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Sapiens

Yuval Noah Harari · 2011

Economics
Cover of Sapiens

A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari tells the entire story of our species in 400 pages — from the emergence of Homo sapiens in East Africa to the twenty-first century. His key insight: what sets humans apart is our ability to believe in shared fictions — money, nations, corporations, religions — that enable mass cooperation at scales no other species can achieve.

Sapiens became a global phenomenon because it reframes everything we take for granted — money, law, religion, corporations — as collective fictions that exist only because enough people believe in them. This perspective is profoundly useful for anyone building organizations or trying to understand why the world works the way it does.

You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death — but you can convince a human.
— Yuval Noah Harari
from Sapiens
How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy, or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined.
— Yuval Noah Harari
from Sapiens
The real difference between us and chimpanzees is the mysterious glue that enables millions of humans to cooperate effectively.
— Yuval Noah Harari
from Sapiens
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