Historical Context

A brief History of Mankind Sapiens was written by Yuval Noah Harari and it was first published in English in 2014. However, the book was first published in Hebrew in 2011. It is not clear the reasons, behind the decision of Harari to write this book (Harari, 265). Indeed, it can be argued that Harari wrote the book to stamp his authority as a historian. Harari is like any other author in a certain field, who decides to theorize or writes a book to give an insight into something that is already written.  There is a lot of information about the history of mankind, and for that matter he must have written this book to give people a deeper comprehension of evolution.

Harari cited Jared Diamond?s book ?Guns, Germs, and Steel? of 1997 to have inspired him to write this book (Yuval, n.p). This demonstrated that Harari must have written the book as an opinion or expansion of the Diamond?s book (Harari 267). In most instances, when an author reads a book, especially the one written to their field they gain the inspiration to give their informed opinion. After reading the book of Diamond, Harari argued that there is need to question his argument scientifically. Being a historian, it is essential for one to read other books and give their own analytical opinion. In his book, Harari scientifically looked into the account of human history.

Contextually, 95 percent of this book is dedicated to human beings, who indeed are species. The book wants to inform people, in all honesty seem to be ignorant about themselves.  However, people know themselves, but they do not know other human species that lived many years ago. There are species that are extinct today, but people are ignorant about them. Also, people are ignorant that, it took evolution for them to be what they are today (Yuval, n.p). In the book, Harari exclusively discusses the history of species, which refer to human beings. Ideally, the human species make up a small fraction of the history of mankind. In spite of being a small part of this mankind?s history, the human species are critical to the study of evolution. It is on that basis that Harari saw the necessity to write a book to give insights into the history of sapiens for them.

The book in summary gives an overview of what happened billions of years ago. Harry notes that 13.5 billion years ago, there appeared energy and matter, which laid the basis for the beginning of physics. It is in this very year that molecules and atoms also appeared, and this gave to the rise of chemistry. This is history that many people do not know, but by reading this book one is able to know the role the energy, matter, molecules and atoms in the beginning of mankind species.

Harari further indicated that the earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago and in 3.8 billion years ago the organisms started emerging. For is understandable here is that, the organism began existing when the earth was fully formed.  Later, the organisms began emerging, and that led to the beginning of biology.

6 million years ago the last generation of grandmothers of human beings and the chimpanzees were available. But, 2.5 million years the first species of mankind, that is, homo appeared in Africa and started evolving. Clearly, the chronological order of events listed by Harari in his book clearly show where mankind originated from. He does not give in details, how exactly the events happened but there is an overview of how evolution began. In later years, scientific revolution, agricultural revolution, and industrial revolution took place. The innovation or technological advancements the world is experiencing today is simply as a result of revolution.

Harari implies that the organisms and the earth itself originated from energy and matter. The atoms and molecules, facilitated the development of organisms, and this to some considerable level is related to ?Guns, Germs, and Steel? by Jared Diamond, whom Harari says gave him an inspiration to write this book. Most importantly, Harari?s outline of the chronological events that happened billion of years ago gives insight into the origin of organisms. Though, this is theoretical in nature but Harari believes that by looking into history of sapiens scientifically, people are likely to believe their history. However, currently the book can be accessed from Amazon.com, but there is no statistics to support it as the best sold book. But, what is apparent is that the book has made Harari famous, and most people identify him with the ?history of mankind sapiens.? Indeed, the book is informative and written in simple language, and it is fortunate that it has versions in other languages like Hebrew.

Author?s Biography

Yuval Noah Harari was born in 1976 in Haifa, Israel. He is a scholar and in 2002, he was confirmed with a PhD from the University of Oxford. At present he lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the Department of History. Academically, he has a professorship title, and he is an authority in the world history, military history and medieval history. As indicated earlier, Prof. Harari wrote this book, because this is his field of expertise. In his education history, it is clear that he studied history, and that must have inspired him to write about ?A brief History of Mankind Sapiens.?

Prof. Harari has won some awards for his creativity and originality. He is a Polonsky Prize two-time winner and he won in 2009 and 2012. Also, he was awarded the Society for Military History?s Moncado in 2011. From these awards and the educational background of this personality, it is noticeable that he is an intelligent individual. He is a scholar who is committed to research and to inform people. In fact, the award he won in the military history was due to the excellent article he wrote on the topic.

Prof. Harari has written other books like Homo Deus and A brief History of Tomorrow, which is one of his bestselling books in the world today. In 2017, the Homo Deus won the Handelsblatt?s German Economic Book Award, because it was the most influential economic book in 2017. At present, Prof. Harari is committed to the macro-historical questions to unearth the relationship that exists between biology and history (Novis 36). He is also questioning the special differences that differentiate Homo sapiens from other animals.