Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: μια σύντομη ιστορία του ανθρώπου. Αθήνα: Αλεξάνδρεια, 2015.(909 HAR)

Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: a brief history of humankind. London: Vintage, 2014. (909 HAR)

“A sweeping history of civilization from the origins of the human species to the “super” human, full of astonishing evidence, provocative thoughts and gripping narratives."

- from the back cover of the Greek edition

“One hundred thousand years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens.

How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights; to trust money, books and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come?

In Sapiens, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical – and sometimes devastating – breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, paleontology and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come?

Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our power ... and our future.”

- https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23692271-sapiens

A little about the author

   Prof. Yuval Noah Harari was born in Haifa, Israel, in 1976. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford in 2002, and is now a lecturer at the Department of History, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

He specialized in World History, medieval history and military history. His current research focuses on macro-historical questions: What is the relation between history and biology? What is the essential difference between Homo sapiens and other animals? Is there justice in history? Does history have a direction? Did people become happier as history unfolded?

Prof. Harari also teaches a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) titled A Brief History of Humankind.

More than 80,000 students from throughout the world have participated in the first run of the course in 2013. The second run began in August 2014, and in its first three weeks 30,000 students joined it.

Prof. Harari twice won the Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality, in 2009 and 2012. In 2011 he won the Society for Military History’s Moncado Award for outstanding articles in military history. In
2012 he was elected to the Young Israeli Academy of Sciences.

- http://www.ynharari.com/about/

Other books by the author


              
Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus: a brief history of tomorrow. London: Harvill Secker, 2016.

Harari, Yuval Noah. A Brief History of Mankind. Or Yehuda: Dvir, 2011. [Hebrew].

Harari, Yuval Noah. The Ultimate Experience: Battlefield Revelations and the Making of Modern War Culture, 1450-2000. Houndmills: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008.

Harari, Yuval Noah. Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry, 1100-1550. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2007.

Harari, Yuval Noah. Renaissance Military Memoirs: War, History and Identity, 1450-1600. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2004.

Critiques - Presentations

Γιώργος Βαϊλάκης, Sapiens, το μυστικό είναι η ομάδα…, "Ημερησία", 21.1.2017

Τάσος Καφαντάρης, Από τον πιθηκάνθρωπο στον υπεράνθρωπο, "Το Βήμα", 15.5.2016

Κωνσταντίνος Μπούγας, Μια γοητευτική καταγραφή της ιστορίας του ανθρώπου, "Η Καθημερινή"/ "Τέχνες και Γράμματα", 12.3.2016

Σπύρος Μανουσέλης, 3 σημαντικά βιβλία για τον άνθρωπο, "Εφημερίδα των Συντακτών", 19.12.2015

Αναστάσης Βιστωνίτης, Το ζώο που έγινε θεός, "Το Βήμα"/ "Βιβλία", 6.12.2015

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/11/sapiens-brief-history-humankind-yuval-noah-harari-review (Κριτική του βιβλίου στην εφημερίδα The Guardian)

http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/books/what-makes-us-sapiens/ (Κριτική του βιβλίου στο The Indian Express)

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/review-sapiens-20141114-11mmca.html (Κριτική του βιβλίου στο The Sydney Morning Herald)

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/sapiens-by-yuval-noah-harari-book-review-eloquent-history-of-what-makes-us-human-9712106.html (Κριτική του βιβλίου στην Independent)

Interesting Webpages

http://www.ynharari.com/ (Η ιστοσελίδα του συγγραφέα)

http://www.ynharari.com/sapiens/short-overview/ (Παρουσίαση του βιβλίου από τον ίδιο τον συγγραφέα με χρήση σύντομων βίντεο)

https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2014/10/24/qa_how_were_evolving_from_homo_sapiens_to_bionic_somethings.html (Συνέντευξη του συγγραφέα στην εφημερίδα Toronto Star)

http://www.thebookseller.com/profile/yuval-noah-harari-interview (Συνέντευξη του συγγραφέα στο The Bookseller)

https://www.ted.com/speakers/yuval_noah_harari (Βιντεοσκοπημένη διάλεξη του συγγραφέα με θέμα "What made homo sapiens the most successful species on the planet?")

https://www.youtube.com/user/YuvalNoahHarari (Συλλογή από βίντεο με ομιλητή τον Harari στην ιστοσελίδα του Youtube)