![]() ![]() “Any large-scale human cooperation-whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe-is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination.” Along the way, he argues, our species has been unwilling to recognize the many unintended consequences of its obsessive search for happiness and immortality. ![]() “Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths,” he writes. It began with small changes in DNA that led to a capacity for humankind to create, recall and share complex stories and master the world. In Sapiens, Harari describes the evolution of an ape-like creature 100,000 years ago into the species we are today. ![]() The result was a book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, published first in Hebrew in 2011 and then in English in 2014, which became a best-seller-with effusive recommendations by Barack Obama, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg-and made him an academic rock star. Then he took up the challenge of teaching an introductory course in world history when no other faculty member wanted to teach it. U ntil 2011, Yuval Noah Harari was an obscure professor of medieval military history at Hebrew University. ![]()
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