婷说：
对于《人类简史》这本书
相信婷馆的粉丝们多多少少都听说过或者阅读过
那么，盖茨大叔是如何看待这本书的呢？
一起来看看他写的书评吧。
When Melinda and I went on our spring vacation, I encouraged her to pack a copy of Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. I had just
finished the book and I was dying to talk to her about it. It’s so provocative and raises so many questions about human history that I knew it would spark great conversations around the dinner table. It didn’t disappoint. In fact, in the weeks since we’ve been back from our holiday, we still talk about Sapiens.
今年春季旅行前，我给太太梅琳达推荐的旅行读物是尤瓦尔·赫拉利的《人类简史》。那时，我刚刚读完这本书，也想和她聊聊这本书。因为书中提及了很多有关人类历史的话题，所以我断定，这本书会成为我们晚餐桌上的一道丰盛的讨论大餐。确实，它没让我失望。事实上，在春季旅行结束后的几周内，我们仍旧一直在讨论《人类简史》。
Harari, who is an Israeli historian, takes on a daunting challenge: to tell the entire history of us, the human race, in a mere 400 pages. I’ve always been a fan of writers who try to connect the dots and make sense of the sweep of history. Probably no one has done it better than David Christian in his Big History lectures, which distill 13.7 billion years of history, from the Big Bang on, into a manageable framework that spans biology, physics, humanities, and the social sciences. While Harari concerns himself with a shorter time frame, the last 70,000 years of human history, his job is no less difficult. He sets out to explain how we, Homo sapiens (Latin for “wise person”), came to dominate the Earth and what may lie ahead for our species.
赫拉利，作为一名以色列的历史学家，接受了一项值得敬佩的挑战任务：在短短400页的一本书内，讲述整个人类历史。我之前一直喜欢读简史。我比较喜欢David Christian写的《Big History》，该书从137亿年之前宇宙大爆炸开始，囊括了一个宏大的框架，跨越了生物学、物理学、人类学，以及社会科学等学科。但赫拉利则关注于一个比较短的时间内，大约7万年的人类历史。但他的工作不会更容易。此书从解释智人（拉丁语译为“聪明人”）开始，讲述其如何主宰地球，一直讲到人类物种的未来。
Most humans assume that we were always the ones in charge, lording over the rest of the animals. But Harari reminds us that long before we built the pyramids, wrote symphonies, or walked on the moon, there was nothing special about us. “The most important thing to know about prehistoric humans,” Harari writes, “is that they were insignificant animals with no more impact on their environment than gorillas, fireflies or jellyfish.”
很多人认为，人类总是处于主宰的角色，主宰着地球上的其他动物。但赫拉利提醒我们，其实不久之前，我们才建造了金字塔、写了交响乐、去月球散步，人类仅仅是物种之一，没有什么特别之处。“了解史前人类最重要的影响，” 赫拉利说到“是明白他们对于环境的影响，其实不比大猩猩、萤火虫、水母等看似微不足道的动物多多少。”
One hundred thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was just one of a number of
different human species, all competing for supremacy. Just as today we see
different species of bears or pigs, there were different species of humans. While our own ancestors lived mainly in East Africa, our relatives Homo neanderthalensis, better known as Neanderthals, inhabited Europe. Another species, Homo erectus, populated Asia, and the island of Java was home to Homo soloensis.
十万年前，智人只是诸多人类物种当中的一个分支，所有的竞争都是为了生存。就像我们今日看到猪、熊有很多分支一样，当时人类物种也有很多分支。那时，人类的祖先生活在东非，我们的近亲尼安德特人，即穴居人，居住在欧洲。其他物种，比如直立人生活在人口稠密的亚洲，梭罗人生活在爪哇岛上。
Each species adapted to its own environment. Some were big, fearsome hunters, while others were dwarf-like plant gatherers. As different as each species may have been, there is evidence of interbreeding among them. Scientists mapping the Neanderthal genome, for example, discovered that people of European origin today have a small percentage of genes from their Neanderthal ancestors. (That will make an interesting addition to many family trees!)
每个物种都会适应自己所生存的环境。一些物种进化为大型的肉食者，其他物种进化为矮小的植物采食者。作为物种之间的界限是，他们是否可以杂交。科学家绘制出了尼安德特人的基因组后，进而发现了一部分现在的欧洲人拥有很小一部分尼安德特人祖先的基因。（这将对人类家谱增加更多有趣的材料。）
Today, of course, there is just one human species alive. How did we Homo sapiens become so successful and others did not? Harari believes it was our unique cognitive abilities that made the difference. About 70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens underwent a “cognitive revolution,” Harari writes, which gave them the edge over their rivals to spread from East Africa across the planet.
今天，只有一个人类物种活着。但为什么是我们智人获得了成功，而不是其他人种呢？赫拉利认为，我们独特的认知能力造就了我们的与众不同。7万年之前，智人经历了“认知革命”。这种认知能力，让智人有优势去打败竞争对手，从东非蔓延到了全球。
Other species had big brains too, but what made Homo sapiens so successful is that we are the only animals who are capable of large-scale cooperation. We know how to organize ourselves as nations, companies, and religions, giving us the power to accomplish complex tasks. Harari’s concept of a “cognitive revolution” reminded me of David Christian’s notion in Big History of “collective learning” how the ability to share, store, and build upon information truly distinguishes us as humans and allowed us to thrive.
其他人种的人也有大脑，但智人之所以能够战胜其他物种生存下来，是因为基于集群的大规模合作。我们知道如何去组建国家、公司、宗教等的集群来完成复杂的任务。赫拉利提出的“认知革命”的概念，让我联想到了David Christian在《Big History》当中提出的“集体学习”的概念，即如何分享信息、储存信息、建立信息的能力，让人类不同于其他物种，并且能够不断成长。
What’s unique about Harari’s take is that he focuses on the power of stories and myths to bring people together. Baboons, wolves, and other animals also know how to function as a group, of course, but their groups are defined by close social ties that limit their groups to small numbers. Homo sapiens has the special ability to unite millions of strangers around commons myths. Ideas like freedom, human rights, gods, laws, and capitalism exist in our imaginations, yet they can bind us together and motivate us to cooperate on complex tasks.
作者赫拉利的独特之处在于，他强调用故事和想象的力量，把人们团结在一起。狒狒、狼等其他群居性动物也知道如何形成一个集群，但它们的集群都是基于密切的社会关系，而这往往会限制其成员数量和规模。智人可以基于共同想象建立百万计的集群，而其成员甚至可能是陌生人。比如基于对自由、人权、上帝、法律、资本主义等共同想象，人类可以约束彼此、共同合作、不断激励，完成复杂、庞大的任务。
As much as I enjoyed Sapiens, there was plenty to disagree with in the book. For example, Harari sets out to prove that the agricultural revolution was one of the biggest mistakes in human history. Yes, it allowed civilizations to thrive, but on an individual level, he writes, we were much better off as hunter-gatherers. As farmers, people had to work a lot harder and in exchange they had a worse diet than they had as foragers. Agricultural societies also created social hierarchies in which the majority toiled as peasants and a minority of elites ruled over them.
我在读这本书的同时，有一些观点和作者的相左。比如，赫拉利提出：农业革命是人类历史上最大的错误之一。农业革命让我们的文明得以繁荣，但作为个体，不如采猎者生活的好。作为农民，人们不得不更努力地工作，但却吃食物却更糟糕。农业社会也创造了社会分层，产生了大多数的劳作者和少数的统治精英。
That’s certainly a provocative argument, but I wasn’t convinced. First, arguing that we were happier as hunter-gatherers than as farmers creates a choice when there isn’t one. It’s not as if we can turn back the clock and restart as hunter-gatherers or we can run an experiment to prove one way of life is better than the other. Second, I think Harari underestimates the hardships of being a hunter-gatherer. He suggests that death and violence rates were much lower in hunter-gatherer societies than after the agricultural revolution. But it’s more likely the violence was higher because of competition over resources. A farming society can support many more people per square mile than a hunter-gathering society. In order to keep population densities low, conflict was inevitable among groups of hunter- gatherers. Finally, calling the shift to agriculture a “mistake” overlooks the fact that farming societies were able to specialize, leading to written languages, new technologies, and art—all things we value today.
这确实是一个富有争议性的观点，但我却不赞同。首先，认为人类作为采猎者更快乐的观点是基于一个选择的前提，但选择本身是不存在的。因为我们不能假设时光可以倒流，人类作为采猎者可以重新做选择；亦或者我们可以通过实验来证明某种生活比另一种更快乐。其次，我认为赫拉利低估了采猎者的艰辛。他认为，采猎者社会当中的死亡率、犯罪率比农业社会的低。但可能在采猎者社会当中，基于资源竞争关系，导致暴力程度更严重。农业社会能在同样的土地面积上养活更多人。而采猎者社会当中，人口密度较低，部落之间的冲突也是难以避免的。最后，农业社会是个“错误”的观点忽略了一个事实，即农业社会能够导致社会分工，从而让文字、新技术、艺术等我们今天所珍惜的一切得以被发明和出现。
Still, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a fun, engaging look at early human history. Like Big History, it left me with an overarching historical structure which I can build on as I learn more. At the same time, Harari tells our history in such an approachable way that you’ll have a hard time putting it down. He uses vivid language, photos, and diagrams to illustrate his points. He’s also an agile writer, deftly weaving in entertaining historical stories, like the importance of sauerkraut in sea exploration and why the earliest known written words from 5,000 years ago are a bit underwhelming.
我仍然将此书推荐给那些对早期人类历史感兴趣的读者。《Big History》这本书帮助我建立了一个整体的历史结构，由此我可以学习更多的历史内容。同时，赫拉利以一种平易近人的方式讲述人类的历史，让读者欲罢不能。期间，很多生动的语言、照片、表格被用来支撑他的观点。他也是一位敏锐的作家，巧妙地编织着这个愉快的历史故事，包括他所提及的腌菜在航海探险当中的重要性，以及5千年之前最早文字给人留下深刻印象的原因。
I think many readers will find the final section of the book especially stimulating. After marching through thousands of years of history, Harari turns more philosophical as he writes about our species today and how we might live in the future. He wonders how artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and other technologies will change our species.
我相信，很多读者将会发现本书的最后一部分非常刺激。穿越数千年的历史后，赫拉利所讨论的话题更具哲学性，比如人类物种的今天，以及人类物种在未来将会怎样生存下去。他想知道人工智能、基因工程、以及其他技术将如何对人类物种产生改变。
He also poses some fundamental questions about happiness. When in our long history as Homo sapiens were we most fulfilled? As hunter-gatherers chasing down mammoths? As farmers tilling the soil? Maybe as God-fearing peasants in the Middle Ages? More fundamentally, he asks: Who are we as a species? And where are we going?
他同时也提出了一些有关幸福的基本问题：在作为智人物种的漫长历史中，我们满足吗？采猎者追逐猛犸象吗？农民耕田吗？在中世纪农民敬畏上帝吗？更基本的问题是：作为一个物种，我们是谁？我们将何去何从？
Those are big questions as old as the history of our species. After you finish this book I have no doubt that, like me, you’ll want to get together with some of your favorite Homo sapiens to try to answer them.
这些问题和人类作为物种的历史一样古老。当你读完此书后，你会像我一样，找一群志同道合的智人朋友，来探讨这些问题的答案。
文章来源于Bill Gates 博客
联系客服
