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Chapter 12
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Sapiens, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Foraging, Industry, and Human Happiness
Fiction, Cooperation, and Culture
Science, Wealth, and Empire
Human-Caused Ecological Devastation
Summary
Analysis
Humanity, says Harari, united because of “commerce, empires, and universal religions.” He wonders what different kinds of global societies there could have been. Harari thinks about the emperor Constantine, who converted the Roman empire from polytheism to Christianity, though he can’t say more about why, exactly Constantine chose Christianity above polytheism or other religions. Harari also thinks about what’s going to happen in the future. He wonders if China will become the world’s superpower, or if humanity will destroy its ecosystem. Harari thinks that scholars can make predictions, but there’s always room for surprises—because there are so many factors to consider.
Harari thinks that many of the world’s prevailing imagined orders came about by chance. He stresses this because he doesn’t think the ones that humanity has had so far are necessarily the best—they’re more like accidents of history. He’s subtly encouraging the reader to think about what sets of beliefs they want to rally around in the future—particularly because the imagined orders that humanity had so far have caused widespread damage to other animal species and the natural ecosystem.
Themes
One thing that’s certain to Harari is that historical choices “aren’t made for the benefit of humans.” He doesn’t think there’s any evidence that adopting Christianity was good for human kind, or that the Arab empire was better than the Persian empire. Harari thinks cultural ideas “emerge accidentally” and then “infect” the human population—almost like the way memes spread, but there’s no reason to assume those ideas are the best ones. The path of history could have easily been very different.
Harari reinforces his idea that imagined orders tend to stick because they make people cooperate effectively, and not because they’re fundamentally good for humanity. Harari subtly encourages the reader to think about different imagined orders that they would prefer to live by, other than the ones that already dominate humanity.
Themes
