NATIONAL BESTSELLER
This second volume of Sapiens: A Graphic History, the full-color
graphic adaptation of Yuval Noah Harari's #1 New York Times
bestseller, focuses on the Agricultural Revolution--when humans fell
into a trap we've yet to escape: working harder and harder with
diminishing returns.
What if humanity's major woes--war, plague, famine and
inequality--originated 12,000 years ago, when Homo sapiens converted
from nomads to settlers, in pursuit of the fantasy of productivity and
efficiency? What if by seeking to control plants and animals, humans
ended up being controlled by kings, priests, and Kafkaesque bureaucracy?
Volume 2 of Sapiens: A Graphic History-The Pillars of Civilization
explores a crucial chapter in human development: the Agricultural
Revolution. This is the story of how wheat took over the world; how an
unlikely marriage between a god and a bureaucrat created the first
empires; and how war, plague, famine, and inequality became an
intractable feature of the human condition.
But it's not all doom and gloom with this book's cast of entertaining
characters and colorful humorous scenes. Yuval, Zoe, Prof. Saraswati,
Cindy and Bill (now farmers), Detective Lopez, and Dr. Fiction, all
introduced in Volume 1, once again travel the length and breadth of
human history, this time investigating the impact the Agricultural
Revolution has had on our species. The cunning Mephisto shows them how
to ensnare humans, King Hammurabi lays down the law, and Confucius
explains harmonious society. The origins of modern farming are
introduced through Elizabethan tragedy; the changing fortunes of
domesticated plants and animals are tracked in the columns of the Daily
Business News; the story of urbanization is portrayed as a travel
brochure, offering discount journeys to ancient Babylon and China; and
the history of inequality unfolds in a superhero detective story; with
guest appearances by historical and cultural personalities throughout
such as Thomas Jefferson, Scarlett O'Hara, Margaret Thatcher, and John
Lennon.
Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 2 is a radical, witty and colorful
retelling of the story of humankind for adults and young adults, and can
be read on its own or in sequence with Volume I.
