0:27.8	about the big problems we face as a species today.
0:31.4	He said that what makes Homo sapiens different from the other animals in the world
0:35.4	is our ability to create fictions we can believe in
0:38.7	and then use that belief to work together towards a collective goal.
0:42.2	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:47.0	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.
0:53.4	NPR reporters on the ground bring
0:55.1	you stories of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:01.2	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:07.2	If you were to look at Homo sapiens, 100,000 years ago, you wouldn't find an awful lot to distinguish our species from other animals.
1:14.9	But in the last 30,000 years, a mere blip in the history of the Earth, we transformed this planet in a way never seen before, leaving mass extinctions and climate change in our wake.
1:25.5	Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari tells the story of how we got here in his book,
1:29.9	Sapiens, A Brief History of Human Kind.
1:32.7	He says early Homo sapiens
1:33.9	weren't just vying for supremacy with other animals.
1:36.4	We were also competing with other human species.
1:39.3	Until about 30,000 years ago,
	...

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