This chapter is about the differences between men and women. Men are better at spatial tasks than women. Spatial skills and polygamy go together in several species. Female bodies evolved to bear and rear children. Men’s bodies evolved to suit the demands of rising in the male hierarchy, fighting over women and providing meat for … Read more
Consistent monogamy, not polygamy sets humans apart from mammals (including apes). Of the four apes (gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees) only gibbons are monogamous. Although men are polygamous opportunists at heart, afraid of commitment, they are interested in finding wives whom to rear families with. Sperm competition theory emerged after it was discovered that some … Read more
The Incas had strict rules for who would be able to mate with their women. They organized these rights according to a hierarchy, and any man who violated these rules would be put to his death, along with his family. Most of the Incas were descendants of powerful men. Human beings are a product of … Read more
The Story of the Human Body by Daniel E. Lieberman is about how our bodies have evolved across time, how the environment and culture affected our development, and what, if any kind of behavior or lifestyle, is considered optimal for human beings. A Return to the Past Some have called for a return to the … Read more
In An Introduction to Middle East Politics, Benjamin McQueen provides a brief history of the Middle East, focusing on its relationship with the West, and how this relationship has changed, and in other ways has stayed the same, from the time of the Ottomans until present day. With this historical context, the Arab uprisings that … Read more
Summary In Homo Deus, Harari brings up many of the same ideas that he discussed in Sapiens – including crediting our success as a species to our ability to communicate and believe stories efficiently. But after transcending our primordial roots, our ambitions have grown. Today, the conversation about attaining immortality is not speculation, but a … Read more
Sapiens by Harari is an ambitious attempt to summarize the history of humankind, including our harsh beginnings when we competed with other human cousins for resources, our conquests, our innovations, our tragedies, and our greatest achievements. This book will teach you about where you came from, and it will give you an idea of where … Read more
One of the lessons from the book so far is that humans have been unable to break free from their biological chains. No matter what lands they have conquered, and intellectual feats they have achieved, no man has been able to transcend their own biology – until now. For the first time in history, we … Read more
Happiness The last 500 years have seen breakthroughs in every area of human concern. We have become more scientifically competent, economically prosperous, peaceful, and secure, but are we happier? Historians rarely ask these questions, but they should. One progressive idea is that since we are more capable than our ancestors, we must be happier, but … Read more
There are tens of thousands of wild animals, including giraffes and wolves, but there are hundreds of millions of domesticated animals, and billions of humans today. We have taken over the world. In 1800 there were 950 million of us. By 1900 we almost doubled our numbers to 1.6 billion. And by 2000 that quadrupled … Read more