Sapiens

Part One. The Cognitive Revolution

1. An Animal of No Significance

2. The Tree of Knowledge

Bypassing the Genome, p. 39

Sapiens bands that lived on the island of New Ireland, north of New Guinea, used a volcanic glass called obsidian to manufacture particularly strong and sharp tools. New Ireland, however, has no natural deposits of obsidian. Laboratory tests revealed that the obsidian they used was brought from deposits on New Britain, an island 400 kilometres away.

3. A Day in the Life of Adam and Eve

4. The Flood

Part Two. The Agricultural Revolution

5. History's Biggest Fraud, p. 90

The average farmer worked harder than the average forager, and got a worse diet in return. The Agricultural Revolution was history's biggest fraud.

The Luxury Trap, pp. 97-98

People were unable to fathom the full consequences of their decisions. [...] If you worked harder, you would have a better life. That was the plan.
[...] But people did not forsee that the number of children would increase, meaning that the extra wheat would have to be shared between more children. Neither did the early farmers understand that feeding children with more porridge and less breast would weaken their immune system [...]

p. 98

How many young college graduates have taken demanding jobs in high-powered firms, vowing that they will work hard to earn money that will enable them to retire and pursue their real interest when they are thirty-five? But by the time they reach that age, they have large mortgages, children to school, houses in the suburbs that necessitate at least two cars per family, and a sense that life is not worth living without really good wine and expensive holidays abroad. What are they supposed to do, go back to digging roots? No, they double thier efforts and keep slaving away.

Divine Intervention, pp.  101-102

The structures in Göbekli Tepe are dated 9500 BC, and all available evidence indicates that they were built by hunter-gatherers. [...]
For many years, geneticists have been tracing the origins of domesticated wheat. Recent discoveries indicate that at least one domesticated variant, einkorn wheat, originated in the Karaçadag Hills — about thirty kilometres from Göbekli Tepe.
[...] It may well be that foragers switched from gathering wild wheat to intense wheat cultivation, not to increase their normal food supply, but rather to support the building and running of a temple.

6, Building Pyramids, p. 110

Around 10,000 BC, before the transition to agriculture, earth was home to about 5-8 million nomadic foragers. By the first century AD, only 1-2 million foragers remained (mainly in Australia, America and Africa), but their numbers were dwarfed by the world's 250 million farmers.

The Coming of the Future, p. 114

History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets.

The Prison Walls, p. 126

How do you cause people to believe in an imaginary order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism?

7. Memory Overload

8. There is No Justice in History

Part Three. The Unification of Humankind

9. The Arrow of History

10. The Scent of Money

The Price of Money, p. 208

When everything is convertible, and when trust depends on anonymous coins and cowry shells, it corrodes local traditions, intimate relations and human values, replacing them with the cold laws of supply and demand.

11. Imperial Visions

When They Become Us, p. 223

[...] and ambitious Indian who mastered the intricacies of the English language, took lessons in Western-style dance, and even became accustomed to eating with a knife and fork. Equipped with his new manners, he travelled to England, studied law at University College London, and became a qualified barrister. Yet this young man of law, bedecked in suit and tie, was thrown off a train in the British colony of South Africa for insisting to travel first class instead of settling for third class, where ‘coloured’ men like him were supposed to ride. His name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

12. The Law of Religion

God Is One, p. 242

Judaism [...] argued that the supreme power of the universe has interests and biases, yet His chief interest is in the tiny Jewish nation and in the obscure land of Israel. Judaism had little to offer other nations, and throughout most of its existence it has not been a missionary religion. This stage can be called the stage of ‘local monotheism’.

The Battle of Good and Evil, p. 248

The average Christian believes in the monotheist God, but also in the dualist Devil, in polytheist saints, and in animist ghosts. [...] It's called syncretism.

13. The Secret of Success

Blind Clio, p. 271

‘Arm Racing’ is a pattern of behaviour that spreads itself like a virus from a country to another, harming everyone, but benefiting itself, under the evolutionary criteria of survival and reproduction.

Part Four. The Scientific Revolution

14. The Discovery of Ignorance, p. 275

In the year 1500, there were about 500 million Homo sapiens in the entire world. Today [2010], there are 7 billion. The total value of goods and services produced by humankind in the year 1500 is estimated as $250 billion, in today's dollars. Nowadays the value of human production is close to $60 trillion. In 1500, humanity consumed about 13 trillion calories of energy per day. Today, we consume 1,500 trillion calories a day. (human population has increased fourteenfold, production 240-fold, and energy consumption 115-fold.)

15. The Marriage of Science and Empire

16. The Capitalist Creed

The Capitalist Hell, p. 370

Some religions, such as Christianity and Nazism, haved killed millions out of burning hatred. Capitalism has killed millions out of cold indifference coupled with greed.

17. The Wheels of Industry

The Age of Shopping, p. 390

In medieval Europe, aristocrats spent their money carelessly on extravagant luxuries, whereas peasants lived frugally, minding every penny. Today, the tables have turned. The rich take great care managing their assets and investments, while the less well-heeled go into debt buying cars and televisions they don't really need.

18. A Permanent Revolution

The Collapse of the Family and the Community, p. 399

In an old-fashioned medieval community, when my neighbour was in need, I helped build his hut and guard his sheep, without expecting any payment in return. When I was in need, my neighbour returned the favour. [...] Village life involved many transactions but few payments.

Imagined Communities, pp. 407-407

In recent decades, national communities have been increasingly eclipsed by tribes of customers who do not know one another intimately but share the same consumption habits and interests [...]

Peace in our time, pp. 410-411

In the year 2000, wars caused the death of 310,000 individuals, and violent crime killed another 520,000. [...] from a macro perspectivethese 830,000 victims comprised only 1.5 per cent of the 56 million people who dies in 2000. That year, 1.26 million people died in car accidents (2.25 per cent of total mortality) and 815,000 people committed suicide (1.45 per cent).
[2002: 57 million dead, 172,000 in war, 569,000 of violent crime, 873,000 committed suicide.]

19. And They Lived Happily Ever After

The Meaning of Life, p. 437

As Nietzsche put it, if you have a why to live, you can bear almost any how.

20. The End of Homo Sapiens

Afterword: The Animal that Became a God