As we did in 2021, we're attempting to again increase book coverage in the community. Since the last installment of this feature, we're speaking with Mike about his "SAPIENS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMANKIND" a review of Yuval Noah Haraj's SAPIENS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMANKIND. You really seem to have enjoyed the book.
Mike: I really did. I would encourage everyone to read it. If you've got KINDLE UNLIMITED with AMAZON you can read it for free. I need to note something there, though. Back in 2021, when we did this as a community, read books and covered them at our sites, we noted books you could read for free with KINDLE UNLIMITED. I got an e-mail today from someone who was complaining that we said they could read a book for free and they couldn't now. So let me state that on 7/18/23, this book was available for free on KINDLE UNLIMITED. If you read this six months from now or 20 years from now, I'm saying it was free when I read it. I believe AMAZON rotates the books that are available for free via KINDLE UNLIMITED.
Good point. Thanks for bringing that in. Are you a big science reader?
Mike: I'm absolutely not. I would feel lost with the topic. But this book, like Elizabeth Kolbert's "THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: AN UNNATURAL HISTORY," was both interesting and easy to follow. Haraj's book looks at the Earth and the progression to people on it. It's very interesting and, you know, there's a part in there about how one group moves towards humans and the other stays towards chimpanzees. And it's moments like that where you really appreciate how it could have gone anyway at all but instead it went our way.
Human?
Mike: Yes, and Haraj talks about how quickly humans then moved up the chain and that we did it so fast that we didn't have outside controls to stop us from damaging the planet. And we are the species that could destroy this planet. Lions didn't do it, for example, but we could. It'll make you think about climate change and about our responsibilities and how we've ignored those responsibilities.
Is it a book you moved slowly through to savor it?
Mike: I'd say yes. It was a book that you really wanted to reflect upon. And let me quote one passage:
One of the most common uses of early stone tools was to crack open bones in order to get to the marrow. Some researchers believe this was our original niche. Just as woodpeckers specialise in extracting insects from the trunks of trees, the first humans specialised in extracting marrow from bones. Why marrow? Well, suppose you observe a pride of lions take down and devour a giraffe. You wait patiently until they're done. But it's still not your turn because first the hyenas and jackals -- and you don't dare interfere with them -- scavenge the leftovers. Only then would you and your band dare approach the carcass, look cautiously left and right -- and dig into the edible tissue that remained. This is a key to understanding our history and psychology. Genus Homo's position in the food chain was, until quite recently, solidly in the middle. For millions of years, humans hunted smaller creatures and gathered what they could, all the while being hunted by larger predators. It was only 400,000 years ago that several species of man began to hunt large game on a regular basis and only in the last 100,000 years -- with the rise of Homo sapiens -- that man jumped to the top of the food chain.
That spectacular leap from the middle to the top had enormous consequences.
Mike (Con't): That just adds so much perspective -- both to how we got here and to how much luck and happenstance has allowed to survive so far.
-------------------
Previous book discussions this year.
"Books (Ann, Elaine, Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Stan, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ann and C.I.)," "Books (Ruth, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Mike, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Stan, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Ann, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)" and "Books (Ava and C.I.)."