I finished the profile on Harari last night. For the first five or so pages I was wondering what all the fuss was about. It covered all the people around him, his organization, etc. Then it started talking about some of his ideas and writings and became a little more interesting. I grasp that his main achievement is to write about the history of all humanity. Other than that, I didn't see any new ideas. The author perhaps didn't either because he ended the article with a "who cares" statement.
I haven't finished it but I agree with you on the first part. I'm not sure I can describe off the top of my head why his book is so compelling. For one thing, it does not embrace standard comforting assumptions about human organizations and progress. He talks about several revolutions: cognitive, agricultural and scientific. The cognitive revolution allowed humans to communicate in abstractions and hypotheticals. Other animals can communicate "There's a lion at the watering hole." But humans suddenly became able to speculate on whether the lion would or wouldn't be present, to tell a story about why the lion goes there, worship the lion as a god, etc. And when those hypotheticals/stories eventually took the forms of religion, politics, royalty, moral structures, patriotism, capitalism, money, etc., that's what ultimately allowed humans to form larger groups. He's also one of those who judges the agricultural revolution as more damaging than beneficial to humans: suddenly people had to work harder, cities sprang up, diseases ran rampant. Yes, agriculture ultimately allowed humans to specialize skills so now we have great books, antibiotics, computers, planes. Except that the vast majority of humans still didn't/don't have access to those things, and those people's lives are worse (he says) than hunter gatherers'. As for the scientific revolution, it enabled colonialism and vice versa -- for good and for ill. I don't agree with all of his notions, but they're always interesting.
At this late hour off the top of my head, I'm not doing the book justice. But if the article ends in "who cares?" it's definitely not doing him justice.
I then read about Jeanne Calment, the reportedly oldest person who ever lived. Also a very interesting article, and would have also benefited from shortening by at least a page.
Good thing Jeanne herself wasn't shortened by a page!
Topic: In the New Yorker... (Read 2393041 times)