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Chapter 4
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
Humans fed on wild plants and hunted wild animals without interfering in their breeding for over two million years. About 10,000 years ago, however, Sapiens began manipulating their environments by sowing plant seeds (including wheat, rice, maize, potatoes, legumes, olive trees, and grapevines) and domesticating animals for labor or food (especially goats, sheep, pigs, and horses). This “Agricultural Revolution” occurred independently in the Middle East, Central America, and China. Modern Sapiens still live on a small handful of plant and animal species that were domesticated between 10,000 and 2,000 years ago.
Harari revisits the Agricultural Revolution, which happened sometime between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago—he uses both numbers throughout Sapiens. He thinks the invention of farming was significant because humans stopped foraging for wild food, and began manipulating their habitats to “domesticate” (or breed) plants and animals themselves. This shift radically changed the face of the Earth’s land-based habitats and affected many living species, which is why Harari calls the invention of farming a “revolution.”
Themes
Many scholars depict the Agricultural Revolution as a giant leap forward for humankind, but Harari disagrees. In fact, he calls the Agricultural Revolution “history’s biggest fraud.” Harari thinks hunter-gatherers had more knowledge of their natural environment, and they lived more satisfying lives. He even suggests that Sapiens didn’t domesticate plants like wheat. Rather, the plants domesticated us. Harari argues that before the Agricultural Revolution, Sapiens lived comfortable, free lives as wandering hunter-gatherers with varied diets. After it, however, humans toiled endlessly, clearing land to farm wheat and building homes near their crops.
Harari reminds the reader about his controversial opinion that life for humans (and many animals) got a lot worse after the Agricultural Revolution. He thinks the idea of farming as a great leap forward for humankind is actually “history’s biggest fraud.” He’ll spend the rest of the chapter outlining why he thinks peasants and laborers (who make up 90 percent of the human population, both historically and today) suffer much more than foragers did, both physically and emotionally.
Themes
Harari argues that the Agricultural Revolution trapped hunter-gatherers to lives of endless labor (which was needed to clear land and tend crops), violence (through battles for land to raise crops), poorer nutrition (from diets that were restricted to one crop), and food insecurity (because a bad season or natural disaster could trigger a famine). Harari thinks the Agricultural Revolution aimed to keep more people alive in much poorer conditions, and that doesn’t seem so great to him.
Harari stresses again that early farmers endured more suffering—both physical and mental—than foragers living before 12,000 years ago did. He thinks farming is much more labor intensive, and its primary crops (like rice or wheat) are far less nutritious than wild fruits and meats, leaving farmers physically more exhausted and malnourished than foragers. Harari also thinks that foragers were happier on a day-to-day basis, because they knew their natural habitat provided an ongoing food supply, and they didn’t face anxiety about their long-term food supply the way farmers did.
Themes
Harari explains that the shift from foraging to farming happened gradually. At first, roaming foragers camped for a few weeks and gathered wild wheat to help them survive the winters. As they gathered wheat, they dropped more seeds, which made more wheat grow. Wheat became more abundant, and humans started settling for longer periods of time around wheat fields. They eventually learned how to make more wheat grow (by planting seeds instead of letting them drop, by watering them, and so on). Foraging humans also reared fewer children, because it was harder to keep children alive in roaming communities. As Sapiens began living more sedentary lives (to be near the wheat crops), they began having more children, which increased their dependency on wheat.
Harari subtly implies here that overpopulation is one of humanity’s biggest problems: the more humans there are, the more food and resources they need, the more they mine the Earth’s ecosystems, and the more labor they have to take-on to provide for everyone on Earth. Harari thus argues that a large population doesn’t indicate that a species is thriving, because the individuals in the larger population don’t necessarily live better lives.
Themes
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For Harari, the effort to live easier lives (by settling near wheat fields) inadvertently ended up making life harder. Sedentary communities suffered more infectious disease, and growing populations demanded more labor to feed. He also thinks the same insight applies today: we devote endless labor to pursue education, work, homes, cars, and it takes us longer and longer to reach a point when we can stop working and enjoy our lives. Harari also thinks the “luxuries” humans invent to make our lives easier—like washing machines and the internet—actually cause us more stress and make us less relaxed in life.
As before, Harari argues that smaller, roaming, forager communities were less exhausted and sick than early farm laborers, suggesting that farm laborers endured a poorer quality of life than foragers did. To Harari, modern life is no better—it also demands a lot of labor to sustain. He even thinks modern conveniences (like washing machines and the internet) cause a lot of mental stress—they’re expensive, and they make people live life at a much faster pace, which he thinks makes people anxious and impatient. Harari thus suggests that both modern-day workers and early farmers endure more physical strain and less emotional peace than early foraging humans did.
Themes
Many scholars assume that the Agricultural Revolution enabled more sophisticated cultures to evolve. They argue that as people settled, they began expanding their cultural horizons and building temples. Harari, in contrast, argues that the discovery of a 10,000-year-old temple (called Göbekli Tepe) predates evidence of wheat farming in that area, suggesting that foragers started building the temple first, and then needed to settle and start farming to enable them to complete it.
Harari attempts to debunk the idea that farming-based societies were necessarily more culturally sophisticated (and therefore provided more cultural enjoyment) than early foraging societies. He speculates that ancient foragers already had rich cultural lives, implying that he thinks foragers were happier overall, because they enjoyed perks of being part of a rich culture without enduring the stress of a farming-based society.
Themes
The Agricultural Revolution also radically altered life for many animals. At first, humans began following wild herds and killing more aggressive individuals to stop them breeding, thereby gradually taming the herd. Today, we control every aspect of domesticated animals’ breeding. In evolutionary terms, it seems like domesticated animals (like sheep and chickens) are thriving, since they’re far more numerous in the modern world than they would have been in the ancient wild. Harari disagrees. He argues that domesticated animals lead shorter, more miserable lives. For example, a wild chicken can live for years, but most domesticated chickens are slaughtered within a few weeks of being born.
Harari argues that the invention of farming made life worse for many animal species, not just humans. He thinks agricultural animals suffer tremendously and endure far worse lives than they would in the wild, suggesting that since the advent of farming, humans have treated countless other animals with abject cruelty. He wants the reader to take pause and question why humanity thinks it’s okay to cause so much suffering to other animals, because to him, such behavior is highly unethical.
Themes
Admittedly, not all animals suffered in agricultural societies. Pets and racehorses, for example, could wind up with quite luxurious lives. Historically, humans valorized the image of shepherds lovingly tending their flocks, but Harari thinks that if we look at the situation from the flock’s perspective, the Agricultural Revolution was catastrophic. Harari thinks that many plants thrived as a result (like wheat, which is now ubiquitous in the world), but when it comes to creatures with complex emotional lives (like animals and humans), the Agricultural Revolution shows us that larger populations often increase “individual suffering.” Harari concludes that the more powerful Sapiens become, the more individual suffering we cause.
Harari thinks that the invention of farming caused widespread unhappiness among both humans and domesticated animals, so he concludes that the Agricultural Revolution wasn’t a leap forward, but a huge step backwards. Scientists often assume that a large population is a sign of a thriving species, suggesting that the Agricultural Revolution was a success because it enabled human and many animal populations to rapidly expand. Harari contends that if the individuals in the species are unhappy or are outright suffering, they’re not thriving. He suggests that humanity should be cautious about pursuing more population growth as a species—he thinks that will cause widespread unhappiness, leaving both humanity and many animal species worse off.
Themes
