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+A Brief 
+History of 
+Humankind 
+
+
+
+Yuval Noah 
+Harari 
+
+
+A Brief 
+History of 
+Humankind 
+
+
+
+Yuval Noah 
+Harari 
+
+
+Yuval Noah Harari 
+
+
+Sapiens 
+
+A Brief History of 
+Humankind 
+
+
+
+SIGNAL 
+
+
+4 
+
+
+English translation copyright © 2014 by Yuval Noah Harari 
+Cloth edition published 2014 
+
+Published simultaneously in the United Kingdom by Harvil 
+Seeker First published in Hebrew in Israel in 2011 by 
+Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan, Dvir 
+
+
+
+
+Signal Books is an imprint of McClel and & Stewart, a 
+division of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin 
+Random House Company 
+
+Al rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication 
+reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, 
+electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or 
+otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior 
+written consent of the publisher - or, in case of 
+photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from 
+the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency - is an 
+infringement of the copyright law. 
+
+Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in 
+Publication 
+
+Harari, Yuval N., author 
+
+Sapiens : a brief history of humankind / Yuval Noah Harari. 
+Includes bibliographical references. 
+
+ISBN 978-0-7710-3850-1 (bound).-ISBN 978-0-7710-3852-5 
+(html) 
+
+1. Civilization-History. 2. Human beings-History. I. Title. 
+
+CB25.H37 2014 909 C2014-904589-1 
+
+C2014-904590-5 
+
+Jacket design © Suzanne Dean 
+
+Picture research by Caroline Wood 
+
+Maps by Neil Gower 
+
+McClel and & Stewart, 
+
+
+
+a division of Random House of Canada Limited, 
+a Penguin Random House Company 
+www.randomhouse.ca 
+
+v3.1 
+
+In loving memory of my father, Shlomo Harari 
+
+Contents 
+
+Cover 
+
+Title Pa ge 
+
+Copyright 
+
+Dedication 
+
+Timeline of Histor y 
+
+Part One The Co g nitive Revolution 
+
+1 An Animal of No Si g nificance 
+
+2 The Tree of Knowled ge 
+
+3 A Dav in the Life of Adam and Eve 
+
+4 The Flood 
+
+Part Two The A g ricultural Revolution 
+
+5 History's Bi gg est Fraud 
+
+6 Buildin g P yramids 
+
+7 Memory Overload 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+8 There is No j ustice in Histor y 
+
+Part Three The Unification of Humankind 
+
+9 The Arrow of Histor y 
+
+10 The Scent of Mone y 
+
+11 Imperial Visions 
+
+12 The Law of Reli g ion 
+
+13 The Secret of Success 
+
+Part Four The Scientific Revo tut ion 
+
+14 The Discovery of I g norance 
+
+15 The Marria g e of Science and Empire 
+
+16 The Capitalist Creed 
+
+17 The Wheels of industr y 
+
+18 A Permanent Revolution 
+
+19 And They Lived Ha ppil y Ever After 
+
+20 The End of Homo Sapiens 
+Afterword: 
+
+The Animal that Became a God 
+
+Notes 
+
+
+Acknowled g ements 
+Ima g e credits 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Timeline of History 
+
+Years 
+
+Before 
+
+the 
+
+Present 
+
+13.5 
+
+Matter and energy appear. Beginning of physics. Atoms and 
+molecules 
+
+billion appear. Beginning of chemistry. 
+
+4.5 
+
+Formation of planet Earth. 
+
+billion 
+
+3.8 
+
+Emergence of organisms. Beginning of biology, 
+billion 
+6 
+
+Last common grandmother of humans and chimpanzees, 
+million 
+
+2.5 
+
+Evolution of the genus Homo in Africa. First stone tools. 
+
+
+
+million 
+
+2 
+
+Humans spread from Africa to Eurasia. Evolution of different 
+human 
+
+million species. 
+
+500,000 Neanderthals evolve in Europe and the Middle East. 
+
+300,000 Daily usage of fire. 
+
+200,000 Homo sapiens evolves in East Africa. 
+
+The Cognitive Revolution. Emergence of fictive language. 
+
+70,000 Beginning of history. Sapiens spread out of Africa. 
+
+45,000 Sapiens settle Australia. Extinction of Australian 
+megafauna. 
+
+30,000 Extinction of Neanderthals. 
+
+16,000 Sapiens settle America. Extinction of American 
+megafauna. 
+
+Extinction of Homo floresiensis. Homo sapiens the only 
+surviving human 13,000 species. 
+
+The Agricultural Revolution. Domestication of plants and 
+animals. 
+
+
+12,000 Permanent settlements. 
+
+5,000 First kingdoms, script and money. Polytheistic 
+religions. 
+
+
+
+4,250 First empire - the Akkadian Empire of Sargon. 
+
+Invention of coinage - a universal money. 
+
+The Persian Empire - a universal political order 'for the 
+benefit of all 
+
+2,500 humans'. 
+
+Buddhism in India - a universal truth 'to liberate all beings 
+from 
+
+suffering'. 
+
+2,000 Han Empire in China. Roman Empire in the 
+Mediterranean. Christianity. 
+
+1,400 Islam. 
+
+The Scientific Revolution. Humankind admits its ignorance 
+and begins to 
+
+acquire unprecedented power. Europeans begin to conquer 
+America and 
+
+500 
+
+the oceans. The entire planet becomes a single historical 
+arena. The rise 
+
+of capitalism. 
+
+The Industrial Revolution. Family and community are 
+replaced by state 
+
+200 
+
+and market. Massive extinction of plants and animals. 
+
+
+
+Humans transcend the boundaries of planet Earth. Nuclear 
+weapons 
+
+The 
+
+threaten the survival of humankind. Organisms are 
+increasingly shaped 
+
+Present by intelligent design rather than natural selection. 
+The 
+
+Intelligent design becomes the basic principle of life? Homo 
+sapiens is Future replaced by superhumans? 
+
+
+
+Part One 
+
+The Cognitive Revolution 
+
+1. A human handprint made about 30,000 years ago, 
+on the wall of the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in 
+
+
+
+southern France. Somebody tried to say, 'I was 
+here! 1 
+
+1 
+
+An Animal of No Significance 
+
+ABOUT 13.5 BILLION YEARS AGO, MATTER, energy, time and 
+space came into 
+
+being in what is known as the Big Bang. The story of these 
+fundamental features of our universe is called physics. 
+
+About 300,000 years after their appearance, matter and 
+energy started to coalesce into complex structures, called 
+atoms, which then combined into molecules. The story of 
+atoms, molecules and their interactions is called chemistry. 
+
+About 3.8 billion years ago, on a planet called Earth, certain 
+molecules combined to form particularly large and intricate 
+structures called organisms. The story of organisms is called 
+biology. 
+
+About 70,000 years ago, organisms belonging to the species 
+Homo sapiens started to form even more elaborate 
+structures called cultures. The subsequent development of 
+these human cultures is called history. 
+
+Three important revolutions shaped the course of history: 
+the Cognitive Revolution kick-started history about 70,000 
+years ago. The Agricultural Revolution sped it up about 
+12,000 years ago. The Scienti c Revolution, which got under 
+way only 500 years ago, may well end history and start 
+something completely di erent. This book tells the story of 
+how these three revolutions have affected humans and their 
+fellow organisms. 
+
+
+
+There were humans long before there was history. Animals 
+much like modern humans rst appeared about 2.5 million 
+years ago. But for countless generations they did not stand 
+out from the myriad other organisms with which they shared 
+their habitats. 
+
+On a hike in East Africa 2 million years ago, you might well 
+have encountered a familiar cast of human characters: 
+anxious mothers cuddling their babies and clutches of 
+carefree children playing in the mud; temperamental youths 
+cha ng against the dictates of society and weary elders who 
+just wanted to be left in peace; chest-thumping machos 
+trying to impress the local beauty and wise old matriarchs 
+who had already seen it all. These archaic humans loved, 
+played, formed close friendships and competed for status 
+and power - but so did chimpanzees, baboons and 
+elephants. There was nothing special about them. 
+
+Nobody, least of all humans themselves, had any inkling 
+that their descendants would one day walk on the moon, 
+split the atom, fathom the genetic code and write history 
+books. The most important thing to know about prehistoric 
+humans is that they were insigni cant animals with no more 
+impact on their environment than gorillas, fireflies or 
+jellyfish. 
+
+Biologists classify organisms into species. Animals are said 
+to belong to the same species if they tend to mate with each 
+other, giving birth to fertile o spring. 
+
+Horses and donkeys have a recent common ancestor and 
+share many physical traits. But they show little sexual 
+interest in one another. They will mate if induced to do so - 
+but their o spring, called mules, are sterile. Mutations in 
+donkey DNA can therefore never cross over to horses, or vice 
+versa. The two types of animals are consequently considered 
+
+
+
+two distinct species, moving along separate evolutionary 
+paths. By contrast, a bulldog and a spaniel may look very di 
+erent, but they are members of the same species, sharing 
+the same DNA pool. 
+
+They will happily mate and their puppies will grow up to pair 
+o with other dogs and produce more puppies. 
+
+Species that evolved from a common ancestor are bunched 
+together under the 
+
+heading 'genus' (plural genera). Lions, tigers, leopards and 
+jaguars are di erent species within the genus Panthera. 
+Biologists label organisms with a two-part Latin name, genus 
+followed by species. Lions, for example, are called Panthera 
+leo, the species leo of the genus Panthera . Presumably, 
+everyone reading this book is a Homo sapiens - the species 
+sapiens (wise) of the genus Homo (man). 
+
+Genera in their turn are grouped into families, such as the 
+cats (lions, cheetahs, house cats), the dogs (wolves, foxes, 
+jackals) and the elephants (elephants, mammoths, 
+mastodons). All members of a family trace their lineage back 
+to a founding matriarch or patriarch. All cats, for example, 
+from the smallest house kitten to the most ferocious lion, 
+share a common feline ancestor who lived about 25 million 
+years ago. 
+
+Homo sapiens , too, belongs to a family. This banal fact used 
+to be one of history's most closely guarded secrets. Homo 
+sapiens long preferred to view itself as set apart from 
+animals, an orphan bereft of family, lacking siblings or 
+cousins, and most importantly, without parents. But that's 
+just not the case. Like it or not, we are members of a large 
+and particularly noisy family called the great apes. 
+
+
+
+Our closest living relatives include chimpanzees, gorillas 
+and orang-utans. The chimpanzees are the closest. Just 6 
+million years ago, a single female ape had two daughters. 
+One became the ancestor of all chimpanzees, the other is 
+our own grandmother. 
+
+
+
+Skeletons in the Closet 
+
+Homo sapiens has kept hidden an even more disturbing 
+secret. Not only do we possess an abundance of uncivilised 
+cousins, once upon a time we had quite a few brothers and 
+sisters as well. We are used to thinking about ourselves as 
+the only humans, because for the last 10,000 years, our 
+species has indeed been the only human species around. Yet 
+the real meaning of the word human is 'an animal belonging 
+to the genus Homo', and there used to be many other 
+species of this genus besides Homo sapiens. Moreover, as 
+we shall see in the last chapter of the book, in the not so 
+distant future we might again have to contend with non - 
+
+sapiens humans. To clarify this point, I will often use the 
+term 'Sapiens' to denote members of the species Homo 
+sapiens, while reserving the term 'human' to refer to all 
+extant members of the genus Homo. 
+
+
+
+Humans rst evolved in East Africa about 2.5 million years 
+ago from an earlier genus of apes called Australopithecus , 
+which means 'Southern Ape'. About 2 million years ago, 
+some of these archaic men and women left their homeland 
+to journey through and settle vast areas of North Africa, 
+Europe and Asia. Since survival in the snowy forests of 
+northern Europe required di erent traits than those needed 
+to stay alive in Indonesia's steaming jungles, human 
+populations evolved in di erent directions. The result was 
+several distinct species, to each of which scientists have 
+assigned a pompous Latin name. 
+
+2. Our siblings, according to speculative 
+reconstructions (left to right): 
+
+Homo rudolfensis (East Africa); Homo erectus (East 
+Asia); and Homo neanderthalensis (Europe and 
+western Asia). All are humans. 
+
+Humans in Europe and western Asia evolved into Homo 
+neanderthalensis ('Man 
+
+from the Neander Valley), popularly referred to simply as 
+'Neanderthals'. 
+
+Neanderthals, bulkier and more muscular than us Sapiens, 
+were well adapted to the cold climate of Ice Age western 
+Eurasia. The more eastern regions of Asia were populated by 
+Homo erectus , 'Upright Man', who survived there for close to 
+2 
+
+million years, making it the most durable human species 
+ever. This record is unlikely to be broken even by our own 
+species. It is doubtful whether Homo sapiens will still be 
+around a thousand years from now, so 2 million years is 
+really out of our league. 
+
+
+On the island of Java, in Indonesia, lived Homo soloensis, 
+'Man from the Solo Valley', who was suited to life in the 
+tropics. On another Indonesian island - the small island of 
+Flores - archaic humans underwent a process of dwar ng. 
+Humans rst reached Flores when the sea level was 
+exceptionally low, and the island was easily accessible from 
+the mainland. When the seas rose again, some people were 
+trapped on the island, which was poor in resources. Big 
+people, who need a lot of food, died rst. Smaller fellows 
+survived much better. Over the generations, the people of 
+Flores became dwarves. This unique species, known by 
+scientists as Homo oresiensis, reached a maximum height of 
+only one metre and weighed no more than twenty- ve 
+kilograms. They were nevertheless able to produce stone 
+tools, and even managed occasionally to hunt down some of 
+the island's elephants 
+
+- though, to be fair, the elephants were a dwarf species as 
+well. 
+
+In 2010 another lost sibling was rescued from oblivion, when 
+scientists excavating the Denisova Cave in Siberia 
+discovered a fossilised nger bone. 
+
+Genetic analysis proved that the nger belonged to a 
+previously unknown human species, which was named 
+Homo denisova. Who knows how many lost relatives of ours 
+are waiting to be discovered in other caves, on other islands, 
+and in other climes. 
+
+While these humans were evolving in Europe and Asia, 
+evolution in East Africa did not stop. The cradle of humanity 
+continued to nurture numerous new species, such as Homo 
+ru do I fen sis , 'Man from Lake Rudolf', Homo erg aster, 
+
+'Working Man', and eventually our own species, which we've 
+immodestly named Homo sapiens, 
+
+
+
+'Wise Man'. 
+
+
+The members of some of these species were massive and 
+others were dwarves. 
+
+Some were fearsome hunters and others meek plant- 
+gatherers. Some lived only on a single island, while many 
+roamed over continents. But all of them belonged to the 
+genus Homo. They were all human beings. 
+
+It's a common fallacy to envision these species as arranged 
+in a straight line of descent, with Ergaster begetting Erectus, 
+Erectus begetting the Neanderthals, and the Neanderthals 
+evolving into us. This linear model gives the mistaken 
+impression that at any particular moment only one type of 
+human inhabited the earth, and that all earlier species were 
+merely older models of ourselves. The truth 
+
+is that from about 2 million years ago until around 10,000 
+years ago, the world was home, at one and the same time, to 
+several human species. And why not? 
+
+Today there are many species of foxes, bears and pigs. The 
+earth of a hundred millennia ago was walked by at least six 
+di erent species of man. It's our current exclusivity, not that 
+multi-species past, that is peculiar - and perhaps 
+incriminating. As we will shortly see, we Sapiens have good 
+reasons to repress the memory of our siblings. 
+
+The Cost of Thinking 
+
+Despite their many di erences, all human species share 
+several de ning characteristics. Most notably, humans have 
+extraordinarily large brains compared to other animals. 
+Mammals weighing sixty kilograms have an average brain 
+size of 200 cubic centimetres. The earliest men and women, 
+2.5 million years ago, had brains of about 600 cubic 
+
+
+
+centimetres. Modern Sapiens sport a brain averaging 1,200- 
+1,400 cubic centimetres. Neanderthal brains were even 
+bigger. 
+
+That evolution should select for larger brains may seem to 
+us like, well, a no-brainer. We are so enamoured of our high 
+intelligence that we assume that when it comes to cerebral 
+power, more must be better. But if that were the case, the 
+feline family would also have produced cats who could do 
+calculus. Why is genus Homo the only one in the entire 
+animal kingdom to have come up with such massive 
+thinking machines? 
+
+The fact is that a jumbo brain is a jumbo drain on the body. 
+It's not easy to carry around, especially when encased inside 
+a massive skull. It's even harder to fuel. In Homo sapiens , 
+the brain accounts for about 2-3 per cent of total body 
+weight, but it consumes 25 per cent of the body's energy 
+when the body is at rest. 
+
+By comparison, the brains of other apes require only 8 per 
+cent of rest-time energy. Archaic humans paid for their large 
+brains in two ways. Firstly, they spent more time in search of 
+food. Secondly, their muscles atrophied. Like a government 
+diverting money from defence to education, humans 
+diverted energy from biceps to neurons. It's hardly a 
+foregone conclusion that this is a good strategy for survival 
+on the savannah. A chimpanzee can't win an argument with 
+a Homo sapiens , but the ape can rip the man apart like a rag 
+doll. 
+
+Today our big brains pay o nicely, because we can produce 
+cars and guns that enable us to move much faster than 
+chimps, and shoot them from a safe distance instead of 
+wrestling. But cars and guns are a recent phenomenon. For 
+more than 2 
+
+
+
+million years, human neural networks kept growing and 
+growing, but apart from some int knives and pointed sticks, 
+humans had precious little to show for it. 
+
+What then drove forward the evolution of the massive 
+human brain during those 2 
+
+million years? Frankly, we don't know. 
+
+Another singular human trait is that we walk upright on two 
+legs. Standing up, it's easier to scan the savannah for game 
+or enemies, and arms that are unnecessary for locomotion 
+are freed for other purposes, like throwing stones or 
+signalling. The more things these hands could do, the more 
+successful their owners were, so evolutionary pressure 
+brought about an increasing concentration of nerves and 
+nely tuned muscles in the palms and ngers. As a result, 
+humans can perform very intricate tasks with their hands. In 
+particular, they can produce and use sophisticated tools. 
+
+The rst evidence for tool production dates from about 2.5 
+
+million years ago, and the manufacture and use of tools are 
+the criteria by which archaeologists recognise ancient 
+humans. 
+
+Yet walking upright has its downside. The skeleton of our 
+primate ancestors developed for millions of years to support 
+a creature that walked on all fours and had a relatively small 
+head. Adjusting to an upright position was quite a challenge, 
+especially when the sea olding had to support an extra-large 
+cranium. 
+
+Humankind paid for its lofty vision and industrious hands 
+with backaches and sti necks. 
+
+Women paid extra. An upright gait required narrower hips, 
+constricting the birth canal - and this just when babies' 
+
+
+
+heads were getting bigger and bigger. 
+
+Death in childbirth became a major hazard for human 
+females. Women who gave birth earlier, when the infants 
+brain and head were still relatively small and supple, fared 
+better and lived to have more children. Natural selection 
+consequently favoured earlier births. And, indeed, compared 
+to other animals, humans are born prematurely, when many 
+of their vital systems are still underdeveloped. A colt can 
+trot shortly after birth; a kitten leaves its mother to forage 
+on its own when it is just a few weeks old. Human babies are 
+helpless, dependent for many years on their elders for 
+sustenance, protection and education. 
+
+This fact has contributed greatly both to humankind's 
+extraordinary social abilities and to its unique social 
+problems. Lone mothers could hardly forage enough food for 
+their o spring and themselves with needy children in tow. 
+
+Raising children required constant help from other family 
+members and neighbours. It takes a tribe to raise a human. 
+Evolution thus favoured those capable of forming strong 
+social ties. In addition, since humans are born 
+underdeveloped, they can be educated and socialised to a 
+far greater extent than any other animal. Most mammals 
+emerge from the womb like glazed earthenware emerging 
+from a kiln - any attempt at remoulding will scratch or break 
+them. 
+
+Humans emerge from the womb like molten glass from a 
+furnace. They can be spun, stretched and shaped with a 
+surprising degree of freedom. This is why today we can 
+educate our children to become Christian or Buddhist, 
+capitalist or 
+
+
+socialist, warlike or peace-loving. 
+
+
+
+We assume that a large brain, the use of tools, superior 
+learning abilities and complex social structures are huge 
+advantages. It seems self-evident that these have made 
+humankind the most powerful animal on earth. But humans 
+enjoyed 
+
+all of these advantages for a full 2 million years during 
+which they remained weak and marginal creatures. Thus 
+humans who lived a million years ago, despite their big 
+brains and sharp stone tools, dwelt in constant fear of 
+predators, rarely hunted large game, and subsisted mainly 
+by gathering plants, scooping up insects, stalking small 
+animals, and eating the carrion left behind by other more 
+powerful carnivores. 
+
+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 rst humans specialised in extracting 
+marrow from bones. Why marrow? Well, suppose you 
+observe a pride of lions take down and devour a gira e. 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. 
+
+Other animals at the top of the pyramid, such as lions and 
+sharks, evolved into that position very gradually, over 
+millions of years. This enabled the ecosystem to develop 
+checks and balances that prevent lions and sharks from 
+wreaking too much havoc. As lions became deadlier, so 
+gazelles evolved to run faster, hyenas to cooperate better, 
+and rhinoceroses to be more bad-tempered. In contrast, 
+humankind ascended to the top so quickly that the 
+ecosystem was not given time to adjust. Moreover, humans 
+themselves failed to adjust. Most top predators of the planet 
+are majestic creatures. Millions of years of dominion have 
+lied them with self-con dence. Sapiens by contrast is more 
+like a banana republic dictator. 
+
+Having so recently been one of the underdogs of the 
+savannah, we are full of fears and anxieties over our 
+position, which makes us doubly cruel and dangerous. 
+
+Many historical calamities, from deadly wars to ecological 
+catastrophes, have resulted from this over-hasty jump. 
+
+A Race of Cooks 
+
+A signi cant step on the way to the top was the 
+domestication of re. Some human species may have made 
+occasional use of re as early as 800,000 years ago. By about 
+300,000 years ago, Homo erectus, Neanderthals and the 
+forefathers of Homo sapiens were using re on a daily basis. 
+
+
+
+Humans now had a dependable source of light and warmth, 
+and a deadly weapon against prowling lions. Not long 
+afterwards, humans may even have started deliberately to 
+torch their neighbourhoods. A carefully managed re could 
+turn impassable barren thickets into prime grasslands 
+teeming with game. In addition, once the re died down, 
+Stone Age entrepreneurs could walk through the smoking 
+remains and harvest charcoaled animals, nuts and tubers. 
+
+But the best thing re did was cook. Foods that humans 
+cannot digest in their natural forms - such as wheat, rice 
+and potatoes - became staples of our diet thanks to cooking. 
+Fire not only changed food's chemistry, it changed its 
+biology as well. Cooking killed germs and parasites that 
+infested food. Humans also had a far easier time chewing 
+and digesting old favourites such as fruits, nuts, insects and 
+carrion if they were cooked. Whereas chimpanzees spend ve 
+hours a day chewing raw food, a single hour suffices for 
+people eating cooked food. 
+
+The advent of cooking enabled humans to eat more kinds of 
+food, to devote less time to eating, and to make do with 
+smaller teeth and shorter intestines. Some scholars believe 
+there is a direct link between the advent of cooking, the 
+shortening of the human intestinal track, and the growth of 
+the human brain. 
+
+Since long intestines and large brains are both massive 
+energy consumers, it's hard to have both. By shortening the 
+intestines and decreasing their energy consumption, 
+cooking inadvertently opened the way to the jumbo brains 
+of Neanderthals and Sapiens. 1 
+
+Fire also opened the rst signi cant gulf between man and the 
+other animals. 
+
+
+The power of almost all animals depends on their bodies: the 
+strength of their muscles, the size of their teeth, the breadth 
+of their wings. Though they may harness winds and currents, 
+they are unable to control these natural forces, and are 
+always constrained by their physical design. Eagles, for 
+example, identify thermal columns rising from the ground, 
+spread their giant wings and allow the 
+
+hot air to lift them upwards. Yet eagles cannot control the 
+location of the columns, and their maximum carrying 
+capacity is strictly proportional to their wingspan. 
+
+When humans domesticated re, they gained control of an 
+obedient and potentially limitless force. Unlike eagles, 
+humans could choose when and where to ignite a ame, and 
+they were able to exploit re for any number of tasks. Most 
+importantly, the power of fire was not limited by the form, 
+structure or strength of the human body. A single woman 
+with a int or re stick could burn down an entire forest in a 
+matter of hours. The domestication of re was a sign of things 
+to come. 
+
+Our Brothers' Keepers 
+
+Despite the bene ts of re, 150,000 years ago humans were 
+still marginal creatures. They could now scare away lions, 
+warm themselves during cold nights, and burn down the 
+occasional forest. Yet counting all species together, there 
+were still no more than perhaps a million humans living 
+between the Indonesian archipelago and the Iberian 
+peninsula, a mere blip on the ecological radar. 
+
+Our own species, Homo sapiens , was already present on the 
+world stage, but so far it was just minding its own business 
+in a corner of Africa. We don't know exactly where and when 
+animals that can be classi ed as Homo sapiens rst evolved 
+
+
+
+from some earlier type of humans, but most scientists agree 
+that by 150,000 years ago, East Africa was populated by 
+Sapiens that looked just like us. 
+
+If one of them turned up in a modern morgue, the local 
+pathologist would notice nothing peculiar. Thanks to the 
+blessings of re, they had smaller teeth and jaws than their 
+ancestors, whereas they had massive brains, equal in size to 
+ours. 
+
+Scientists also agree that about 70,000 years ago, Sapiens 
+from East Africa spread into the Arabian peninsula, and from 
+there they quickly overran the entire Eurasian landmass. 
+
+When Homo sapiens landed in Arabia, most of Eurasia was 
+already settled by other humans. What happened to them? 
+There are two con icting theories. The 
+
+'Interbreeding Theory' tells a story of attraction, sex and 
+mingling. As the African immigrants spread around the 
+world, they bred with other human populations, and people 
+today are the outcome of this interbreeding. 
+
+For example, when Sapiens reached the Middle East and 
+Europe, they encountered the Neanderthals. These humans 
+were more muscular than Sapiens, had larger brains, and 
+were better adapted to cold climes. They used tools and re, 
+were good hunters, and apparently took care of their sick 
+and in rm. 
+
+(Archaeologists have discovered the bones of Neanderthals 
+who lived for many 
+
+
+
+
+Homo Sop'tuft lOO, OOO HP 
+Neanderthals. Joo.ooo nr 
+
+Other human speeies, lOO. OOO BP 
+
+
+Numbers indicate dates 
+of annul of Homo Sopites in 
+years before present 
+
+
+years with severe physical handicaps, evidence that they 
+were cared for by their relatives.) Neanderthals are often 
+depicted in caricatures as the archetypical brutish and 
+stupid 'cave people', but recent evidence has changed their 
+image. 
+
+According to the Interbreeding Theory, when Sapiens spread 
+into Neanderthal lands, Sapiens bred with Neanderthals 
+until the two populations merged. If this is the case, then 
+today's Eurasians are not pure Sapiens. They are a mixture 
+of Sapiens and Neanderthals. Similarly, when Sapiens 
+reached East Asia, they interbred with the local Erectus, so 
+the Chinese and Koreans are a mixture of Sapiens and 
+Erectus. 
+
+The opposing view, called the 'Replacement Theory' tells a 
+very different story - 
+
+one of incompatibility, revulsion, and perhaps even 
+genocide. According to this theory, Sapiens and other 
+humans had di erent anatomies, and most likely di erent 
+mating habits and even body odours. They would have had 
+
+
+little sexual interest in one another. And even if a 
+Neanderthal Romeo and a Sapiens Juliet fell in love, they 
+could not produce fertile children, because the genetic gulf 
+separating the two populations was already unbridgeable. 
+The two populations remained completely distinct, and 
+when the Neanderthals died out, or were killed o , their 
+genes died with them. According to this view, Sapiens 
+replaced all the previous human populations without 
+merging with them. If that is the case, the lineages of all 
+contemporary humans can be traced back, exclusively, to 
+East Africa, 70,000 years ago. We are all 'pure Sapiens'. 
+
+Map 1. Homo sapiens conquers the globe. 
+
+A lot hinges on this debate. From an evolutionary 
+perspective, 70,000 years is a relatively short interval. If the 
+Replacement Theory is correct, all living humans have 
+roughly the same genetic baggage, and racial distinctions 
+among them are 
+
+negligible. But if the Interbreeding Theory is right, there 
+might well be genetic di erences between Africans, 
+Europeans and Asians that go back hundreds of thousands 
+of years. This is political dynamite, which could provide 
+material for explosive racial theories. 
+
+In recent decades the Replacement Theory has been the 
+common wisdom in the 
+
+eld. It had rmer archaeological backing, and was more 
+politically correct (scientists had no desire to open up the 
+Pandora's box of racism by claiming signi cant genetic 
+diversity among modern human populations). But that 
+ended in 2010, when the results of a four-year e ort to map 
+the Neanderthal genome were published. Geneticists were 
+able to collect enough intact Neanderthal DNA from fossils 
+
+
+
+to make a broad comparison between it and the DNA of 
+contemporary humans. The results stunned the scientific 
+community. 
+
+It turned out that 1-4 per cent of the unique human DNA of 
+modern populations in the Middle East and Europe is 
+Neanderthal DNA. That's not a huge amount, but it's signi 
+cant. A second shock came several months later, when DNA 
+extracted from the fossilised nger from Denisova was 
+mapped. The results proved that up to 6 per cent of the 
+unique human DNA of modern Melanesians and Aboriginal 
+Australians is Denisovan DNA. 
+
+If these results are valid - and it's important to keep in mind 
+that further research is under way and may either reinforce 
+or modify these conclusions - the Interbreeders got at least 
+some things right. But that doesn't mean that the 
+Replacement Theory is completely wrong. Since 
+Neanderthals and Denisovans contributed only a small 
+amount of DNA to our present-day genome, it is impossible 
+to speak of a 'merger' between Sapiens and other human 
+species. 
+
+Although di erences between them were not large enough to 
+completely prevent fertile intercourse, they were sufficient 
+to make such contacts very rare. 
+
+How then should we understand the biological relatedness 
+of Sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans? Clearly, they 
+were not completely di erent species like horses and 
+donkeys. On the other hand, they were not just di erent 
+populations of the same species, like bulldogs and spaniels. 
+Biological reality is not black and white. There are also 
+important grey areas. Every two species that evolved from a 
+common ancestor, such as horses and donkeys, were at one 
+time just two populations of the same species, like bulldogs 
+
+
+
+and spaniels. There must have been a point when the two 
+populations were already quite di erent from one another, 
+but still capable on rare occasions of having sex and 
+producing fertile o spring. Then another mutation severed 
+this last connecting thread, and they went their separate 
+evolutionary ways. 
+
+It seems that about 50,000 years ago, Sapiens, 
+Neanderthals and Denisovans were at that borderline point. 
+They were almost, but not quite, entirely separate species. 
+As we shall see in the next chapter, Sapiens were already 
+very di erent 
+
+
+
+from Neanderthals and Denisovans not only in their genetic 
+code and physical traits, but also in their cognitive and 
+social abilities, yet it appears it was still just possible, on 
+rare occasions, for a Sapiens and a Neanderthal to produce a 
+fertile o spring. So the populations did not merge, but a few 
+lucky Neanderthal genes did hitch a ride on the Sapiens 
+Express. It is unsettling - and perhaps thrilling - to think 
+that we Sapiens could at one time have sex with an animal 
+from a di erent species, and produce children together. 
+
+
+
+3. A speculative reconstruction of a Neanderthal 
+child. Genetic evidence hints that at least some 
+Neanderthals may have had fair skin and hair. 
+
+But if the Neanderthals, Denisovans and other human 
+species didn't merge with Sapiens, why did they vanish? 
+
+One possibility is that Homo sapiens drove them to 
+extinction. Imagine a Sapiens band reaching a Balkan valley 
+where Neanderthals had lived for hundreds of thousands of 
+years. The newcomers began to hunt the deer and gather 
+the nuts and berries that were the Neanderthals' traditional 
+staples. Sapiens were more pro dent hunters and gatherers 
+- thanks to better technology and superior social skills - so 
+they multiplied and spread. The less resourceful 
+Neanderthals found it increasingly di cult to feed 
+themselves. Their population dwindled and they slowly died 
+out, except perhaps for one or two members who joined their 
+Sapiens neighbours. 
+
+Another possibility is that competition for resources ared up 
+into violence and genocide. Tolerance is not a Sapiens 
+trademark. In modern times, a small di erence in skin colour, 
+dialect or religion has been enough to prompt one group of 
+Sapiens to set about exterminating another group. Would 
+ancient Sapiens have been more tolerant towards an 
+entirely di erent human species? It may well be 
+
+that when Sapiens encountered Neanderthals, the result was 
+the rst and most significant ethnic-cleansing campaign in 
+history. 
+
+Whichever way it happened, the Neanderthals (and the 
+other human species) pose one of history's great what ifs. 
+Imagine how things might have turned out had the 
+Neanderthals or Denisovans survived alongside Homo 
+sapiens. What kind of cultures, societies and political 
+
+
+structures would have emerged in a world where several di 
+erent human species coexisted? How, for example, would 
+religious faiths have unfolded? Would the book of Genesis 
+have declared that Neanderthals descend from Adam and 
+Eve, would Jesus have died for the sins of the Denisovans, 
+and would the Qur'an have reserved seats in heaven for all 
+righteous humans, whatever their species? Would 
+Neanderthals have been able to serve in the Roman legions, 
+or in the sprawling bureaucracy of imperial China? Would 
+the American Declaration of Independence hold as a self- 
+evident truth that all members of the genus Homo are 
+created equal? Would Karl Marx have urged workers of all 
+species to unite? 
+
+Over the past 10,000 years, Homo sapiens has grown so 
+accustomed to being the only human species that it's hard 
+for us to conceive of any other possibility. Our lack of 
+brothers and sisters makes it easier to imagine that we are 
+the epitome of creation, and that a chasm separates us from 
+the rest of the animal kingdom. 
+
+When Charles Darwin indicated that Homo sapiens was just 
+another kind of animal, people were outraged. Even today 
+many refuse to believe it. Had the Neanderthals survived, 
+would we still imagine ourselves to be a creature apart? 
+
+Perhaps this is exactly why our ancestors wiped out the 
+Neanderthals. They were too familiar to ignore, but too 
+different to tolerate. 
+
+Whether Sapiens are to blame or not, no sooner had they 
+arrived at a new location than the native population became 
+extinct. The last remains of Homo soloensis are dated to 
+about 50,000 years ago. Homo denisova disappeared shortly 
+thereafter. Neanderthals made their exit roughly 30,000 
+years ago. The last dwarf-like humans vanished from Flores 
+
+
+
+Island about 12,000 years ago. They left behind some bones, 
+stone tools, a few genes in our DNA and a lot of unanswered 
+questions. They also left behind us, Homo sapiens , the last 
+human species. 
+
+What was the Sapiens' secret of success? How did we 
+manage to settle so rapidly in so many distant and 
+ecologically di erent habitats? How did we push all other 
+human species into oblivion? Why couldn't even the strong, 
+brainy, cold-proof Neanderthals survive our onslaught? The 
+debate continues to rage. The most likely answer is the very 
+thing that makes the debate possible: Homo sapiens 
+conquered the world thanks above all to its unique 
+language. 
+
+2 
+
+The Tree of Knowledge 
+
+IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER WE SAW THAT although Sapiens 
+had already 
+
+populated East Africa 150,000 years ago, they began to 
+overrun the rest of planet Earth and drive the other human 
+species to extinction only about 70,000 years ago. In the 
+intervening millennia, even though these archaic Sapiens 
+looked just like us and their brains were as big as ours, they 
+did not enjoy any marked advantage over other human 
+species, did not produce particularly sophisticated tools, and 
+did not accomplish any other special feats. 
+
+In fact, in the rst recorded encounter between Sapiens and 
+Neanderthals, the Neanderthals won. About 100,000 years 
+ago, some Sapiens groups migrated north to the Levant, 
+which was Neanderthal territory, but failed to secure a rm 
+footing. 
+
+
+
+It might have been due to nasty natives, an inclement 
+climate, or unfamiliar local parasites. Whatever the reason, 
+the Sapiens eventually retreated, leaving the Neanderthals 
+as masters of the Middle East. 
+
+This poor record of achievement has led scholars to 
+speculate that the internal structure of the brains of these 
+Sapiens was probably di erent from ours. They looked like 
+us, but their cognitive abilities - learning, remembering, 
+communicating - were far more limited. Teaching such an 
+ancient Sapiens English, persuading him of the truth of 
+Christian dogma, or getting him to understand the theory of 
+evolution would probably have been hopeless undertakings. 
+Conversely, we would have had a very hard time learning his 
+language and understanding his way of thinking. 
+
+But then, beginning about 70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens 
+started doing very special things. Around that date Sapiens 
+bands left Africa for a second time. This time they drove the 
+Neanderthals and all other human species not only from the 
+Middle East, but from the face of the earth. Within a 
+remarkably short period, Sapiens reached Europe and East 
+Asia. About 45,000 years ago, they somehow crossed the 
+open sea and landed in Australia - a continent hitherto 
+untouched by humans. The period from about 70,000 years 
+ago to about 30,000 years ago witnessed the invention of 
+boats, oil lamps, bows and arrows and needles (essential for 
+sewing warm clothing). The rst objects that can reliably be 
+called art date from this era (see the Stadel lion-man on this 
+page)., as does the rst clear 
+
+evidence for religion, commerce and social stratification. 
+
+Most researchers believe that these unprecedented 
+accomplishments were the product of a revolution in 
+Sapiens' cognitive abilities. They maintain that the people 
+
+
+
+who drove the Neanderthals to extinction, settled Australia, 
+and carved the Stadel lion-man were as intelligent, creative 
+and sensitive as we are. If we were to come across the artists 
+of the Stadel Cave, we could learn their language and they 
+ours. We'd be able to explain to them everything we know - 
+from the adventures of Alice in Wonderland to the paradoxes 
+of quantum physics - and they could teach us how their 
+people view the world. 
+
+The appearance of new ways of thinking and 
+communicating, between 70,000 
+
+and 30,000 years ago, constitutes the Cognitive Revolution. 
+What caused it? We're not sure. The most commonly 
+believed theory argues that accidental genetic mutations 
+changed the inner wiring of the brains of Sapiens, enabling 
+them to think in unprecedented ways and to communicate 
+using an altogether new type of language. We might call it 
+the Tree of Knowledge mutation. Why did it occur in Sapiens 
+DNA rather than in that of Neanderthals? It was a matter of 
+pure chance, as far as we can tell. But it's more important to 
+understand the consequences of the Tree of Knowledge 
+mutation than its causes. What was so special about the new 
+Sapiens language that it enabled us to conquer the world? * 
+
+It was not the rst language. Every animal has some kind of 
+language. Even insects, such as bees and ants, know how to 
+communicate in sophisticated ways, informing one another 
+of the whereabouts of food. Neither was it the rst vocal 
+language. Many animals, including all ape and monkey 
+species, have vocal languages. For example, green monkeys 
+use calls of various kinds to communicate. Zoologists have 
+identi ed one call that means, 'Careful! An eagle!' 
+
+A slightly di erent call warns, 'Careful! A lion!' When 
+researchers played a recording of the rst call to a group of 
+
+
+monkeys, the monkeys stopped what they were doing and 
+looked upwards in fear. When the same group heard a 
+recording of the second call, the lion warning, they quickly 
+scrambled up a tree. Sapiens can produce many more 
+distinct sounds than green monkeys, but whales and 
+elephants have equally impressive abilities. A parrot can say 
+anything Albert Einstein could say, as well as mimicking the 
+sounds of phones ringing, doors slamming and sirens 
+wailing. Whatever advantage Einstein had over a parrot, it 
+wasn't vocal. What, then, is so special about our language? 
+
+The most common answer is that our language is amazingly 
+supple. We can connect a limited number of sounds and 
+signs to produce an in nite number of sentences, each with a 
+distinct meaning. We can thereby ingest, store and 
+communicate a prodigious amount of information about the 
+surrounding world. A green monkey can yell to its comrades, 
+'Careful! A lion!' But a modern human can tell her friends 
+that this morning, near the bend in the river, she saw a lion 
+
+
+
+
+tracking a herd of bison. She can then describe the exact 
+location, including the di erent paths leading to the area. 
+With this information, the members of her band can put 
+their heads together and discuss whether they ought to 
+approach the river in order to chase away the lion and hunt 
+the bison. 
+
+A second theory agrees that our unique language evolved as 
+a means of sharing information about the world. But the 
+most important information that needed to be conveyed was 
+
+
+
+
+
+about humans, not about lions and bison. Our language 
+evolved as a way of gossiping. According to this theory 
+Homo sapiens is primarily a social animal. Social 
+cooperation is our key for survival and reproduction. It is not 
+enough for individual men and women to know the 
+whereabouts of lions and bison. It's much more important for 
+them to know who in their band hates whom, who is 
+sleeping with whom, who is honest, and who is a cheat. 
+
+4. An ivory figurine of a 'lion-man' (or 'lioness- 
+woman') from the Stadel Cave in Germany ( c.32,000 
+years 
+
+ago). The body is human, but the head is leonine. 
+This is one of the first indisputable examples of art, 
+and probably of religion, and of the ability of the 
+human mind to imagine things that do not really 
+exist. 
+
+The amount of information that one must obtain and store in 
+order to track the ever-changing relationships of a few dozen 
+individuals is staggering. (In a band of fty individuals, there 
+are 1,225 one-on-one relationships, and countless more 
+complex social combinations.) All apes show a keen interest 
+in such social information, but they have trouble gossiping e 
+ectively. Neanderthals and archaic Homo sapiens probably 
+also had a hard time talking behind each other's backs - a 
+much maligned ability which is in fact essential for 
+cooperation in large numbers. 
+
+The new linguistic skills that modern Sapiens acquired about 
+seventy millennia ago enabled them to gossip for hours on 
+end. Reliable information about who could be trusted meant 
+that small bands could expand into larger bands, and 
+Sapiens could develop tighter and more sophisticated types 
+of cooperation.! 
+
+
+The gossip theory might sound like a joke, but numerous 
+studies support it. Even today the vast majority of human 
+communication - whether in the form of emails, phone calls 
+or newspaper columns - is gossip. It comes so naturally to us 
+that it seems as if our language evolved for this very 
+purpose. Do you think that history professors chat about the 
+reasons for World War One when they meet for lunch, or that 
+nuclear physicists spend their co ee breaks at scienti c 
+conferences talking about quarks? Sometimes. But more 
+often, they gossip about the professor who caught her 
+husband cheating, or the quarrel between the head of the 
+department and the dean, or the rumours that a colleague 
+used his research funds to buy a Lexus. Gossip usually 
+focuses on wrongdoings. Rumour-mongers are the original 
+fourth estate, journalists who inform society about and thus 
+protect it from cheats and freeloaders. 
+
+Most likely, both the gossip theory and the there-is-a-lion- 
+near-the-river theory are valid. Yet the truly unique feature 
+of our language is not its ability to transmit information 
+about men and lions. Rather, it's the ability to transmit 
+information about things that do not exist at all. As far as we 
+know, only Sapiens can talk about entire kinds of entities 
+that they have never seen, touched or smelled. 
+
+Legends, myths, gods and religions appeared for the rst time 
+with the Cognitive Revolution. Many animals and human 
+species could previously say, 
+
+'Careful! A lion!' Thanks to the Cognitive Revolution, Homo 
+sapiens acquired the ability to say, The lion is the guardian 
+spirit of our tribe.' This ability to speak about fictions is the 
+most unique feature of Sapiens language. 
+
+It's relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can 
+speak about things that don't really exist, and believe six 
+
+
+
+impossible things before breakfast. You could never 
+convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him 
+limitless 
+
+bananas after death in monkey heaven. But why is it 
+important? After all, ction can be dangerously misleading or 
+distracting. People who go to the forest looking for fairies 
+and unicorns would seem to have less chance of survival 
+than people who go looking for mushrooms and deer. And if 
+you spend hours praying to non-existing guardian spirits, 
+aren't you wasting precious time, time better spent foraging, 
+fighting and fornicating? 
+
+But ction has enabled us not merely to imagine things, but 
+to do so col ectively. 
+
+We can weave common myths such as the biblical creation 
+story, the Dreamtime myths of Aboriginal Australians, and 
+the nationalist myths of modern states. Such myths give 
+Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate exibly in 
+large numbers. Ants and bees can also work together in 
+huge numbers, but they do so in a very rigid manner and 
+only with close relatives. Wolves and chimpanzees 
+cooperate far more exibly than ants, but they can do so only 
+with small numbers of other individuals that they know 
+intimately. Sapiens can cooperate in extremely exible ways 
+with countless numbers of strangers. That's why Sapiens 
+rule the world, whereas ants eat our leftovers and chimps 
+are locked up in zoos and research laboratories. 
+
+The Legend of Peugeot 
+
+Our chimpanzee cousins usually live in small troops of 
+several dozen individuals. 
+
+They form close friendships, hunt together and ght shoulder 
+to shoulder against baboons, cheetahs and enemy 
+
+
+
+chimpanzees. Their social structure tends to be hierarchical. 
+The dominant member, who is almost always a male, is 
+termed the 
+
+'alpha male'. Other males and females exhibit their 
+submission to the alpha male by bowing before him while 
+making grunting sounds, not unlike human subjects 
+kowtowing before a king. The alpha male strives to maintain 
+social harmony within his troop. When two individuals ght, 
+he will intervene and stop the violence. Less benevolently, 
+he might monopolise particularly coveted foods and prevent 
+lower-ranking males from mating with the females. 
+
+When two males are contesting the alpha position, they 
+usually do so by forming extensive coalitions of supporters, 
+both male and female, from within the group. Ties between 
+coalition members are based on intimate daily contact - 
+
+hugging, touching, kissing, grooming and mutual favours. 
+Just as human politicians on election campaigns go around 
+shaking hands and kissing babies, so aspirants to the top 
+position in a chimpanzee group spend much time hugging, 
+back-slapping and kissing baby chimps. The alpha male 
+usually wins his position not because he is physically 
+stronger, but because he leads a large and stable 
+
+coalition. These coalitions play a central part not only during 
+overt struggles for the alpha position, but in almost all day- 
+to-day activities. Members of a coalition spend more time 
+together, share food, and help one another in times of 
+trouble. 
+
+There are clear limits to the size of groups that can be 
+formed and maintained in such a way. In order to function, 
+all members of a group must know each other intimately. 
+
+Two chimpanzees who have never met, never fought, and 
+
+
+
+never engaged in mutual grooming will not know whether 
+they can trust one another, whether it would be worthwhile 
+to help one another, and which of them ranks higher. Under 
+natural conditions, a typical chimpanzee troop consists of 
+about twenty to fty individuals. As the number of 
+chimpanzees in a troop increases, the social order 
+destabilises, eventually leading to a rupture and the 
+formation of a new troop by some of the animals. Only in a 
+handful of cases have zoologists observed groups larger 
+than a hundred. Separate groups seldom cooperate, and 
+tend to compete for territory and food. Researchers have 
+documented prolonged warfare between groups, and even 
+one case of 'genocidal' activity in which one troop 
+systematically slaughtered most members of a neighbouring 
+band. 2 
+
+Similar patterns probably dominated the social lives of early 
+humans, including archaic Homo sapiens. Humans, like 
+chimps, have social instincts that enabled our ancestors to 
+form friendships and hierarchies, and to hunt or ght 
+together. 
+
+However, like the social instincts of chimps, those of humans 
+were adapted only for small intimate groups. When the 
+group grew too large, its social order destabilised and the 
+band split. Even if a particularly fertile valley could feed 500 
+
+archaic Sapiens, there was no way that so many strangers 
+could live together. 
+
+How could they agree who should be leader, who should 
+hunt where, or who should mate with whom? 
+
+In the wake of the Cognitive Revolution, gossip helped Homo 
+sapiens to form larger and more stable bands. But even 
+gossip has its limits. Sociological research has shown that 
+
+
+the maximum 'natural' size of a group bonded by gossip is 
+about 150 individuals. Most people can neither intimately 
+know, nor gossip e ectively about, more than 150 human 
+beings. 
+
+Even today, a critical threshold in human organisations falls 
+somewhere around this magic number. Below this threshold, 
+communities, businesses, social networks and military units 
+can maintain themselves based mainly on intimate 
+acquaintance and rumour-mongering. There is no need for 
+formal ranks, titles and law books to keep order. 3 A platoon 
+of thirty soldiers or even a company of a hundred soldiers 
+can function well on the basis of intimate relations, with a 
+minimum of formal discipline. A well-respected sergeant can 
+become 'king of the company and exercise authority even 
+over commissioned o cers. A small family business can 
+survive and ourish without a board of directors, a CEO or an 
+accounting department. 
+
+But once the threshold of 150 individuals is crossed, things 
+can no longer work that way. You cannot run a division with 
+thousands of soldiers the same way you run a platoon. 
+Successful family businesses usually face a crisis when they 
+grow larger and hire more personnel. If they cannot reinvent 
+themselves, they go bust. 
+
+How did Homo sapiens manage to cross this critical 
+threshold, eventually founding cities comprising tens of 
+thousands of inhabitants and empires ruling hundreds of 
+millions? The secret was probably the appearance of ction. 
+Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by 
+believing in common myths. 
+
+Any large-scale human cooperation - whether a modern 
+state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe 
+- is rooted in common myths that exist only in peoples 
+
+
+collective imagination. Churches are rooted in common 
+religious myths. Two Catholics who have never met can 
+nevertheless go together on crusade or pool funds to build a 
+hospital because they both believe that God was incarnated 
+in human esh and allowed Himself to be cruci ed to redeem 
+our sins. 
+
+States are rooted in common national myths. Two Serbs who 
+have never met might risk their lives to save one another 
+because both believe in the existence of the Serbian nation, 
+the Serbian homeland and the Serbian ag. Judicial systems 
+are rooted in common legal myths. Two lawyers who have 
+never met can nevertheless combine e orts to defend a 
+complete stranger because they both believe in the 
+existence of laws, justice, human rights - and the money 
+paid out in fees. 
+
+Yet none of these things exists outside the stories that 
+people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the 
+universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, 
+and no justice outside the common imagination of human 
+beings. 
+
+People easily understand that 'primitives' cement their 
+social order by believing in ghosts and spirits, and gathering 
+each full moon to dance together around the camp re. What 
+we fail to appreciate is that our modern institutions function 
+on exactly the same basis. Take for example the world of 
+business corporations. 
+
+Modern business-people and lawyers are, in fact, powerful 
+sorcerers. The principal di erence between them and tribal 
+shamans is that modern lawyers tell far stranger tales. The 
+legend of Peugeot affords us a good example. 
+
+
+
+An icon that somewhat resembles the Stadel lion-man 
+appears today on cars, trucks and motorcycles from Paris to 
+Sydney. It's the hood ornament that adorns vehicles made 
+by Peugeot, one of the oldest and largest of Europe's 
+carmakers. 
+
+Peugeot began as a small family business in the village of 
+Valentigney, just 300 
+
+kilometres from the Stadel Cave. Today the company 
+employs about 200,000 
+
+people worldwide, most of whom are complete strangers to 
+each other. These strangers cooperate so e ectively that in 
+2008 Peugeot produced more than 1.5 
+
+million automobiles, earning revenues of about 55 billion 
+euros. 
+
+
+
+In what sense can we say that Peugeot SA (the company's o 
+cial name) exists? 
+
+There are many Peugeot vehicles, but these are obviously 
+not the company. Even if every Peugeot in the world were 
+simultaneously junked and sold for scrap metal, Peugeot SA 
+would not disappear. It would continue to manufacture new 
+
+
+
+cars and issue its annual report. The company owns 
+factories, machinery and showrooms, and employs 
+mechanics, accountants and secretaries, but all these 
+together do not comprise Peugeot. A disaster might kill 
+every single one of Peugeot's employees, and go on to 
+destroy all of its assembly lines and executive o ces. Even 
+then, the company could borrow money, hire new 
+employees, build new factories and buy new machinery. 
+Peugeot has managers and shareholders, but neither do 
+they constitute the company. All the managers could be 
+dismissed and all its shares sold, but the company itself 
+would remain intact. 
+
+5. The Peugeot Lion 
+
+It doesn't mean that Peugeot SA is invulnerable or immortal. 
+If a judge were to mandate the dissolution of the company, 
+its factories would remain standing and its workers, 
+accountants, managers and shareholders would continue to 
+live - but Peugeot SA would immediately vanish. In short, 
+Peugeot SA seems to have no essential connection to the 
+physical world. Does it really exist? 
+
+Peugeot is a gment of our collective imagination. Lawyers 
+call this a 'legal ction'. It can't be pointed at; it is not a 
+physical object. But it exists as a legal entity. Just like you or 
+me, it is bound by the laws of the countries in which it 
+operates. It can open a bank account and own property. It 
+pays taxes, and it can be sued and even prosecuted 
+separately from any of the people who own or work for it. 
+
+Peugeot belongs to a particular genre of legal ctions called 
+'limited liability companies'. The idea behind such 
+companies is among humanity's most ingenious inventions. 
+Homo sapiens lived for untold millennia without them. 
+During most of 
+
+
+recorded history property could be owned only by esh-and- 
+blood humans, the kind that stood on two legs and had big 
+brains. If in thirteenth-century France Jean set up a wagon¬ 
+manufacturing workshop, he himself was the business. If a 
+wagon he'd made broke down a week after purchase, the 
+disgruntled buyer would have sued Jean personally. If Jean 
+had borrowed 1,000 gold coins to set up his workshop and 
+the business failed, he would have had to repay the loan by 
+selling his private property - his house, his cow, his land. He 
+might even have had to sell his children into servitude. If he 
+couldn't cover the debt, he could be thrown in prison by the 
+state or enslaved by his creditors. He was fully liable, 
+without limit, for all obligations incurred by his workshop. 
+
+If you had lived back then, you would probably have 
+thought twice before you opened an enterprise of your own. 
+And indeed this legal situation discouraged 
+entrepreneurship. People were afraid to start new businesses 
+and take economic risks. It hardly seemed worth taking the 
+chance that their families could end up utterly destitute. 
+
+This is why people began collectively to imagine the 
+existence of limited liability companies. Such companies 
+were legally independent of the people who set them up, or 
+invested money in them, or managed them. Over the last 
+few centuries such companies have become the main 
+players in the economic arena, and we have grown so used 
+to them that we forget they exist only in our imagination. In 
+the US, the technical term for a limited liability company is a 
+
+'corporation', which is ironic, because the term derives from 
+' corpus' ('body' in Latin) - the one thing these corporations 
+lack. Despite their having no real bodies, the American legal 
+system treats corporations as legal persons, as if they were 
+flesh-and-blood human beings. 
+
+
+
+And so did the French legal system back in 1896, when 
+Armand Peugeot, who 
+
+had inherited from his parents a metalworking shop that 
+produced springs, saws and bicycles, decided to go into the 
+automobile business. To that end, he set up a limited liability 
+company. He named the company after himself, but it was 
+independent of him. If one of the cars broke down, the buyer 
+could sue Peugeot, but not Armand Peugeot. If the company 
+borrowed millions of francs and then went bust, Armand 
+Peugeot did not owe its creditors a single franc. The loan, 
+after all, had been given to Peugeot, the company, not to 
+Armand Peugeot, the Homo sapiens. Armand Peugeot died 
+in 1915. Peugeot, the company, is still alive and well. 
+
+How exactly did Armand Peugeot, the man, create Peugeot, 
+the company? In much the same way that priests and 
+sorcerers have created gods and demons throughout history, 
+and in which thousands of French cures were still creating 
+Christ's body every Sunday in the parish churches. It all 
+revolved around telling stories, and convincing people to 
+believe them. In the case of the French cures, the 
+
+crucial story was that of Christ's life and death as told by the 
+Catholic Church. 
+
+According to this story, if a Catholic priest dressed in his 
+sacred garments solemnly said the right words at the right 
+moment, mundane bread and wine turned into God's esh 
+and blood. The priest exclaimed ' Hoc est corpus meum !' 
+(Latin for This is my body!') and hocus pocus - the bread 
+turned into Christ's esh. Seeing that the priest had properly 
+and assiduously observed all the procedures, millions of 
+devout French Catholics behaved as if God really existed in 
+the consecrated bread and wine. 
+
+
+
+In the case of Peugeot SA the crucial story was the French 
+legal code, as written by the French parliament. According to 
+the French legislators, if a certi ed lawyer followed all the 
+proper liturgy and rituals, wrote all the required spells and 
+oaths on a wonderfully decorated piece of paper, and a xed 
+his ornate signature to the bottom of the document, then 
+hocus pocus - a new company was incorporated. 
+
+When in 1896 Armand Peugeot wanted to create his 
+company, he paid a lawyer to go through all these sacred 
+procedures. Once the lawyer had performed all the right 
+rituals and pronounced all the necessary spells and oaths, 
+millions of upright French citizens behaved as if the Peugeot 
+company really existed. 
+
+Telling e ective stories is not easy. The di culty lies not in 
+telling the story, but in convincing everyone else to believe 
+it. Much of history revolves around this question: how does 
+one convince millions of people to believe particular stories 
+about gods, or nations, or limited liability companies? Yet 
+when it succeeds, it gives Sapiens immense power, because 
+it enables millions of strangers to cooperate and work 
+towards common goals. Just try to imagine how di cult it 
+would have been to create states, or churches, or legal 
+systems if we could speak only about things that really exist, 
+such as rivers, trees and lions. 
+
+Over the years, people have woven an incredibly complex 
+network of stories. 
+
+Within this network, ctions such as Peugeot not only exist, 
+but also accumulate immense power. The kinds of things 
+that people create through this network of stories are known 
+in academic circles as ' ctions', 'social constructs', or 
+'imagined realities'. An imagined reality is not a lie. I lie 
+when I say that there is a lion near the river when I know 
+
+
+
+perfectly well that there is no lion there. There is nothing 
+special about lies. Green monkeys and chimpanzees can lie. 
+A green monkey, for example, has been observed calling 
+'Careful! A lion!' when there was no lion around. This alarm 
+conveniently frightened away a fellow monkey who had just 
+found a banana, leaving the liar all alone to steal the prize 
+for itself. 
+
+Unlike lying, an imagined reality is something that everyone 
+believes in, and as long as this communal belief persists, the 
+imagined reality exerts force in the world. The sculptor from 
+the Stadel Cave may sincerely have believed in the 
+existence of the lion-man guardian spirit. Some sorcerers are 
+charlatans, but most 
+
+sincerely believe in the existence of gods and demons. Most 
+millionaires sincerely believe in the existence of money and 
+limited liability companies. Most human-rights activists 
+sincerely believe in the existence of human rights. No one 
+was lying when, in 2011, the UN demanded that the Libyan 
+government respect the human rights of its citizens, even 
+though the UN, Libya and human rights are all figments of 
+our fertile imaginations. 
+
+Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens has thus been 
+living in a dual reality. On the one hand, the objective reality 
+of rivers, trees and lions; and on the other hand, the 
+imagined reality of gods, nations and corporations. As time 
+went by, the imagined reality became ever more powerful, 
+so that today the very survival of rivers, trees and lions 
+depends on the grace of imagined entities such as gods, 
+nations and corporations. 
+
+
+Bypassing the Genome 
+
+
+
+The ability to create an imagined reality out of words 
+enabled large numbers of strangers to cooperate e ectively. 
+But it also did something more. Since large-scale human 
+cooperation is based on myths, the way people cooperate 
+can be altered by changing the myths - by telling di erent 
+stories. Under the right circumstances myths can change 
+rapidly. In 1789 the French population switched almost 
+overnight from believing in the myth of the divine right of 
+kings to believing in the myth of the sovereignty of the 
+people. Consequently,ever since the Cognitive Revolution 
+Homo sapiens has been able to revise its behaviour rapidly 
+in accordance with changing needs. This opened a fast lane 
+of cultural evolution, bypassing the tra c jams of genetic 
+evolution. Speeding down this fast lane, Homo sapiens soon 
+far outstripped all other human and animal species in its 
+ability to cooperate. 
+
+The behaviour of other social animals is determined to a 
+large extent by their genes. DNA is not an autocrat. Animal 
+behaviour is also in uenced by environmental factors and 
+individual quirks. Nevertheless, in a given environment, 
+animals of the same species will tend to behave in a similar 
+way. 
+
+Signi cant changes in social behaviour cannot occur, in 
+general, without genetic mutations. For example, common 
+chimpanzees have a genetic tendency to live in hierarchical 
+groups headed by an alpha male. Members of a closely 
+related chimpanzee species, bonobos, usually live in more 
+egalitarian groups dominated by female alliances. Female 
+common chimpanzees cannot take lessons from their 
+bonobo relatives and stage a feminist revolution. Male 
+chimps cannot gather in a constitutional assembly to abolish 
+the o ce of alpha male and declare that from 
+
+
+
+here on out all chimps are to be treated as equals. Such 
+dramatic changes in behaviour would occur only if 
+something changed in the chimpanzees' DNA. 
+
+For similar reasons, archaic humans did not initiate any 
+revolutions. As far as we can tell, changes in social patterns, 
+the invention of new technologies and the settlement of 
+alien habitats resulted from genetic mutations and 
+environmental pressures more than from cultural initiatives. 
+This is why it took humans hundreds of thousands of years 
+to make these steps. Two million years ago, genetic 
+mutations resulted in the appearance of a new human 
+species called Homo erectus. 
+
+Its emergence was accompanied by the development of a 
+new stone tool technology, now recognised as a de ning 
+feature of this species. As long as Homo erectus did not 
+undergo further genetic alterations, its stone tools remained 
+roughly the same - for close to 2 million years! 
+
+In contrast, ever since the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens 
+have been able to change their behaviour quickly, 
+transmitting new behaviours to future generations without 
+any need of genetic or environmental change. As a prime 
+example, consider the repeated appearance of childless 
+elites, such as the Catholic priesthood, Buddhist monastic 
+orders and Chinese eunuch bureaucracies. The existence of 
+such elites goes against the most fundamental principles of 
+natural selection, since these dominant members of society 
+willingly give up procreation. 
+
+Whereas chimpanzee alpha males use their power to have 
+sex with as many females as possible - and consequently 
+sire a large proportion of their troop's young - the Catholic 
+alpha male abstains completely from sexual intercourse and 
+childcare. This abstinence does not result from unique 
+
+
+
+environmental conditions such as a severe lack of food or 
+want of potential mates. Nor is it the result of some quirky 
+genetic mutation. The Catholic Church has survived for 
+centuries, not by passing on a 'celibacy gene' from one pope 
+to the next, but by passing on the stories of the New 
+Testament and of Catholic canon law. 
+
+In other words, while the behaviour patterns of archaic 
+humans remained xed for tens of thousands of years, 
+
+Sapiens could transform their social structures, the nature of 
+their interpersonal relations, their economic activities and a 
+host of other behaviours within a decade or two. Consider a 
+resident of Berlin, born in 1900 and living to the ripe age of 
+one hundred. She spent her childhood in the Hohenzollern 
+Empire of Wilhelm II; her adult years in the Weimar Republic, 
+the Nazi Third Reich and Communist East Germany; and she 
+died a citizen of a democratic and reuni ed Germany. She 
+had managed to be a part of ve very different sociopolitical 
+systems, though her DNA remained exactly the same. 
+
+This was the key to Sapiens' success. In a one-on-one brawl, 
+a Neanderthal would probably have beaten a Sapiens. But in 
+a conflict of hundreds, Neanderthals wouldn't stand a 
+chance. Neanderthals could share information about the 
+whereabouts of lions, but they probably could not tell - and 
+revise - stories about 
+
+
+
+
+tribal spirits. Without an ability to compose ction, 
+Neanderthals were unable to cooperate effectively in large 
+numbers, nor could they adapt their social behaviour to 
+rapidly changing challenges. 
+
+While we can't get inside a Neanderthal mind to understand 
+how they thought, we have indirect evidence of the limits to 
+their cognition compared with their Sapiens rivals. 
+Archaeologists excavating 30,000-year-old Sapiens sites in 
+the European heartland occasionally nd there seashells from 
+the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts. In all likelihood, 
+these shells got to the continental interior through long¬ 
+distance trade between di erent Sapiens bands. Neanderthal 
+
+
+
+sites lack any evidence of such trade. Each group 
+manufactured its own tools from local materials. 4 
+
+6. The Catholic alpha male abstains from sexual 
+intercourse and childcare, even though there is no 
+genetic or ecological reason for him to do so. 
+
+Another example comes from the South Pad c. Sapiens 
+bands that lived on the island of New Ireland, north of New 
+Guinea, used a volcanic glass called obsidian to 
+manufacture particularly strong and sharp tools. New 
+Ireland, however, has no 
+
+natural deposits of obsidian. Laboratory tests revealed that 
+the obsidian they used was brought from deposits on New 
+Britain, an island 400 kilometres away. Some of the 
+inhabitants of these islands must have been skilled 
+navigators who traded from island to island over long 
+distances. 5 
+
+Trade may seem a very pragmatic activity, one that needs 
+no ctive basis. Yet the fact is that no animal other than 
+Sapiens engages in trade, and all the Sapiens trade neworks 
+about which we have detailed evidence were based on 
+ctions. 
+
+Trade cannot exist without trust, and it is very di cult to trust 
+strangers. The global trade network of today is based on our 
+trust in such ctional entities as the dollar, the Federal 
+Reserve Bank, and the totemic trademarks of corporations. 
+
+When two strangers in a tribal society want to trade, they 
+will often establish trust by appealing to a common god, 
+mythical ancestor or totem animal. 
+
+If archaic Sapiens believing in such ctions traded shells and 
+obsidian, it stands to reason that they could also have 
+
+
+traded information, thus creating a much denser and wider 
+knowledge network than the one that served Neanderthals 
+and other archaic humans. 
+
+Hunting techniques provide another illustration of these di 
+erences. 
+
+Neanderthals usually hunted alone or in small groups. 
+Sapiens, on the other hand, developed techniques that 
+relied on cooperation between many dozens of individuals, 
+and perhaps even between di erent bands. One particularly 
+e ective method was to surround an entire herd of animals, 
+such as wild horses, then chase them into a narrow gorge, 
+where it was easy to slaughter them en masse. If all went 
+according to plan, the bands could harvest tons of meat, fat 
+and animal skins in a single afternoon of collective e ort, and 
+either consume these riches in a giant potlatch, or dry, 
+smoke or (in Arctic areas) freeze them for later usage. 
+
+Archaeologists have discovered sites where entire herds 
+were butchered annually in such ways. There are even sites 
+where fences and obstacles were erected in order to create 
+artificial traps and slaughtering grounds. 
+
+We may presume that Neanderthals were not pleased to see 
+their traditional hunting grounds turned into Sapiens- 
+controlled slaughterhouses. However, if violence broke out 
+between the two species, Neanderthals were not much 
+better o than wild horses. Fifty Neanderthals cooperating in 
+traditional and static patterns were no match for 500 
+versatile and innovative Sapiens. And even if the Sapiens 
+lost the rst round, they could quickly invent new stratagems 
+that would enable them to win the next time. 
+
+What happened in the Cognitive Revolution? 
+
+New ability 
+
+
+
+Wider consequences 
+
+Planning and carrying out 
+
+The ability to transmit larger quantities of 
+
+complex actions, such as 
+
+information about the world surrounding Homo 
+
+avoiding lions and hunting 
+
+sapiens 
+
+bison 
+
+Larger and more cohesive 
+
+The ability to transmit larger quantities of 
+
+groups, numbering up to 150 
+
+information about Sapiens social relationships 
+
+individuals 
+
+The ability to transmit information about things 
+
+a. Cooperation between very 
+
+that do not really exist, such as tribal spirits, 
+
+large numbers of strangers 
+
+nations, limited liability companies, and human 
+
+b. Rapid innovation of social 
+rights 
+
+
+
+behaviour 
+
+
+History and Biology 
+
+The immense diversity of imagined realities that Sapiens 
+invented, and the resulting diversity of behaviour patterns, 
+are the main components of what we call 'cultures'. Once 
+cultures appeared, they never ceased to change and 
+develop, and these unstoppable alterations are what we call 
+'history'. 
+
+The Cognitive Revolution is accordingly the point when 
+history declared its independence from biology. Until the 
+Cognitive Revolution, the doings of all human species 
+belonged to the realm of biology, or, if you so prefer, 
+prehistory (I tend to avoid the term 'prehistory', because it 
+wrongly implies that even before the Cognitive Revolution, 
+humans were in a category of their own). From the Cognitive 
+Revolution onwards, historical narratives replace biological 
+theories as our primary means of explaining the 
+development of Homo sapiens. To understand the rise of 
+Christianity or the French Revolution, it is not enough to 
+comprehend the interaction of genes, hormones and 
+organisms. It is necessary to take into account the 
+interaction of ideas, images and fantasies as well. 
+
+This does not mean that Homo sapiens and human culture 
+became exempt from biological laws. We are still animals, 
+and our physical, emotional and cognitive abilities are still 
+shaped by our DNA. Our societies are built from the same 
+building blocks as Neanderthal or chimpanzee societies, and 
+the more we examine these 
+
+building blocks - sensations, emotions, family ties - the less 
+di erence we nd between us and other apes. 
+
+
+
+It is, however, a mistake to look for the di erences at the 
+level of the individual or the family. One on one, even ten on 
+ten, we are embarrassingly similar to chimpanzees. Signi 
+cant di erences begin to appear only when we cross the 
+threshold of 150 individuals, and when we reach 1,000- 
+2,000 individuals, the di erences are astounding. If you tried 
+to bunch together thousands of chimpanzees into 
+Tiananmen Square, Wall Street, the Vatican or the 
+headquarters of the United Nations, the result would be 
+pandemonium. By contrast, Sapiens regularly gather by the 
+thousands in such places. Together, they create orderly 
+patterns - such as trade networks, mass celebrations and 
+political institutions - 
+
+that they could never have created in isolation. The real di 
+erence between us and chimpanzees is the mythical glue 
+that binds together large numbers of individuals, families 
+and groups. This glue has made us the masters of creation. 
+
+Of course, we also needed other skills, such as the ability to 
+make and use tools. 
+
+Yet tool-making is of little consequence unless it is coupled 
+with the ability to cooperate with many others. How is it that 
+we now have intercontinental missiles with nuclear 
+warheads, whereas 30,000 years ago we had only sticks with 
+int spearheads? Physiologically, there has been no signi cant 
+improvement in our tool-making capacity over the last 
+30,000 years. Albert Einstein was far less dexterous with his 
+hands than was an ancient hunter-gatherer. However, our 
+capacity to cooperate with large numbers of strangers has 
+improved dramatically. 
+
+The ancient int spearhead was manufactured in minutes by 
+a single person, who relied on the advice and help of a few 
+intimate friends. The production of a modern nuclear 
+
+
+
+warhead requires the cooperation of millions of strangers all 
+over the world - from the workers who mine the uranium ore 
+in the depths of the earth to theoretical physicists who write 
+long mathematical formulas to describe the interactions of 
+subatomic particles. 
+
+To summarise the relationship between biology and history 
+after the Cognitive Revolution: 
+
+a. Biology sets the basic parameters for the behaviour and 
+capacities of Homo sapiens. The whole of history takes place 
+within the bounds of this biological arena. 
+
+b. However, this arena is extraordinarily large, allowing 
+Sapiens to play an astounding variety of games. Thanks to 
+their ability to invent ction, Sapiens create more and more 
+complex games, which each generation develops and 
+elaborates even further. 
+
+c. Consequently, in order to understand how Sapiens 
+behave, we must describe the historical evolution of their 
+actions. Referring only to our biological constraints would be 
+like a radio sports-caster who, attending the World Cup 
+football championships, o ers his listeners a detailed 
+description of the playing eld rather than an account of what 
+the players are doing. 
+
+What games did our Stone Age ancestors play in the arena 
+of history? As far as we know, the people who carved the 
+Stadel lion-man some 30,000 years ago had the same 
+physical, emotional and intellectual abilities we have. What 
+did they do when they woke up in the morning? What did 
+they eat for breakfast - and lunch? 
+
+What were their societies like? Did they have monogamous 
+relationships and nuclear families? Did they have 
+ceremonies, moral codes, sports contests and religious 
+
+
+
+rituals? Did they ght wars? The next chapter takes a peek 
+behind the curtain of the ages, examining what life was like 
+in the millennia separating the Cognitive Revolution from 
+the Agricultural Revolution. 
+
+LHere and in the fol owing pages, when speaking about 
+Sapiens language, I refer to the basic linguistic abilities of 
+our species and not to a particular dialect. English, Hindi 
+and Chinese are al variants of Sapiens language. 
+
+Apparently, even at the time of the Cognitive Revolution, 
+different Sapiens groups had different dialects. 
+
+3 
+
+A Day in the Life of Adam and Eve 
+
+TO UNDERSTAND OUR NATURE, HISTORY and psychology, 
+we must get inside 
+
+the heads of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. For nearly the 
+entire history of our species, Sapiens lived as foragers. The 
+past 200 years, during which ever increasing numbers of 
+Sapiens have obtained their daily bread as urban labourers 
+and o ce workers, and the preceding 10,000 years, during 
+which most Sapiens lived as farmers and herders, are the 
+blink of an eye compared to the tens of thousands of years 
+during which our ancestors hunted and gathered. 
+
+The ourishing eld of evolutionary psychology argues that 
+many of our present-day social and psychological 
+characteristics were shaped during this long pre-agricultural 
+era. Even today, scholars in this eld claim, our brains and 
+minds are adapted to a life of hunting and gathering. Our 
+eating habits, our conflicts and our sexuality are all the 
+result of the way our hunter-gatherer minds interact with our 
+current post-industrial environment, with its mega-cities, 
+
+
+aeroplanes, telephones and computers. This environment 
+gives us more material resources and longer lives than those 
+enjoyed by any previous generation, but it often makes us 
+feel alienated, depressed and pressured. To understand why, 
+evolutionary psychologists argue, we need to delve into the 
+hunter-gatherer world that shaped us, the world that we 
+subconsciously still inhabit. 
+
+Why, for example, do people gorge on high-calorie food that 
+is doing little good to their bodies? Today's a uent societies 
+are in the throes of a plague of obesity, which is rapidly 
+spreading to developing countries. It's a puzzle why we 
+binge on the sweetest and greasiest food we can nd, until 
+we consider the eating habits of our forager forebears. In the 
+savannahs and forests they inhabited, high-calorie sweets 
+were extremely rare and food in general was in short supply. 
+A typical forager 30,000 years ago had access to only one 
+type of sweet food - ripe fruit. If a Stone Age woman came 
+across a tree groaning with gs, the most sensible thing to do 
+was to eat as many of them as she could on the spot, before 
+the local baboon band picked the tree bare. The instinct to 
+gorge on high-calorie food was hard-wired into our genes. 
+Today we may be living in high-rise apartments with over-stu 
+ed refrigerators, but our DNA still thinks we are in the 
+savannah. That's what makes us spoon down an entire tub 
+of Ben & Jerry's when we nd one in the 
+
+freezer and wash it down with a jumbo Coke. 
+
+This 'gorging gene' theory is widely accepted. Other theories 
+are far more contentious. For example, some evolutionary 
+psychologists argue that ancient foraging bands were not 
+composed of nuclear families centred on monogamous 
+couples. Rather, foragers lived in communes devoid of 
+private property, monogamous relationships and even 
+fatherhood. In such a band, a woman could have sex and 
+
+
+
+form intimate bonds with several men (and women) 
+simultaneously, and all of the band's adults cooperated in 
+parenting its children. Since no man knew de nitively which 
+of the children were his, men showed equal concern for all 
+youngsters. 
+
+Such a social structure is not an Aquarian utopia. It's well 
+documented among animals, notably our closest relatives, 
+the chimpanzees and bonobos. There are even a number of 
+present-day human cultures in which collective fatherhood 
+is practised, as for example among the Barf Indians. 
+According to the beliefs of such societies, a child is not born 
+from the sperm of a single man, but from the accumulation 
+of sperm in a woman's womb. A good mother will make a 
+point of having sex with several different men, especially 
+when she is pregnant, so that her child will enjoy the 
+qualities (and paternal care) not merely of the best hunter, 
+but also of the best storyteller, the strongest warrior and the 
+most considerate lover. If this sounds silly, bear in mind that 
+before the development of modern embryological studies, 
+people had no solid evidence that babies are always sired by 
+a single father rather than by many. 
+
+The proponents of this 'ancient commune' theory argue that 
+the frequent in delities that characterise modern marriages, 
+and the high rates of divorce, not to mention the cornucopia 
+of psychological complexes from which both children and 
+adults su er, all result from forcing humans to live in nuclear 
+families and monogamous relationships that are 
+incompatible with our biological software. 1 
+
+Many scholars vehemently reject this theory, insisting that 
+both monogamy and the forming of nuclear families are core 
+human behaviours. Though ancient hunter-gatherer 
+societies tended to be more communal and egalitarian than 
+modern societies, these researchers argue, they were 
+
+
+nevertheless comprised of separate cells, each containing a 
+jealous couple and the children they held in common. This is 
+why today monogamous relationships and nuclear families 
+are the norm in the vast majority of cultures, why men and 
+women tend to be very possessive of their partners and 
+children, and why even in modern states such as North 
+Korea and Syria political authority passes from father to son. 
+
+In order to resolve this controversy and understand our 
+sexuality, society and politics, we need to learn something 
+about the living conditions of our ancestors, to examine how 
+Sapiens lived between the Cognitive Revolution of 70,000 
+years ago, and the start of the Agricultural Revolution about 
+12,000 years ago. 
+
+Unfortunately, there are few certainties regarding the lives 
+of our forager ancestors. The debate between the 'ancient 
+commune' and 'eternal monogamy schools is based on imsy 
+evidence. We obviously have no written records from the 
+age of foragers, and the archaeological evidence consists 
+mainly of fossilised bones and stone tools. Artefacts made of 
+more perishable materials - such as wood, bamboo or 
+leather - survive only under unique conditions. The common 
+impression that pre-agricultural humans lived in an age of 
+stone is a misconception based on this archaeological bias. 
+The Stone Age should more accurately be called the Wood 
+Age, because most of the tools used by ancient hunter- 
+gatherers were made of wood. 
+
+Any reconstruction of the lives of ancient hunter-gatherers 
+from the surviving artefacts is extremely problematic. One of 
+the most glaring di erences between the ancient foragers 
+and their agricultural and industrial descendants is that 
+foragers had very few artefacts to begin with, and these 
+played a comparatively modest role in their lives. Over the 
+course of his or her life, a typical member of a modern a uent 
+
+
+
+society will own several million artefacts - from cars and 
+houses to disposable nappies and milk cartons. There's 
+hardly an activity, a belief, or even an emotion that is not 
+mediated by objects of our own devising. Our eating habits 
+are mediated by a mind-boggling collection of such items, 
+from spoons and glasses to genetic engineering labs and 
+gigantic ocean-going ships. In play, we use a plethora of 
+toys, from plastic cards to 100,000-seater stadiums. Our 
+romantic and sexual relations are accoutred by rings, beds, 
+nice clothes, sexy underwear, condoms, fashionable 
+restaurants, cheap motels, airport lounges, wedding halls 
+and catering companies. Religions bring the sacred into our 
+lives with Gothic churches, Muslim mosques, Hindu ashrams, 
+Torah scrolls, Tibetan prayer wheels, priestly cassocks, 
+candles, incense, Christmas trees, matzah balls, tombstones 
+and icons. 
+
+We hardly notice how ubiquitous our stu is until we have to 
+move it to a new house. Foragers moved house every month, 
+every week, and sometimes even every day, toting whatever 
+they had on their backs. There were no moving companies, 
+wagons, or even pack animals to share the burden. They 
+consequently had to make do with only the most essential 
+possessions. It's reasonable to presume, then, that the 
+greater part of their mental, religious and emotional lives 
+was conducted without the help of artefacts. An 
+archaeologist working 100,000 
+
+years from now could piece together a reasonable picture of 
+Muslim belief and practice from the myriad objects he 
+unearthed in a ruined mosque. But we are largely at a loss in 
+trying to comprehend the beliefs and rituals of ancient 
+hunter-gatherers. It's much the same dilemma that a future 
+historian would face if he had to depict the social world of 
+twenty- rst-century teenagers solely on the basis of their 
+
+
+
+surviving snail mail - since no records will remain of their 
+phone 
+
+conversations, emails, blogs and text messages. 
+
+A reliance on artefacts will thus bias an account of ancient 
+hunter-gatherer life. 
+
+One way to remedy this is to look at modern forager 
+societies. These can be studied directly, by anthropological 
+observation. But there are good reasons to be very careful in 
+extrapolating from modern forager societies to ancient ones. 
+
+Firstly, all forager societies that have survived into the 
+modern era have been in uenced by neighbouring 
+agricultural and industrial societies. Consequently, it's risky 
+to assume that what is true of them was also true tens of 
+thousands of years ago. 
+
+Secondly, modern forager societies have survived mainly in 
+areas with di cult climatic conditions and inhospitable 
+terrain, ill-suited for agriculture. Societies that have adapted 
+to the extreme conditions of places such as the Kalahari 
+Desert in southern Africa may well provide a very misleading 
+model for understanding ancient societies in fertile areas 
+such as the Yangtze River Valley. In particular, population 
+density in an area like the Kalahari Desert is far lower than it 
+was around the ancient Yangtze, and this has far-reaching 
+implications for key questions about the size and structure 
+of human bands and the relations between them. 
+
+Thirdly, the most notable characteristic of hunter-gatherer 
+societies is how di erent they are one from the other. They di 
+er not only from one part of the world to another but even in 
+the same region. One good example is the huge variety the 
+first European settlers found among the Aborigine peoples of 
+Australia. 
+
+
+
+Just before the British conquest, between 300,000 and 
+700,000 hunter-gatherers lived on the continent in 200-600 
+tribes, each of which was further divided into several bands. 
+2 Each tribe had its own language, religion, norms and 
+customs. 
+
+Living around what is now Adelaide in southern Australia 
+were several patrilineal clans that reckoned descent from 
+the father's side. These clans bonded together into tribes on 
+a strictly territorial basis. In contrast, some tribes in northern 
+Australia gave more importance to a person's maternal 
+ancestry, and a person's tribal identity depended on his or 
+her totem rather than his territory. 
+
+It stands to reason that the ethnic and cultural variety 
+among ancient hunter-gatherers was equally impressive, 
+and that the 5 million to 8 million foragers who populated 
+the world on the eve of the Agricultural Revolution were 
+divided into thousands of separate tribes with thousands of 
+di erent languages and cultures. 3 
+
+This, after all, was one of the main legacies of the Cognitive 
+Revolution. Thanks to the appearance of ction, even people 
+with the same genetic make-up who lived under similar 
+ecological conditions were able to create very di erent 
+imagined realities, which manifested themselves in different 
+norms and values. 
+
+For example, there's every reason to believe that a forager 
+band that lived 30,000 years ago on the spot where Oxford 
+University now stands would have 
+
+spoken a di erent language from one living where 
+Cambridge is now situated. 
+
+One band might have been belligerent and the other 
+peaceful. Perhaps the Cambridge band was communal while 
+
+
+the one at Oxford was based on nuclear families. The 
+Cantabrigians might have spent long hours carving wooden 
+statues of their guardian spirits, whereas the Oxonians may 
+have worshipped through dance. The former perhaps 
+believed in reincarnation, while the latter thought this was 
+nonsense. In one society, homosexual relationships might 
+have been accepted, while in the other they were taboo. 
+
+In other words, while anthropological observations of 
+modern foragers can help us understand some of the 
+possibilities available to ancient foragers, the ancient 
+horizon of possibilities was much broader, and most of it is 
+hidden from our view. * 
+
+The heated debates about Homo sapiens' 'natural way of 
+life' miss the main point. 
+
+Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, there hasn't been a 
+single natural way of life for Sapiens. There are only cultural 
+choices, from among a bewildering palette of possibilities. 
+
+The Original Affluent Society 
+
+What generalisations can we make about life in the pre- 
+agricultural world nevertheless? It seems safe to say that the 
+vast majority of people lived in small bands numbering 
+several dozen or at most several hundred individuals, and 
+that all these individuals were humans. It is important to 
+note this last point, because it is far from obvious. Most 
+members of agricultural and industrial societies are 
+domesticated animals. They are not equal to their masters, 
+of course, but they are members all the same. Today, the 
+society called New Zealand is composed of 4.5 
+
+million Sapiens and 50 million sheep. 
+
+
+There was just one exception to this general rule: the dog. 
+The dog was the rst animal domesticated by Homo sapiens , 
+and this occurred before the Agricultural Revolution. Experts 
+disagree about the exact date, but we have incontrovertible 
+evidence of domesticated dogs from about 15,000 years 
+ago. They may have joined the human pack thousands of 
+years earlier. 
+
+Dogs were used for hunting and ghting, and as an alarm 
+system against wild beasts and human intruders. With the 
+passing of generations, the two species co-evolved to 
+communicate well with each other. Dogs that were most 
+attentive to the needs and feelings of their human 
+companions got extra care and food, and were more likely to 
+survive. Simultaneously, dogs learned to manipulate people 
+for their own needs. A 15,000-year bond has yielded a much 
+deeper understanding and a ection between humans and 
+dogs than between humans and any other 
+
+
+
+animal. 4Jn some cases dead dogs were even buried 
+ceremoniously, much like humans. 
+
+
+Members of a band knew each other very intimately, and 
+were surrounded throughout their lives by friends and 
+relatives. Loneliness and privacy were rare. 
+
+Neighbouring bands probably competed for resources and 
+even fought one another, but they also had friendly 
+contacts. They exchanged members, hunted together, 
+traded rare luxuries, cemented political alliances and 
+celebrated religious festivals. Such cooperation was one of 
+the important trademarks of Homo sapiens , and gave it a 
+crucial edge over other human species. Sometimes relations 
+with neighbouring bands were tight enough that together 
+they constituted a single tribe, sharing a common language, 
+common myths, and common norms and values. 
+
+Yet we should not overestimate the importance of such 
+external relations. Even if in times of crisis neighbouring 
+bands drew closer together, and even if they occasionally 
+gathered to hunt or feast together, they still spent the vast 
+majority of their time in complete isolation and 
+independence. Trade was mostly limited to prestige items 
+such as shells, amber and pigments. There is no evidence 
+that people traded staple goods like fruits and meat, or that 
+the existence of one band depended on the importing of 
+goods from another. Sociopolitical relations, too, tended to 
+be sporadic. The tribe did not serve as a permanent political 
+framework, and even if it had seasonal meeting places, there 
+were no permanent towns or institutions. The average 
+person lived many months without seeing or hearing a 
+human from outside of her own band, and she encountered 
+throughout her life no more than a few hundred humans. 
+
+The Sapiens population was thinly spread over vast 
+territories. Before the Agricultural Revolution, the human 
+population of the entire planet was smaller than that of 
+today's Cairo. 
+
+
+
+7. First pet? A 12,000-year-old tomb found in 
+northern Israel. It contains the skeleton of a fifty- 
+year-old woman next to that of a puppy (bottom left 
+corner). The puppy was buried close to the woman's 
+head. 
+
+Her left hand is resting on the dog in a way that 
+might indicate an emotional connection. There are, 
+of course, other possible explanations. Perhaps, for 
+example, the puppy was a gift to the gatekeeper of 
+the next world. 
+
+Most Sapiens bands lived on the road, roaming from place to 
+place in search of food. Their movements were in uenced by 
+the changing seasons, the annual migrations of animals and 
+the growth cycles of plants. They usually travelled back and 
+forth across the same home territory, an area of between 
+several dozen and many hundreds of square kilometres. 
+
+Occasionally, bands wandered outside their turf and 
+explored new lands, whether due to natural calamities, 
+violent con icts, demographic pressures or the initiative of a 
+charismatic leader. These wanderings were the engine of 
+human worldwide expansion. If a forager band split once 
+every forty years and its splinter group migrated to a new 
+territory a hundred kilometres to the east, the distance from 
+East Africa to China would have been covered in about 
+10,000 
+
+years. 
+
+In some exceptional cases, when food sources were 
+particularly rich, bands settled down in seasonal and even 
+permanent camps. Techniques for drying, smoking and 
+freezing food also made it possible to stay put for longer 
+periods. 
+
+
+Most importantly, alongside seas and rivers rich in seafood 
+and waterfowl, humans set up permanent shing villages - 
+the rst permanent settlements in history, long predating the 
+Agricultural Revolution. Fishing villages might have 
+appeared on the coasts of Indonesian islands as early as 
+45,000 years ago. These may have been the base from 
+which Homo sapiens launched its rst transoceanic 
+enterprise: the invasion of Australia. 
+
+In most habitats, Sapiens bands fed themselves in an elastic 
+and opportunistic fashion. They scrounged for termites, 
+picked berries, dug for roots, stalked rabbits and hunted 
+bison and mammoth. Notwithstanding the popular image of 
+'man the hunter', gathering was Sapiens' main activity, and 
+it provided most of their calories, as well as raw materials 
+such as flint, wood and bamboo. 
+
+Sapiens did not forage only for food and materials. They 
+foraged for knowledge as well. To survive, they needed a 
+detailed mental map of their territory. To maximise the e 
+ciency of their daily search for food, they required 
+information about the growth patterns of each plant and the 
+habits of each animal. They needed to know which foods 
+were nourishing, which made you sick, and how to use 
+others as cures. They needed to know the progress of the 
+seasons and what warning signs preceded a thunderstorm or 
+a dry spell. They studied every stream, 
+
+every walnut tree, every bear cave, and every int-stone 
+deposit in their vicinity. 
+
+Each individual had to understand how to make a stone 
+knife, how to mend a torn cloak, how to lay a rabbit trap, 
+and how to face avalanches, snakebites or hungry lions. 
+Mastery of each of these many skills required years of 
+apprenticeship and practice. The average ancient forager 
+
+
+
+could turn a int stone into a spear point within minutes. 
+When we try to imitate this feat, we usually fail miserably. 
+Most of us lack expert knowledge of the aking properties of 
+int and basalt and the fine motor skills needed to work them 
+precisely. 
+
+In other words, the average forager had wider, deeper and 
+more varied knowledge of her immediate surroundings than 
+most of her modern descendants. 
+
+Today, most people in industrial societies don't need to know 
+much about the natural world in order to survive. What do 
+you really need to know in order to get by as a computer 
+engineer, an insurance agent, a history teacher or a factory 
+worker? You need to know a lot about your own tiny eld of 
+expertise, but for the vast majority of life's necessities you 
+rely blindly on the help of other experts, whose own 
+knowledge is also limited to a tiny eld of expertise. The 
+human collective knows far more today than did the ancient 
+bands. But at the individual level, ancient foragers were the 
+most knowledgeable and skilful people in history. 
+
+There is some evidence that the size of the average Sapiens 
+brain has actually decreased since the age of foraging. 5 
+Survival in that era required superb mental abilities from 
+everyone. When agriculture and industry came along people 
+could increasingly rely on the skills of others for survival, 
+and new 'niches for imbeciles' 
+
+were opened up. You could survive and pass your 
+unremarkable genes to the next generation by working as a 
+water carrier or an assembly-line worker. 
+
+Foragers mastered not only the surrounding world of 
+animals, plants and objects, but also the internal world of 
+their own bodies and senses. They listened to the slightest 
+
+
+movement in the grass to learn whether a snake might be 
+lurking there. They carefully observed the foliage of trees in 
+order to discover fruits, beehives and bird nests. They 
+moved with a minimum of e ort and noise, and knew how to 
+sit, walk and run in the most agile and e cient manner. 
+
+Varied and constant use of their bodies made them as t as 
+marathon runners. They had physical dexterity that people 
+today are unable to achieve even after years of practising 
+yoga or t'ai chi. 
+
+The hunter-gatherer way of life di ered signi cantly from 
+region to region and from season to season, but on the 
+whole foragers seem to have enjoyed a more comfortable 
+and rewarding lifestyle than most of the peasants, 
+shepherds, labourers and office clerks who followed in their 
+footsteps. 
+
+While people in today's a uent societies work an average of 
+forty to forty- ve hours a week, and people in the developing 
+world work sixty and even eighty 
+
+hours a week, hunter-gatherers living today in the most 
+inhospitable of habitats - 
+
+such as the Kalahari Desert work on average for just thirty- 
+ve to forty- ve hours a week. They hunt only one day out of 
+three, and gathering takes up just three to six hours daily. In 
+normal times, this is enough to feed the band. It may well be 
+that ancient hunter-gatherers living in zones more fertile 
+than the Kalahari spent even less time obtaining food and 
+raw materials. On top of that, foragers enjoyed a lighter load 
+of household chores. They had no dishes to wash, no carpets 
+to vacuum, no floors to polish, no nappies to change and no 
+bills to pay. 
+
+
+
+The forager economy provided most people with more 
+interesting lives than agriculture or industry do. Today, a 
+Chinese factory hand leaves home around seven in the 
+morning, makes her way through polluted streets to a 
+sweatshop, and there operates the same machine, in the 
+same way, day in, day out, for ten long and mind-numbing 
+hours, returning home around seven in the evening in order 
+to wash dishes and do the laundry. Thirty thousand years 
+ago, a Chinese forager might leave camp with her 
+companions at, say, eight in the morning. They'd roam the 
+nearby forests and meadows, gathering mushrooms, digging 
+up edible roots, catching frogs and occasionally running 
+away from tigers. By early afternoon, they were back at the 
+camp to make lunch. That left them plenty of time to gossip, 
+tell stories, play with the children and just hang out. Of 
+course the tigers sometimes caught them, or a snake bit 
+them, but on the other hand they didn't have to deal with 
+automobile accidents and industrial pollution. 
+
+In most places and at most times, foraging provided ideal 
+nutrition. That is hardly surprising - this had been the 
+human diet for hundreds of thousands of years, and the 
+human body was well adapted to it. Evidence from fossilised 
+skeletons indicates that ancient foragers were less likely to 
+su erfrom starvation or malnutrition, and were generally 
+taller and healthier than their peasant descendants. Average 
+life expectancy was apparently just thirty to forty years, but 
+this was due largely to the high incidence of child mortality. 
+Children who made it through the perilous rst years had a 
+good chance of reaching the age of sixty, and some even 
+made it to their eighties. Among modern foragers, forty- ve- 
+year-old women can expect to live another twenty years, 
+and about 5-8 per cent of the population is over sixty. 6 
+
+The foragers' secret of success, which protected them from 
+starvation and malnutrition, was their varied diet. Farmers 
+
+
+tend to eat a very limited and unbalanced diet. Especially in 
+premodern times, most of the calories feeding an 
+agricultural population came from a single crop - such as 
+wheat, potatoes or rice 
+
+- that lacks some of the vitamins, minerals and other 
+nutritional materials humans need. The typical peasant in 
+traditional China ate rice for breakfast, rice for lunch, and 
+rice for dinner. If she were lucky, she could expect to eat the 
+same on the following day. By contrast, ancient foragers 
+regularly ate dozens of di erent 
+
+foodstu s. The peasant's ancient ancestor, the forager, may 
+have eaten berries and mushrooms for breakfast; fruits, 
+snails and turtle for lunch; and rabbit steak with wild onions 
+for dinner. Tomorrows menu might have been completely di 
+erent. This variety ensured that the ancient foragers 
+received all the necessary nutrients. 
+
+Furthermore, by not being dependent on any single kind of 
+food, they were less liable to su er when one particular food 
+source failed. Agricultural societies are ravaged by famine 
+when drought, re or earthquake devastates the annual rice 
+or potato crop. Forager societies were hardly immune to 
+natural disasters, and su ered from periods of want and 
+hunger, but they were usually able to deal with such 
+calamities more easily. If they lost some of their staple 
+foodstu s, they could gather or hunt other species, or move 
+to a less affected area. 
+
+Ancient foragers also su ered less from infectious diseases. 
+Most of the infectious diseases that have plagued 
+agricultural and industrial societies (such as smallpox, 
+measles and tuberculosis) originated in domesticated 
+animals and were transferred to humans only after the 
+Agricultural Revolution. Ancient foragers, who had 
+
+
+
+domesticated only dogs, were free of these scourges. 
+Moreover, most people in agricultural and industrial 
+societies lived in dense, unhygienic permanent settlements 
+- ideal hotbeds for disease. Foragers roamed the land in 
+small bands that could not sustain epidemics. 
+
+The wholesome and varied diet, the relatively short working 
+week, and the rarity of infectious diseases have led many 
+experts to de ne pre-agricultural forager societies as 'the 
+original a uent societies'. It would be a mistake, however, to 
+idealise the lives of these ancients. Though they lived better 
+lives than most people in agricultural and industrial 
+societies, their world could still be harsh and unforgiving. 
+Periods of want and hardship were not uncommon, child 
+mortality was high, and an accident which would be minor 
+today could easily become a death sentence. Most people 
+probably enjoyed the close intimacy of the roaming band, 
+but those unfortunates who incurred the hostility or mockery 
+of their fellow band members probably su ered terribly. 
+Modern foragers occasionally abandon and even kill old or 
+disabled people who cannot keep up with the band. 
+
+Unwanted babies and children may be slain, and there are 
+even cases of religiously inspired human sacrifice. 
+
+The Ache people, hunter-gatherers who lived in the jungles 
+of Paraguay until the 1960s, o er a glimpse into the darker 
+side of foraging. When a valued band member died, the 
+Ache customarily killed a little girl and buried the two 
+together. 
+
+Anthropologists who interviewed the Ache recorded a case 
+in which a band abandoned a middle-aged man who fell sick 
+and was unable to keep up with the others. He was left 
+under a tree. Vultures perched above him, expecting a 
+hearty 
+
+
+
+meal. But the man recuperated, and, walking briskly, he 
+managed to rejoin the band. His body was covered with the 
+birds' faeces, so he was henceforth nicknamed 'Vulture 
+Droppings'. 
+
+When an old Ache woman became a burden to the rest of 
+the band, one of the 
+
+younger men would sneak behind her and kill her with an 
+axe-blow to the head. 
+
+An Ache man told the inquisitive anthropologists stories of 
+his prime years in the jungle. 'I customarily killed old 
+women. I used to kill my aunts ... The women were afraid of 
+me ... Now, here with the whites, I have become weak.' 
+Babies born without hair, who were considered 
+underdeveloped, were killed immediately. One woman 
+recalled that her rst baby girl was killed because the men in 
+the band did not want another girl. On another occasion a 
+man killed a small boy because he was 'in a bad mood and 
+the child was crying'. Another child was buried alive 
+because 'it was funny-looking and the other children 
+laughed at it'. 7 
+
+We should be careful, though, not to judge the Ache too 
+quickly. Anthropologists who lived with them for years report 
+that violence between adults was very rare. 
+
+Both women and men were free to change partners at will. 
+They smiled and laughed constantly, had no leadership 
+hierarchy, and generally shunned domineering people. They 
+were extremely generous with their few possessions, and 
+were not obsessed with success or wealth. The things they 
+valued most in life were good social interactions and high- 
+quality friendships^ They viewed the killing of children, sick 
+people and the elderly as many people today view abortion 
+
+
+and euthanasia. It should also be noted that the Ache were 
+hunted and killed without mercy by Paraguayan farmers. 
+
+The need to evade their enemies probably caused the Ache 
+to adopt an exceptionally harsh attitude towards anyone 
+who might become a liability to the band. 
+
+The truth is that Ache society, like every human society, was 
+very complex. We should beware of demonising or idealising 
+it on the basis of a super cial acquaintance. The Ache were 
+neither angels nor ends - they were humans. So, too, were 
+the ancient hunter-gatherers. 
+
+Talking Ghosts 
+
+What can we say about the spiritual and mental life of the 
+ancient hunter-gatherers? The basics of the forager economy 
+can be reconstructed with some con dence based on quanti 
+able and objective factors. For example, we can calculate 
+how many calories per day a person needed in order to 
+survive, how many calories were obtained from a kilogram of 
+walnuts, and how many walnuts could be gathered from a 
+square kilometre of forest. With this data, we can make 
+
+an educated guess about the relative importance of walnuts 
+in their diet. 
+
+But did they consider walnuts a delicacy or a humdrum 
+staple? Did they believe that walnut trees were inhabited by 
+spirits? Did they nd walnut leaves pretty? If a forager boy 
+wanted to take a forager girl to a romantic spot, did the 
+shade of a walnut tree su ce? The world of thought, belief 
+and feeling is by de nition far more difficult to decipher. 
+
+Most scholars agree that animistic beliefs were common 
+among ancient foragers. Animism (from ' anima ', 'soul' or 
+'spirit' in Latin) is the belief that almost every place, every 
+animal, every plant and every natural phenomenon has 
+
+
+
+awareness and feelings, and can communicate directly with 
+humans. Thus, animists may believe that the big rock at the 
+top of the hill has desires and needs. 
+
+The rock might be angry about something that people did 
+and rejoice over some other action. The rock might 
+admonish people or ask for favours. Humans, for their part, 
+can address the rock, to mollify or threaten it. Not only the 
+rock, but also the oak tree at the bottom of the hill is an 
+animated being, and so is the stream owing below the hill, 
+the spring in the forest clearing, the bushes growing around 
+it, the path to the clearing, and the field mice, wolves and 
+crows that drink there. In the animist world, objects and 
+living things are not the only animated beings. There are 
+also immaterial entities - the spirits of the dead, and friendly 
+and malevolent beings, the kind that we today call demons, 
+fairies and angels. 
+
+Animists believe that there is no barrier between humans 
+and other beings. They can all communicate directly 
+through speech, song, dance and ceremony. A hunter may 
+address a herd of deer and ask that one of them sacri ce 
+itself. If the hunt succeeds, the hunter may ask the dead 
+animal to forgive him. When someone falls sick, a shaman 
+can contact the spirit that caused the sickness and try to 
+pacify it or scare it away. If need be, the shaman may ask for 
+help from other spirits. What characterises all these acts of 
+communication is that the entities being addressed are local 
+beings. They are not universal gods, but rather a particular 
+deer, a particular tree, a particular stream, a particular 
+ghost. 
+
+Just as there is no barrier between humans and other beings, 
+neither is there a strict hierarchy. Non-human entities do not 
+exist merely to provide for the needs of man. Nor are they 
+all-powerful gods who run the world as they wish. The world 
+
+
+
+does not revolve around humans or around any other 
+particular group of beings. 
+
+
+Animism is not a speci c religion. It is a generic name for 
+thousands of very di erent religions, cults and beliefs. What 
+makes all of them 'animist' is this common approach to the 
+world and to man's place in it. Saying that ancient foragers 
+were probably animists is like saying that premodern 
+agriculturists were mostly theists. Theism (from ' theos', 
+'god' in Greek) is the view that the universal order is based 
+on a hierarchical relationship between humans and a small 
+group of ethereal entities called gods. It is certainly true to 
+say that premodern 
+
+agriculturists tended to be theists, but it does not teach us 
+much about the particulars. The generic rubric 'theists' 
+covers Jewish rabbis from eighteenth-century Poland, witch¬ 
+burning Puritans from seventeenth-century Massachusetts, 
+Aztec priests from fteenth-century Mexico, Su mystics from 
+twelfth-century Iran, tenth-century Viking warriors, second- 
+century Roman legionnaires, and rst-century Chinese 
+bureaucrats. Each of these viewed the others' beliefs and 
+practices as weird and heretical. The di erences between the 
+beliefs and practices of groups of 'animistic' foragers were 
+probably just as big. Their religious experience may have 
+been turbulent and filled with controversies, reforms and 
+revolutions. 
+
+But these cautious generalisations are about as far as we 
+can go. Any attempt to describe the specifics of archaic 
+spirituality is highly speculative, as there is next to no 
+evidence to go by and the little evidence we have - a 
+handful of artefacts and cave paintings - can be interpreted 
+in myriad ways. The theories of scholars who claim to know 
+what the foragers felt shed much more light on the 
+prejudices of their authors than on Stone Age religions. 
+
+
+
+Instead of erecting mountains of theory over a molehill of 
+tomb relics, cave paintings and bone statuettes, it is better 
+to be frank and admit that we have only the haziest notions 
+about the religions of ancient foragers. We assume that they 
+were animists, but that's not very informative. We don't 
+know which spirits they prayed to, which festivals they 
+celebrated, or which taboos they observed. Most 
+importantly, we don't know what stories they told. It's one of 
+the biggest holes in our understanding of human history. 
+
+The sociopolitical world of the foragers is another area about 
+which we know next to nothing. As explained above, 
+scholars cannot even agree on the basics, such as the 
+existence of private property, nuclear families and 
+monogamous relationships. 
+
+It's likely that di erent bands had di erent structures. Some 
+may have been as hierarchical, tense and violent as the 
+nastiest chimpanzee group, while others were as laid-back, 
+peaceful and lascivious as a bunch of bonobos. 
+
+
+
+
+8. A painting from Lascaux Cave, c.15,000-20,000 
+years ago. What exactly do we see, and what is the 
+painting's meaning? Some argue that we see a man 
+with the head of a bird and an erect penis, being 
+killed by a bison. Beneath the man is another bird 
+which might symbolise the soul, released from the 
+body at the moment of death. If so, the picture 
+depicts not a prosaic hunting accident, but rather 
+the passage from this world to the next. But we have 
+no way of knowing whether any of these 
+speculations are true. It's a Rorschach test that 
+reveals much about the preconceptions of modern 
+scholars, and little about the beliefs of ancient 
+foragers. 
+
+In Sungir, Russia, archaeologists discovered in 1955 a 
+30,000-year-old burial site belonging to a mammoth-hunting 
+
+
+
+
+culture. In one grave they found the skeleton of a fty-year- 
+old man, covered with strings of mammoth ivory beads, 
+containing about 3,000 beads in total. On the dead man's 
+head was a hat decorated with fox teeth, and on his wrists 
+twenty- ve ivory bracelets. Other graves from the same site 
+contained far fewer goods. Scholars deduced that the Sungi 
+mammoth-hunters lived in a hierarchical society, and that 
+the dead man was perhaps the leader of a band or of an 
+entire tribe comprising several bands. It is unlikely that a 
+few dozen members of a single band could have produced 
+so many grave goods by themselves. 
+
+
+
+9^_Hunter-gatherers made these handprints about 
+9,000 years ago in the 'Hands Cave', in Argentina. It 
+looks as if these long-dead hands are reaching 
+towards us from within the rock. This is one of the 
+
+
+most moving relics of the ancient forager world - but 
+nobody knows what it means. 
+
+
+Archaeologists then discovered an even more interesting 
+tomb. It contained two skeletons, buried head to head. One 
+belonged to a boy aged about twelve or thirteen, and the 
+other to a girl of about nine or ten. The boy was covered with 
+5,000 ivory beads. He wore a fox-tooth hat and a belt with 
+250 fox teeth (at least sixty foxes had to have their teeth 
+pulled to get that many). The girl was adorned with 5,250 
+ivory beads. Both children were surrounded by statuettes 
+and various ivory objects. A skilled craftsman (or 
+craftswoman) probably needed about forty-ve minutes to 
+prepare a single ivory bead. In other words, fashioning the 
+10,000 
+
+ivory beads that covered the two children, not to mention 
+the other objects, required some 7,500 hours of delicate 
+work, well over three years of labour by an experienced 
+artisan! 
+
+It is highly unlikely that at such a young age the Sungir 
+children had proved themselves as leaders or mammoth- 
+hunters. Only cultural beliefs can explain why they received 
+such an extravagant burial. One theory is that they owed 
+their rank to their parents. Perhaps they were the children of 
+the leader, in a culture that believed in either family 
+charisma or strict rules of succession. According to a second 
+theory, the children had been identi ed at birth as the 
+incarnations of some long-dead spirits. A third theory argues 
+that the children's burial re ects the 
+
+way they died rather than their status in life. They were 
+ritually sacri ced - 
+
+
+
+perhaps as part of the burial rites of the leader - and then 
+entombed with pomp and circumstance. 9 
+
+Whatever the correct answer, the Sungir children are among 
+the best pieces of evidence that 30,000 years ago Sapiens 
+could invent sociopolitical codes that went far beyond the 
+dictates of our DNA and the behaviour patterns of other 
+human and animal species. 
+
+Peace or War? 
+
+Finally, there's the thorny question of the role of war in 
+forager societies. Some scholars imagine ancient hunter- 
+gatherer societies as peaceful paradises, and argue that war 
+and violence began only with the Agricultural Revolution, 
+when people started to accumulate private property. Other 
+scholars maintain that the world of the ancient foragers was 
+exceptionally cruel and violent. Both schools of thought are 
+castles in the air, connected to the ground by the thin 
+strings of meagre archaeological remains and 
+anthropological observations of present-day foragers. 
+
+The anthropological evidence is intriguing but very 
+problematic. Foragers today live mainly in isolated and 
+inhospitable areas such as the Arctic or the Kalahari, where 
+population density is very low and opportunities to ght other 
+people are limited. Moreover, in recent generations, foragers 
+have been increasingly subject to the authority of modern 
+states, which prevent the eruption of large-scale con icts. 
+European scholars have had only two opportunities to 
+observe large and relatively dense populations of 
+independent foragers: in north-western North America in the 
+nineteenth century, and in northern Australia during the 
+nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Both Amerindian 
+and Aboriginal Australian cultures witnessed frequent armed 
+
+
+con icts. It is debatable, however, whether this represents a 
+'timeless' condition or the impact of European imperialism. 
+
+
+The archaeological ndings are both scarce and opaque. 
+
+What telltale clues might remain of any war that took place 
+tens of thousands of years ago? There were no forti cations 
+and walls back then, no artillery shells or even swords and 
+shields. An ancient spear point might have been used in 
+war, but it could have been used in a hunt as well. Fossilised 
+human bones are no less hard to interpret. 
+
+A fracture might indicate a war wound or an accident. Nor is 
+the absence of fractures and cuts on an ancient skeleton 
+conclusive proof that the person to whom the skeleton 
+belonged did not die a violent death. Death can be caused 
+by 
+
+trauma to soft tissues that leaves no marks on bone. Even 
+more importantly, during pre-industrial warfare more than 
+90 per cent of war dead were killed by starvation, cold and 
+disease rather than by weapons. Imagine that 30,000 years 
+ago one tribe defeated its neighbour and expelled it from 
+coveted foraging grounds. In the decisive battle, ten 
+members of the defeated tribe were killed. In the following 
+year, another hundred members of the losing tribe died from 
+starvation, cold and disease. Archaeologists who come 
+across these no skeletons may too easily conclude that most 
+fell victim to some natural disaster. How would we be able to 
+tell that they were all victims of a merciless war? 
+
+Duly warned, we can now turn to the archaeological ndings. 
+In Portugal, a survey was made of 400 skeletons from the 
+period immediately predating the Agricultural Revolution. 
+Only two skeletons showed clear marks of violence. A similar 
+survey of 400 skeletons from the same period in Israel 
+discovered a single crack in a single skull that could be 
+
+
+
+attributed to human violence. A third survey of 400 
+skeletons from various pre-agricultural sites in the Danube 
+Valley found evidence of violence on eighteen skeletons. 
+Eighteen out of 400 may not sound like a lot, but it's 
+actually a very high percentage. If all eighteen indeed died 
+violently, it means that about 4.5 per cent of deaths in the 
+ancient Danube Valley were caused by human violence. 
+Today, the global average is only 1.5 per cent, taking war 
+and crime together. During the twentieth century, only 5 per 
+cent of human deaths resulted from human violence - and 
+this in a century that saw the bloodiest wars and most 
+massive genocides in history. If this revelation is typical, the 
+ancient Danube Valley was as violent as the twentieth 
+century. * 
+
+The depressing ndings from the Danube Valley are 
+supported by a string of equally depressing ndings from 
+other areas. At Jabl Sahaba in Sudan, a 12,000-year-old 
+cemetery containing fty-nine skeletons was discovered. 
+Arrowheads and spear points were found embedded in or 
+lying near the bones of twenty-four skeletons, 40 per cent of 
+the nd. The skeleton of one woman revealed twelve injuries. 
+In Ofnet Cave in Bavaria, archaeologists discovered the 
+remains of thirty-eight foragers, mainly women and children, 
+who had been thrown into two burial pits. Half the skeletons, 
+including those of children and babies, bore clear signs of 
+damage by human weapons such as clubs and knives. The 
+few skeletons belonging to mature males bore the worst 
+marks of violence. In all probability, an entire forager band 
+was massacred at Ofnet. 
+
+Which better represents the world of the ancient foragers: 
+the peaceful skeletons from Israel and Portugal, or the 
+abattoirs of Jabl Sahaba and Ofnet? The answer is neither. 
+Just as foragers exhibited a wide array of religions and social 
+structures, so, too, did they probably demonstrate a variety 
+
+
+of violence rates. While some areas and some periods of 
+time may have enjoyed peace and tranquillity, others were 
+riven by ferocious conflicts. 10 
+
+The Curtain of Silence 
+
+If the larger picture of ancient forager life is hard to 
+reconstruct, particular events are largely irretrievable. When 
+a Sapiens band rst entered a valley inhabited by 
+Neanderthals, the following years might have witnessed a 
+breathtaking historical drama. Unfortunately, nothing would 
+have survived from such an encounter except, at best, a few 
+fossilised bones and a handful of stone tools that remain 
+mute under the most intense scholarly inquisitions. We may 
+extract from them information about human anatomy, 
+human technology, human diet, and perhaps 
+
+even human social structure. But they reveal nothing about 
+the political alliance forged between neighbouring Sapiens 
+bands, about the spirits of the dead that blessed this 
+alliance, or about the ivory beads secretly given to the local 
+witch doctor in order to secure the blessing of the spirits. 
+
+This curtain of silence shrouds tens of thousands of years of 
+history. These long millennia may well have witnessed wars 
+and revolutions, ecstatic religious movements, profound 
+philosophical theories, incomparable artistic masterpieces. 
+
+The foragers may have had their all-conquering Napoleons, 
+who ruled empires half the size of Luxembourg; gifted 
+Beethovens who lacked symphony orchestras but brought 
+people to tears with the sound of their bamboo utes; and 
+charismatic prophets who revealed the words of a local oak 
+tree rather than those of a universal creator god. But these 
+are all mere guesses. The curtain of silence is so thick that 
+
+
+we cannot even be sure such things occurred - let alone 
+describe them in detail. 
+
+Scholars tend to ask only those questions that they can 
+reasonably expect to answer. Without the discovery of as yet 
+unavailable research tools, we will probably never know 
+what the ancient foragers believed or what political dramas 
+they experienced. Yet it is vital to ask questions for which no 
+answers are available, otherwise we might be tempted to 
+dismiss 60,000 of 70,000 years of human history with the 
+excuse that 'the people who lived back then did nothing of 
+importance'. 
+
+The truth is that they did a lot of important things. In 
+particular, they shaped the world around us to a much larger 
+degree than most people realise. Trekkers visiting the 
+Siberian tundra, the deserts of central Australia and the 
+Amazonian rainforest believe that they have entered 
+pristine landscapes, virtually untouched by human hands. 
+But that's an illusion. The foragers were there before us and 
+they brought about dramatic changes even in the densest 
+jungles and the most desolate wildernesses. The next 
+chapter explains how the foragers completely reshaped the 
+ecology of our planet long before the rst agricultural village 
+was built. The wandering bands of storytelling Sapiens were 
+the most important and most destructive force the animal 
+kingdom had ever produced. 
+
+LA 'horizon of possibilities' means the entire spectrum of 
+beliefs, practices and experiences that are open before a 
+particular society, given its ecological, technological and 
+cultural limitations. Each society and each individual usual y 
+explore only a tiny fraction of their horizon of possibilities. 
+
+Lit might be argued that not al eighteen ancient Danubians 
+actual y died from the violence whose marks can be seen on 
+
+
+their remains. Some were only injured. However, this is 
+probably counterbalanced by deaths from trauma to soft 
+tissues and from the invisible deprivations that accompany 
+war. 
+
+4 
+
+The Flood 
+
+PRIOR TO THE COGNITIVE REVOLUTION, humans of all 
+species lived exclusively 
+
+on the Afro-Asian landmass. True, they had settled a few 
+islands by swimming short stretches of water or crossing 
+them on improvised rafts. Flores, for example, was colonised 
+as far back as 850,000 years ago. Yet they were unable to 
+venture into the open sea, and none reached America, 
+Australia, or remote islands such as Madagascar, New 
+Zealand and Hawaii. 
+
+The sea barrier prevented not just humans but also many 
+other Afro-Asian animals and plants from reaching this 
+'Outer World'. As a result, the organisms of distant lands like 
+Australia and Madagascar evolved in isolation for millions 
+upon millions of years, taking on shapes and natures very di 
+erent from those of their distant Afro-Asian relatives. Planet 
+Earth was separated into several distinct ecosystems, each 
+made up of a unique assembly of animals and plants. Homo 
+sapiens was about to put an end to this biological 
+exuberance. 
+
+Following the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens acquired the 
+technology, the organisational skills, and perhaps even the 
+vision necessary to break out of Afro-Asia and settle the 
+Outer World. Their rst achievement was the colonisation of 
+Australia some 45,000 years ago. Experts are hard-pressed 
+to explain this feat. In order to reach Australia, humans had 
+
+
+
+to cross a number of sea channels, some more than a 
+hundred kilometres wide, and upon arrival they had to adapt 
+nearly overnight to a completely new ecosystem. 
+
+The most reasonable theory suggests that, about 45,000 
+years ago, the Sapiens living in the Indonesian archipelago 
+(a group of islands separated from Asia and from each other 
+by only narrow straits) developed the rst seafaring societies. 
+
+They learned how to build and manoeuvre ocean-going 
+vessels and became long-distance shermen, traders and 
+explorers. This would have brought about an unprecedented 
+transformation in human capabilities and lifestyles. Every 
+other mammal that went to sea - seals, sea cows, dolphins - 
+had to evolve for aeons to develop specialised organs and a 
+hydrodynamic body. The Sapiens in Indonesia, descendants 
+of apes who lived on the African savannah, became Paci c 
+seafarers without growing ippers and without having to wait 
+for their noses to migrate to the top of their heads as whales 
+did. Instead, they built boats and learned how to 
+
+steer them. And these skills enabled them to reach and 
+settle Australia. 
+
+True, archaeologists have yet to unearth rafts, oars or shing 
+villages that date back as far as 45,000 years ago (they 
+would be di cult to discover, because rising sea levels have 
+buried the ancient Indonesian shoreline under a hundred 
+metres of ocean). Nevertheless, there is strong 
+circumstantial evidence to support this theory, especially 
+the fact that in the thousands of years following the 
+settlement of Australia, Sapiens colonised a large number of 
+small and isolated islands to its north. Some, such as Buka 
+and Manus, were separated from the closest land by 200 
+kilometres of open water. It's hard to believe that anyone 
+could have reached and colonised Manus without 
+
+
+
+sophisticated vessels and sailing skills. As mentioned earlier, 
+there is also rm evidence for regular sea trade between 
+some of these islands, such as New Ireland and New 
+Britain^! 
+
+The journey of the rst humans to Australia is one of the most 
+important events in history, at least as important as 
+Columbus' journey to America or the Apol o 11 
+
+expedition to the moon. It was the rst time any human had 
+managed to leave the Afro-Asian ecological system - indeed, 
+the rst time any large terrestrial mammal had managed to 
+cross from Afro-Asia to Australia. Of even greater importance 
+was what the human pioneers did in this new world. The 
+moment the rst hunter-gatherer set foot on an Australian 
+beach was the moment that Homo sapiens climbed to the 
+top rung in the food chain on a particular landmass and 
+thereafter became the deadliest species in the annals of 
+planet Earth. 
+
+Up until then humans had displayed some innovative 
+adaptations and 
+
+behaviours, but their e ect on their environment had been 
+negligible. They had demonstrated remarkable success in 
+moving into and adjusting to various habitats, but they did 
+so without drastically changing those habitats. The settlers 
+of Australia, or more accurately, its conquerors, didn't just 
+adapt, they transformed the Australian ecosystem beyond 
+recognition. 
+
+The rst human footprint on a sandy Australian beach was 
+immediately washed away by the waves. Yet when the 
+invaders advanced inland, they left behind a di erent 
+footprint, one that would never be expunged. As they 
+pushed on, they encountered a strange universe of unknown 
+
+
+creatures that included a 200-kilogram, two-metre kangaroo, 
+and a marsupial lion, as massive as a modern tiger, that was 
+the continent's largest predator. Koalas far too big to be 
+cuddly and cute rustled in the trees and ightless birds twice 
+the size of ostriches sprinted on the plains. Dragon-like 
+lizards and snakes ve metres long slithered through the 
+undergrowth. The giant diprotodon, a two-and-a-half-ton 
+wombat, roamed the forests. Except for the birds and 
+reptiles, all these animals were marsupials - like kangaroos, 
+they gave birth to tiny, helpless, fetus-like young which they 
+then nurtured with milk in abdominal pouches. Marsupial 
+mammals were almost unknown in Africa and Asia, but in 
+Australia they reigned supreme. 
+
+Within a few thousand years, virtually all of these giants 
+vanished. Of the twenty-four Australian animal species 
+weighing fty kilograms or more, twenty-three became 
+extinct. 2_A large number of smaller species also 
+disappeared. Food chains throughout the entire Australian 
+ecosystem were broken and rearranged. It was the most 
+important transformation of the Australian ecosystem for 
+millions of years. Was it all the fault of Homo sapiens ? 
+
+Guilty as Charged 
+
+Some scholars try to exonerate our species, placing the 
+blame on the vagaries of the climate (the usual scapegoat in 
+such cases). Yet it is hard to believe that Homo sapiens was 
+completely innocent. There are three pieces of evidence that 
+weaken the climate alibi, and implicate our ancestors in the 
+extinction of the Australian megafauna. 
+
+Firstly, even though Australia's climate changed some 
+45,000 years ago, it wasn't a very remarkable upheaval. It's 
+hard to see how the new weather patterns alone could have 
+caused such a massive extinction. It's common today to 
+
+
+explain anything and everything as the result of climate 
+change, but the truth is that earth's climate never rests. It is 
+in constant ux. Every event in history occurred against the 
+background of some climate change. 
+
+In particular, our planet has experienced numerous cycles of 
+cooling and warming. During the last million years, there has 
+been an ice age on average every 100,000 years. The last 
+one ran from about 75,000 to 15,000 years ago. Not 
+unusually severe for an ice age, it had twin peaks, the rst 
+about 70,000 years ago and the second at about 20,000 
+years ago. The giant diprotodon appeared in Australia more 
+than 1.5 million years ago and successfully weathered at 
+least ten previous ice ages. It also survived the rst peak of 
+the last ice age, around 70,000 
+
+years ago. Why, then, did it disappear 45,000 years ago? Of 
+course, if diprotodons had been the only large animal to 
+disappear at this time, it might have been just a uke. But 
+more than 90 per cent of Australia's megafauna disappeared 
+along with the diprotodon. The evidence is circumstantial, 
+but it's hard to imagine that Sapiens, just by coincidence, 
+arrived in Australia at the precise point that all these 
+animals were dropping dead of the chills.3 
+
+Secondly, when climate change causes mass extinctions, 
+sea creatures are usually hit as hard as land dwellers. Yet 
+there is no evidence of any signi cant disappearance of 
+oceanic fauna 45,000 years ago. Human involvement can 
+easily explain why the wave of extinction obliterated the 
+terrestrial megafauna of Australia while sparing that of the 
+nearby oceans. Despite its burgeoning 
+
+navigational abilities, Homo sapiens was still 
+overwhelmingly a terrestrial menace. 
+
+
+Thirdly, mass extinctions akin to the archetypal Australian 
+decimation occurred again and again in the ensuing 
+millennia - whenever people settled another part of the 
+Outer World. In these cases Sapiens guilt is irrefutable. For 
+example, the megafauna of New Zealand - which had 
+weathered the alleged 'climate change' of c.45,000 years 
+ago without a scratch - su ered devastating blows 
+immediately after the rst humans set foot on the islands. The 
+Maoris, New Zealand's rst Sapiens colonisers, reached the 
+islands about 800 years ago. Within a couple of centuries, 
+the majority of the local megafauna was extinct, along with 
+60 per cent of all bird species. 
+
+A similar fate befell the mammoth population of Wrangel 
+Island in the Arctic Ocean (200 kilometres north of the 
+Siberian coast). Mammoths had ourished for millions of 
+years over most of the northern hemisphere, but as Homo 
+sapiens spread - rst over Eurasia and then over North 
+America - the mammoths retreated. By 10,000 years ago 
+there was not a single mammoth to be found in the world, 
+except on a few remote Arctic islands, most conspicuously 
+Wrangel. The mammoths of Wrangel continued to prosper 
+for a few more millennia, then suddenly disappeared about 
+4,000 years ago, just when the rst humans reached the 
+island. 
+
+Were the Australian extinction an isolated event, we could 
+grant humans the bene t of the doubt. But the historical 
+record makes Homo sapiens look like an ecological serial 
+killer. 
+
+All the settlers of Australia had at their disposal was Stone 
+Age technology. How could they cause an ecological 
+disaster? There are three explanations that mesh quite 
+nicely. 
+
+
+
+Large animals - the primary victims of the Australian 
+extinction - breed slowly. 
+
+Pregnancy is long, o spring per pregnancy are few, and there 
+are long breaks between pregnancies. Consequently, if 
+humans cut down even one diprotodon every few months, it 
+would be enough to cause diprotodon deaths to outnumber 
+births. Within a few thousand years the last, lonesome 
+diprotodon would pass away, and with her the entire 
+species. 4 
+
+In fact, for all their size, diprotodons and Australia's other 
+giants probably wouldn't have been that hard to hunt 
+because they would have been taken totally by surprise by 
+their two-legged assailants. Various human species had 
+been prowling and evolving in Afro-Asia for 2 million years. 
+They slowly honed their hunting skills, and began going 
+after large animals around 400,000 years ago. 
+
+The big beasts of Africa and Asia learned to avoid humans, 
+so when the new mega-predator - Homo sapiens - appeared 
+on the Afro-Asian scene, the large animals already knew to 
+keep their distance from creatures that looked like it. In 
+
+contrast, the Australian giants had no time to learn to run 
+away. Humans don't come across as particularly dangerous. 
+They don't have long, sharp teeth or muscular, lithe bodies. 
+So when a diprotodon, the largest marsupial ever to walk the 
+earth, set eyes for the rst time on this frail-looking ape, he 
+gave it one glance and then went back to chewing leaves. 
+These animals had to evolve a fear of humankind, but before 
+they could do so they were gone. 
+
+The second explanation is that by the time Sapiens reached 
+Australia, they had already mastered re agriculture. Faced 
+with an alien and threatening environment, they 
+
+
+deliberately burned vast areas of impassable thickets and 
+dense forests to create open grasslands, which attracted 
+more easily hunted game, and were better suited to their 
+needs. They thereby completely changed the ecology of 
+large parts of Australia within a few short millennia. 
+
+One body of evidence supporting this view is the fossil plant 
+record. Eucalyptus trees were rare in Australia 45,000 years 
+ago. But the arrival of Homo sapiens inaugurated a golden 
+age for the species. Since eucalyptuses are particularly 
+resistant to re, they spread far and wide while other trees 
+and shrubs disappeared. 
+
+These changes in vegetation in uenced the animals that ate 
+the plants and the carnivores that ate the vegetarians. 
+Koalas, which subsist exclusively on eucalyptus leaves, 
+happily munched their way into new territories. Most other 
+animals su ered greatly. Many Australian food chains 
+collapsed, driving the weakest links into extinction. 5 
+
+A third explanation agrees that hunting and re agriculture 
+played a signi cant role in the extinction, but emphasises 
+that we can't completely ignore the role of climate. The 
+climate changes that beset Australia about 45,000 years 
+ago destabilised the ecosystem and made it particularly 
+vulnerable. Under normal circumstances the system would 
+probably have recuperated, as had happened many times 
+previously. However, humans appeared on the stage at just 
+this critical juncture and pushed the brittle ecosystem into 
+the abyss. The combination of climate change and human 
+hunting is particularly devastating for large animals, since it 
+attacks them from di erent angles. It is hard to nd a good 
+survival strategy that will work simultaneously against 
+multiple threats. 
+
+
+Without further evidence, there's no way of deciding 
+between the three scenarios. But there are certainly good 
+reasons to believe that if Homo sapiens had never gone 
+Down Under, it would still be home to marsupial lions, 
+diprotodons and giant kangaroos. 
+
+The End of Sloth 
+
+The extinction of the Australian megafauna was probably 
+the rst signi cant ma rk Homo sapiens left on our planet. It 
+was followed by an even larger ecological disaster, this time 
+in America. Homo sapiens was the rst and only human 
+species to reach the western hemisphere landmass, arriving 
+about 16,000 
+
+years ago, that is in or around 14,000 BC. The rst Americans 
+arrived on foot, which they could do because, at the time, 
+sea levels were low enough that a land bridge connected 
+north-eastern Siberia with north-western Alaska. Not that it 
+was easy - the journey was an arduous one, perhaps harder 
+than the sea passage to Australia. To make the crossing, 
+Sapiens rst had to learn how to withstand the extreme Arctic 
+conditions of northern Siberia, an area on which the sun 
+never shines in winter, and where temperatures can drop to 
+minus fifty degrees Celsius. 
+
+No previous human species had managed to penetrate 
+places like northern Siberia. Even the cold-adapted 
+Neanderthals restricted themselves to relatively warmer 
+regions further south. But Homo sapiens , whose body was 
+adapted to living in the African savannah rather than in the 
+lands of snow and ice, devised ingenious solutions. When 
+roaming bands of Sapiens foragers migrated into colder 
+climates, they learned to make snowshoes and e ective 
+thermal clothing composed of layers of furs and skins, sewn 
+together tightly with the help of needles. They developed 
+
+
+
+new weapons and sophisticated hunting techniques that 
+enabled them to track and kill mammoths and the other big 
+game of the far north. 
+
+As their thermal clothing and hunting techniques improved, 
+Sapiens dared to venture deeper and deeper into the frozen 
+regions. And as they moved north, their clothes, hunting 
+strategies and other survival skills continued to improve. 
+
+But why did they bother? Why banish oneself to Siberia by 
+choice? Perhaps some bands were driven north by wars, 
+demographic pressures or natural disasters. Others might 
+have been lured northwards by more positive reasons, such 
+as animal protein. The Arctic lands were full of large, juicy 
+animals such as reindeer and mammoths. Every mammoth 
+was a source of a vast quantity of meat (which, given the 
+frosty temperatures, could even be frozen for later use), 
+tasty fat, warm fur and valuable ivory. As the ndings from 
+Sungir testify, mammoth-hunters did not just survive in the 
+frozen north - they thrived. As time passed, the bands 
+spread far and wide, pursuing mammoths, mastodons, 
+rhinoceroses and reindeer. Around 14,000 BC, the chase 
+took some of them from north-eastern Siberia to Alaska. Of 
+course, they didn't know they were discovering a new world. 
+
+For mammoth and man alike, Alaska was a mere extension 
+of Siberia. 
+
+At rst, glaciers blocked the way from Alaska to the rest of 
+America, allowing no more than perhaps a few isolated 
+pioneers to investigate the lands further south. However, 
+around 12,000 BC global warming melted the ice and 
+opened an easier passage. Making use of the new corridor, 
+people moved south en masse, spreading over the entire 
+continent. Though originally adapted to hunting large 
+
+
+
+game in the Arctic, they soon adjusted to an amazing 
+variety of climates and ecosystems. Descendants of the 
+Siberians settled the thick forests of the eastern United 
+States, the swamps of the Mississippi Delta, the deserts of 
+Mexico and steaming jungles of Central America. Some 
+made their homes in the river world of the Amazon basin, 
+others struck roots in Andean mountain valleys or the open 
+pampas of Argentina. And all this happened in a mere 
+millennium or two! By 10,000 BC, humans already inhabited 
+the most southern point in America, the island of Tierra del 
+Fuego at the continent's southern tip. The human blitzkrieg 
+across America testi es to the incomparable ingenuity and 
+the unsurpassed adaptability of Homo sapiens. No other 
+animal had ever moved into such a huge variety of radically 
+di erent habitats so quickly, everywhere using virtually the 
+same genes. 6 
+
+The settling of America was hardly bloodless. It left behind a 
+long trail of victims. American fauna 14,000 years ago was 
+far richer than it is today. When the rst Americans marched 
+south from Alaska into the plains of Canada and the western 
+United States, they encountered mammoths and mastodons, 
+rodents the size of bears, herds of horses and camels, 
+oversized lions and dozens of large species the likes of 
+which are completely unknown today, among them 
+fearsome sabre-tooth cats and giant ground sloths that 
+weighed up to eight tons and reached a height of six metres. 
+South America hosted an even more exotic menagerie of 
+large mammals, reptiles and birds. The Americas were a 
+great laboratory of evolutionary experimentation, a place 
+where animals and plants unknown in Africa and Asia had 
+evolved and thrived. 
+
+But no longer. Within 2,000 years of the Sapiens arrival, 
+most of these unique species were gone. According to 
+current estimates, within that short interval, North America 
+
+
+lost thirty-four out of its forty-seven genera of large 
+mammals. 
+
+South America lost fty out of sixty. The sabre-tooth cats, 
+after ourishing for more than 30 million years, disappeared, 
+and so did the giant ground sloths, the oversized lions, 
+native American horses, native American camels, the giant 
+rodents and the mammoths. Thousands of species of smaller 
+mammals, reptiles, birds, and even insects and parasites 
+also became extinct (when the mammoths died out, all 
+species of mammoth ticks followed them to oblivion). 
+
+For decades, palaeontologists and zooarchaeologists - 
+people who search for and study animal remains - have 
+been combing the plains and mountains of the Americas in 
+search of the fossilised bones of ancient camels and the 
+petri ed faeces of giant ground sloths. When they nd what 
+they seek, the treasures are carefully packed up and sent to 
+laboratories, where every bone and every coprolite (the 
+technical name for fossilised turds) is meticulously studied 
+and dated. Time and again, these analyses yield the same 
+results: the freshest dung balls and the most recent camel 
+bones date to the period when humans ooded 
+
+America, that is, between approximately 12,000 and 9000 
+BC. Only in one area have scientists discovered younger 
+dung balls: on several Caribbean islands, in particular Cuba 
+and Hispaniola, they found petri ed ground-sloth scat dating 
+to about 5000 BC. This is exactly the time when the rst 
+humans managed to cross the Caribbean Sea and settle 
+these two large islands. 
+
+Again, some scholars try to exonerate Homo sapiens and 
+blame climate change (which requires them to posit that, for 
+some mysterious reason, the climate in the Caribbean 
+islands remained static for 7,000 years while the rest of the 
+
+
+
+western hemisphere warmed). But in America, the dung ball 
+cannot be dodged. We are the culprits. There is no way 
+around that truth. Even if climate change abetted us, the 
+human contribution was decisive^. 
+
+Noah's Ark 
+
+If we combine the mass extinctions in Australia and America, 
+and add the smaller-scale extinctions that took place as 
+Homo sapiens spread over Afro-Asia - such as the extinction 
+of all other human species - and the extinctions that 
+occurred when ancient foragers settled remote islands such 
+as Cuba, the inevitable conclusion is that the rst wave of 
+Sapiens colonisation was one of the biggest and swiftest 
+ecological disasters to befall the animal kingdom. Hardest 
+hit were the large furry creatures. At the time of the 
+Cognitive Revolution, the planet was home to about 200 
+genera of large terrestrial mammals weighing over fty 
+kilograms. At the time of the Agricultural Revolution, only 
+about a hundred remained. Homo sapiens drove to 
+extinction about half of the planet's big beasts long before 
+humans invented the wheel, writing, or iron tools. 
+
+This ecological tragedy was restaged in miniature countless 
+times after the Agricultural Revolution. The archaeological 
+record of island after island tells the same sad story. The 
+tragedy opens with a scene showing a rich and varied 
+population of large animals, without any trace of humans. In 
+scene two, Sapiens appear, evidenced by a human bone, a 
+spear point, or perhaps a potsherd. Scene three quickly 
+follows, in which men and women occupy centre stage and 
+most large animals, along with many smaller ones, are gone. 
+
+The large island of Madagascar, about 400 kilometres east of 
+the African mainland, o ers a famous example. Through 
+millions of years of isolation, a unique collection of animals 
+
+
+evolved there. These included the elephant bird, a ightless 
+creature three metres tall and weighing almost half a ton - 
+the largest bird in the world - and the giant lemurs, the 
+globe's largest primates. The elephant birds and the giant 
+lemurs, along with most of the other large animals of 
+
+
+
+Madagascar, suddenly vanished about 1,500 years ago - 
+precisely when the rst humans set foot on the island. 
+
+10. Reconstructions of two giant ground sloths 
+(Megatherium) and behind them two giant 
+armadillos (Glyptodon). Now extinct, giant 
+armadillos measured over three metres in length 
+and weighed up to two tons, whereas giant ground 
+sloths reached heights of up to six metres, and 
+weighed up to eight tons. 
+
+In the Paci c Ocean, the main wave of extinction began in 
+about 1500 BC, when Polynesian farmers settled the 
+Solomon Islands, Fiji and New Caledonia. They killed o , 
+
+
+
+
+directly or indirectly, hundreds of species of birds, insects, 
+snails and other local inhabitants. From there, the wave of 
+extinction moved gradually to the east, the south and the 
+north, into the heart of the Paci c Ocean, obliterating on its 
+way the unique fauna of Samoa and Tonga (1200 BC); the 
+Marquis Islands (AD 1); Easter Island, the Cook Islands and 
+Hawaii (AD 500); and nally New Zealand (AD 
+
+1200 ). 
+
+Similar ecological disasters occurred on almost every one of 
+the thousands of islands that pepper the Atlantic Ocean, 
+Indian Ocean, Arctic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. 
+Archaeologists have discovered on even the tiniest islands 
+evidence of the existence of birds, insects and snails that 
+lived there for countless generations, only to vanish when 
+the rst human farmers arrived. None but a few extremely 
+remote islands escaped man's notice until the modern age, 
+and these islands kept their fauna intact. The Galapagos 
+Islands, to give one famous example, remained uninhabited 
+by humans until the nineteenth century, thus preserving 
+their unique menagerie, including their giant tortoises, 
+which, like the 
+
+ancient diprotodons, show no fear of humans. 
+
+The First Wave Extinction, which accompanied the spread of 
+the foragers, was followed by the Second Wave Extinction, 
+which accompanied the spread of the farmers, and gives us 
+an important perspective on the Third Wave Extinction, 
+which industrial activity is causing today. Don't believe tree- 
+huggers who claim that our ancestors lived in harmony with 
+nature. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens 
+held the record among all organisms for driving the most 
+plant and animal species to their extinctions. We have the 
+
+
+
+dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the 
+annals of biology. 
+
+Perhaps if more people were aware of the First Wave and 
+Second Wave extinctions, they'd be less nonchalant about 
+the Third Wave they are part of. If we knew how many 
+species we've already eradicated, we might be more 
+motivated to protect those that still survive. This is 
+especially relevant to the large animals of the oceans. Unlike 
+their terrestrial counterparts, the large sea animals su ered 
+relatively little from the Cognitive and Agricultural 
+Revolutions. But many of them are on the brink of extinction 
+now as a result of industrial pollution and human overuse of 
+oceanic resources. If things continue at the present pace, it 
+is likely that whales, sharks, tuna and dolphins will follow 
+the diprotodons, ground sloths and mammoths to oblivion. 
+Among all the world's large creatures, the only survivors of 
+the human ood will be humans themselves, and the 
+farmyard animals that serve as galley slaves in Noah's Ark. 
+
+
+
+Part Two 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Agricultural Revolution 
+
+
+11. A wall painting from an Egyptian grave, dated to 
+about 3,500 years ago, depicting typical agricultural 
+scenes. 
+
+5 
+
+History's Biggest Fraud 
+
+FOR 2.5 MILLION YEARS HUMANS FED themselves by 
+gathering plants and hunting animals that lived and bred 
+without their intervention. Homo erectus, Homo ergaster 
+and the Neanderthals plucked wild gs and hunted wild 
+sheep without deciding where g trees would take root, in 
+which meadow a herd of sheep should graze, or which billy 
+goat would inseminate which nanny goat. 
+
+Homo sapiens spread from East Africa to the Middle East, to 
+Europe and Asia, and nally to Australia and America - but 
+everywhere they went, Sapiens too continued to live by 
+gathering wild plants and hunting wild animals. Why do 
+anything else when your lifestyle feeds you amply and 
+supports a rich world of social structures, religious beliefs 
+and political dynamics? 
+
+All this changed about 10,000 years ago, when Sapiens 
+began to devote almost all their time and e ort to 
+manipulating the lives of a few animal and plant species. 
+From sunrise to sunset humans sowed seeds, watered plants, 
+plucked weeds from the ground and led sheep to prime 
+pastures. This work, they thought, would provide them with 
+more fruit, grain and meat. It was a revolution in the way 
+humans lived - the Agricultural Revolution. 
+
+The transition to agriculture began around 9500-8500 BC in 
+the hill country of south-eastern Turkey, western Iran, and 
+
+
+
+the Levant. It began slowly and in a restricted geographical 
+area. Wheat and goats were domesticated by 
+
+
+approximately 9000 BC; peas and lentils around 8000 BC; 
+olive trees by 5000 BC; horses by 4000 BC; and grapevines 
+in 3500 BC. Some animals and plants, such as camels and 
+cashew nuts, were domesticated even later, but by 3500 BC 
+the main wave of domestication was over. Even today, with 
+all our advanced technologies, more than 90 per cent of the 
+calories that feed humanity come from the handful of plants 
+that our ancestors domesticated between 9500 and 3500 BC 
+- wheat, rice, maize (called 'corn' in the US), potatoes, millet 
+and barley. No noteworthy plant or animal has been 
+domesticated in the last 2,000 years. If our minds are those 
+of hunter-gatherers, our cuisine is that of ancient farmers. 
+
+Scholars once believed that agriculture spread from a single 
+Middle Eastern point of origin to the four corners of the 
+world. Today, scholars agree that 
+
+agriculture sprang up in other parts of the world not by the 
+action of Middle Eastern farmers exporting their revolution 
+but entirely independently. People in Central America 
+domesticated maize and beans without knowing anything 
+about wheat and pea cultivation in the Middle East. South 
+Americans learned how to raise potatoes and llamas, 
+unaware of what was going on in either Mexico or the 
+Levant. Chinas rst revolutionaries domesticated rice, millet 
+and pigs. North America's first gardeners were those who got 
+tired of combing the undergrowth for edible gourds and 
+decided to cultivate pumpkins. New Guineans tamed sugar 
+cane and bananas, while the rst West African farmers made 
+African millet, African rice, sorghum and wheat conform to 
+their needs. From these initial focal points, agriculture 
+spread far and wide. By the rst century AD the vast majority 
+of people throughout most of the world were agriculturists. 
+
+
+
+Why did agricultural revolutions erupt in the Middle East, 
+China and Central America but not in Australia, Alaska or 
+South Africa? The reason is simple: most species of plants 
+and animals can't be domesticated. Sapiens could dig up 
+delicious tru es and hunt down woolly mammoths, but 
+domesticating either species was out of the question. The 
+fungi were far too elusive, the giant beasts too ferocious. 
+
+Of the thousands of species that our ancestors hunted and 
+gathered, only a few were suitable candidates for farming 
+and herding. Those few species lived in particular places, 
+and those are the places where agricultural revolutions 
+occurred. 
+
+Scholars once proclaimed that the agricultural revolution 
+was a great leap forward for humanity. They told a tale of 
+progress fuelled by human brain power. 
+
+Evolution gradually produced ever more intelligent people. 
+Eventually, people were so smart that they were able to 
+decipher nature's secrets, enabling them to tame sheep and 
+cultivate wheat. As soon as this happened, they cheerfully 
+abandoned the gruelling, dangerous, and often spartan life 
+of hunter-gatherers, settling down to enjoy the pleasant, 
+satiated life of farmers. 
+
+
+
+2000 BC 
+
+
+4500BC 
+
+3500BC 
+
+
+
+3000 BC 
+
+
+
+90003C 
+
+A 
+
+» ▼ 
+
+
+7000 BC 
+
+
+
+6000BC 
+
+
+Areas in which independent agricultural revolutions happened 
+
+Areas in which independent agricultural revolutions might haw happened 
+
+Map 2. Locations and dates of agricultural 
+revolutions. The data is contentious, and the map is 
+constantly being redrawn to incorporate the latest 
+archaeological discoveries.! 
+
+That tale is a fantasy. There is no evidence that people 
+became more intelligent with time. Foragers knew the 
+secrets of nature long before the Agricultural Revolution, 
+since their survival depended on an intimate knowledge of 
+the animals they hunted and the plants they gathered. 
+Rather than heralding a new era of easy living, the 
+Agricultural Revolution left farmers with lives generally more 
+di cult and less satisfying than those of foragers. Hunter- 
+gatherers spent their time in more stimulating and varied 
+ways, and were less in danger of starvation and disease. The 
+Agricultural Revolution certainly enlarged the sum total of 
+food at the disposal of humankind, but the extra food did 
+not translate into a better diet or more leisure. Rather, it 
+translated into population explosions and pampered elites. 
+The average farmer worked harder than the average forager, 
+
+
+and got a worse diet in return. The Agricultural Revolution 
+was history's biggest fraud. 2 
+
+Who was responsible? Neither kings, nor priests, nor 
+merchants. The culprits were a handful of plant species, 
+including wheat, rice and potatoes. These plants 
+domesticated Homo sapiens , rather than vice versa. 
+
+Think for a moment about the Agricultural Revolution from 
+the viewpoint of wheat. Ten thousand years ago wheat was 
+just a wild grass, one of many, con ned to a small range in 
+the Middle East. Suddenly, within just a few short millennia, 
+it was growing all over the world. According to the basic 
+evolutionary criteria of survival and reproduction, wheat has 
+become one of the most successful plants in the history of 
+the earth. In areas such as the Great Plains of North 
+
+America, where not a single wheat stalk grew 10,000 years 
+ago, you can today walk for hundreds upon hundreds of 
+kilometres without encountering any other plant. Worldwide, 
+wheat covers about 2.25 million square kilometres of the 
+globes surface, almost ten times the size of Britain. How did 
+this grass turn from insignificant to ubiquitous? 
+
+Wheat did it by manipulating Homo sapiens to its 
+advantage. This ape had been living a fairly comfortable life 
+hunting and gathering until about 10,000 years ago, but 
+then began to invest more and more e ort in cultivating 
+wheat. Within a couple of millennia, humans in many parts 
+of the world were doing little from dawn to dusk other than 
+taking care of wheat plants. It wasn't easy. Wheat demanded 
+a lot of them. Wheat didn't like rocks and pebbles, so 
+Sapiens broke their backs clearing elds. Wheat didn't like 
+sharing its space, water and nutrients with other plants, so 
+men and women laboured long days weeding under the 
+scorching sun. Wheat got sick, so Sapiens had to keep a 
+
+
+watch out for worms and blight. Wheat was defenceless 
+against other organisms that liked to eat it, from rabbits to 
+locust swarms, so the farmers had to guard and protect it. 
+Wheat was thirsty, so humans lugged water from springs 
+and streams to water it. Its hunger even impelled Sapiens to 
+collect animal faeces to nourish the ground in which wheat 
+grew. 
+
+The body of Homo sapiens had not evolved for such tasks. It 
+was adapted to climbing apple trees and running after 
+gazelles, not to clearing rocks and carrying water buckets. 
+Human spines, knees, necks and arches paid the price. 
+Studies of ancient skeletons indicate that the transition to 
+agriculture brought about a plethora of ailments, such as 
+slipped discs, arthritis and hernias. Moreover, the new 
+agricultural tasks demanded so much time that people were 
+forced to settle permanently next to their wheat elds. This 
+completely changed their way of life. 
+
+We did not domesticate wheat. It domesticated us. The word 
+'domesticate' comes from the Latin domus, which means 
+'house'. Who's the one living in a house? Not the wheat. It's 
+the Sapiens. 
+
+How did wheat convince Homo sapiens to exchange a rather 
+good life for a more miserable existence? What did it o er in 
+return? It did not o er a better diet. 
+
+Remember, humans are omnivorous apes who thrive on a 
+wide variety of foods. 
+
+Grains made up only a small fraction of the human diet 
+before the Agricultural Revolution. A diet based on cereals is 
+poor in minerals and vitamins, hard to digest, and really bad 
+for your teeth and gums. 
+
+
+
+Wheat did not give people economic security. The life of a 
+peasant is less secure than that of a hunter-gatherer. 
+Foragers relied on dozens of species to survive, and could 
+therefore weather di cult years even without stocks of 
+preserved food. If the availability of one species was 
+reduced, they could gather and hunt more of other species. 
+Farming societies have, until very recently, relied for the 
+great bulk 
+
+
+
+of their calorie intake on a small variety of domesticated 
+plants. In many areas, they relied on just a single staple, 
+such as wheat, potatoes or rice. If the rains failed or clouds 
+of locusts arrived or if a fungus learned how to infect that 
+staple species, peasants died by the thousands and millions. 
+
+
+Nor could wheat o er security against human violence. The 
+early farmers were at least as violent as their forager 
+ancestors, if not more so. Farmers had more possessions and 
+needed land for planting. The loss of pasture land to raiding 
+neighbours could mean the di erence between subsistence 
+
+
+and starvation, so there was much less room for compromise. 
+When a foraging band was hard-pressed by a stronger rival, 
+it could usually move on. It was di cult and dangerous, but it 
+was feasible. When a strong enemy threatened an 
+agricultural village, retreat meant giving up elds, houses 
+and granaries. In many cases, this doomed the refugees to 
+starvation. Farmers, therefore, tended to stay put and fight 
+to the bitter end. 
+
+12. Tribal warfare in New Guinea between two 
+farming communities (1960). Such scenes were 
+probably widespread in the thousands of years 
+following the Agricultural Revolution. 
+
+Many anthropological and archaeological studies indicate 
+that in simple agricultural societies with no political 
+frameworks beyond village and tribe, human violence was 
+responsible for about 15 per cent of deaths, including 25 per 
+cent of male deaths. In contemporary New Guinea, violence 
+accounts for 30 per cent of male deaths in one agricultural 
+tribal society, the Dani, and 35 per cent in another, the 
+Enga. In Ecuador, perhaps 50 per cent of adult Waoranis 
+meet a violent death at the hands of another human!3 In 
+time, human violence was 
+
+brought under control through the development of larger 
+social frameworks - 
+
+cities, kingdoms and states. But it took thousands of years 
+to build such huge and effective political structures. 
+
+Village life certainly brought the rst farmers some immediate 
+bene ts, such as better protection against wild animals, rain 
+and cold. Yet for the average person, the disadvantages 
+probably outweighed the advantages. This is hard for people 
+in today's prosperous societies to appreciate. Since we enjoy 
+
+
+
+a uence and security, and since our a uence and security are 
+built on foundations laid by the Agricultural Revolution, we 
+assume that the Agricultural Revolution was a wonderful 
+improvement. Yet it is wrong to judge thousands of years of 
+history from the perspective of today. A much more 
+representative viewpoint is that of a three-year-old girl dying 
+from malnutrition in rst-century China because her father's 
+crops have failed. Would she say 'I am dying from 
+malnutrition, but in 2,000 years, people will have plenty to 
+eat and live in big air-conditioned houses, so my suffering is 
+a worthwhile sacrifice'? 
+
+What then did wheat o er agriculturists, including that 
+malnourished Chinese girl? It o ered nothing for people as 
+individuals. Yet it did bestow something on Homo sapiens as 
+a species. Cultivating wheat provided much more food per 
+unit of territory, and thereby enabled Homo sapiens to 
+multiply exponentially. Around 13,000 BC, when people fed 
+themselves by gathering wild plants and hunting wild 
+animals, the area around the oasis of Jericho, in Palestine, 
+could support at most one roaming band of about a hundred 
+relatively healthy and well-nourished people. Around 8500 
+BC, when wild plants gave way to wheat elds, the oasis 
+supported a large but cramped village of 1,000 people, who 
+su ered far more from disease and malnourishment. 
+
+The currency of evolution is neither hunger nor pain, but 
+rather copies of DNA helixes. Just as the economic success of 
+a company is measured only by the number of dollars in its 
+bank account, not by the happiness of its employees, so the 
+evolutionary success of a species is measured by the 
+number of copies of its DNA. If no more DNA copies remain, 
+the species is extinct, just as a company without money is 
+bankrupt. If a species boasts many DNA copies, it is a 
+success, and the species ourishes. From such a perspective, 
+1,000 copies are always better than a hundred copies. This 
+
+
+
+is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to 
+keep more people alive under worse conditions. 
+
+Yet why should individuals care about this evolutionary 
+calculus? Why would any sane person lower his or her 
+standard of living just to multiply the number of copies of 
+the Homo sapiens genome? Nobody agreed to this deal: the 
+Agricultural Revolution was a trap. 
+
+The Luxury Trap 
+
+The rise of farming was a very gradual a air spread over 
+centuries and millennia. 
+
+A band of Homo sapiens gathering mushrooms and nuts and 
+hunting deer and rabbit did not all of a sudden settle in a 
+permanent village, ploughing elds, sowing wheat and 
+carrying water from the river. The change proceeded by 
+stages, each of which involved just a small alteration in daily 
+life. 
+
+Homo sapiens reached the Middle East around 70,000 years 
+ago. For the next 50,000 years our ancestors ourished there 
+without agriculture. The natural resources of the area were 
+enough to support its human population. In times of plenty 
+people had a few more children, and in times of need a few 
+less. Humans, like many mammals, have hormonal and 
+genetic mechanisms that help control procreation. In good 
+times females reach puberty earlier, and their chances of 
+getting pregnant are a bit higher. In bad times puberty is 
+late and fertility decreases. 
+
+To these natural population controls were added cultural 
+mechanisms. Babies and small children, who move slowly 
+and demand much attention, were a burden on nomadic 
+foragers. People tried to space their children three to four 
+years apart. 
+
+
+
+Women did so by nursing their children around the clock 
+and until a late age (around-the-clock suckling signi cantly 
+decreases the chances of getting pregnant). Other methods 
+included full or partial sexual abstinence (backed perhaps 
+by cultural taboos), abortions and occasionally infanticide. 4 
+
+During these long millennia people occasionally ate wheat 
+grain, but this was a marginal part of their diet. About 
+18,000 years ago, the last ice age gave way to a period of 
+global warming. As temperatures rose, so did rainfall. The 
+new climate was ideal for Middle Eastern wheat and other 
+cereals, which multiplied and spread. People began eating 
+more wheat, and in exchange they inadvertently spread its 
+growth. Since it was impossible to eat wild grains without rst 
+winnowing, grinding and cooking them, people who 
+gathered these grains carried them back to their temporary 
+campsites for processing. Wheat grains are small and 
+numerous, so some of them inevitably fell on the way to the 
+campsite and were lost. Over time, more and more wheat 
+grew along favourite human trails and near campsites. 
+
+When humans burned down forests and thickets, this also 
+helped wheat. Fire cleared away trees and shrubs, allowing 
+wheat and other grasses to monopolise the sunlight, water 
+and nutrients. Where wheat became particularly abundant, 
+and game and other food sources were also plentiful, human 
+bands could gradually give up their nomadic lifestyle and 
+settle down in seasonal and even permanent camps. 
+
+At rst they might have camped for four weeks during the 
+harvest. A generation 
+
+later, as wheat plants multiplied and spread, the harvest 
+camp might have lasted for ve weeks, then six, and nally it 
+became a permanent village. Evidence of such settlements 
+has been discovered throughout the Middle East, 
+
+
+particularly in the Levant, where the Natu an culture 
+ourished from 12,500 BC to 9500 BC. The Natu ans were 
+hunter-gatherers who subsisted on dozens of wild species, 
+but they lived in permanent villages and devoted much of 
+their time to the intensive gathering and processing of wild 
+cereals. They built stone houses and granaries. 
+
+They stored grain for times of need. They invented new tools 
+such as stone scythes for harvesting wild wheat, and stone 
+pestles and mortars to grind it. 
+
+In the years following 9500 BC, the descendants of the Natu 
+ans continued to gather and process cereals, but they also 
+began to cultivate them in more and more elaborate ways. 
+When gathering wild grains, they took care to lay aside part 
+of the harvest to sow the elds next season. They discovered 
+that they could achieve much better results by sowing the 
+grains deep in the ground rather than haphazardly 
+scattering them on the surface. So they began to hoe and 
+plough. 
+
+Gradually they also started to weed the elds, to guard them 
+against parasites, and to water and fertilise them. As more e 
+ort was directed towards cereal cultivation, there was less 
+time to gather and hunt wild species. The foragers became 
+farmers. 
+
+No single step separated the woman gathering wild wheat 
+from the woman farming domesticated wheat, so it's hard to 
+say exactly when the decisive transition to agriculture took 
+place. But, by 8500 BC, the Middle East was peppered with 
+permanent villages such as Jericho, whose inhabitants spent 
+most of their time cultivating a few domesticated species. 
+
+With the move to permanent villages and the increase in 
+food supply, the population began to grow. Giving up the 
+
+
+
+nomadic lifestyle enabled women to have a child every year. 
+Babies were weaned at an earlier age - they could be fed on 
+porridge and gruel. The extra hands were sorely needed in 
+the elds. But the extra mouths quickly wiped out the food 
+surpluses, so even more elds had to be planted. As people 
+began living in disease-ridden settlements, as children fed 
+more on cereals and less on mother's milk, and as each child 
+competed for his or her porridge with more and more 
+siblings, child mortality soared. In most agricultural societies 
+at least one out of every three children died before reaching 
+twenty. 5_Yet the increase in births still outpaced the 
+increase in deaths; humans kept having larger numbers of 
+children. 
+
+With time, the 'wheat bargain' became more and more 
+burdensome. Children died in droves, and adults ate bread 
+by the sweat of their brows. The average person in Jericho of 
+8500 BC lived a harder life than the average person in 
+Jericho of 9500 BC or 13,000 BC. But nobody realised what 
+was happening. Every 
+
+generation continued to live like the previous generation, 
+making only small improvements here and there in the way 
+things were done. Paradoxically, a series of 'improvements', 
+each of which was meant to make life easier, added up to a 
+millstone around the necks of these farmers. 
+
+Why did people make such a fateful miscalculation? For the 
+same reason that people throughout history have 
+miscalculated. People were unable to fathom the full 
+consequences of their decisions. Whenever they decided to 
+do a bit of extra work - say, to hoe the elds instead of 
+scattering seeds on the surface - people thought, 'Yes, we 
+will have to work harder. But the harvest will be so bountiful! 
+
+
+We won't have to worry any more about lean years. Our 
+children will never go to sleep hungry.' It made sense. If you 
+worked harder, you would have a better life. 
+
+That was the plan. 
+
+The rst part of the plan went smoothly. People indeed 
+worked harder. But people did not foresee that the number 
+of children would increase, meaning that the extra wheat 
+would have to be shared between more children. Neither did 
+the early farmers understand that feeding children with 
+more porridge and less breast milk would weaken their 
+immune system, and that permanent settlements would be 
+hotbeds for infectious diseases. They did not foresee that by 
+increasing their dependence on a single source of food, they 
+were actually exposing themselves even more to the 
+depredations of drought. Nor did the farmers foresee that in 
+good years their bulging granaries would tempt thieves and 
+enemies, compelling them to start building walls and doing 
+guard duty. 
+
+Then why didn't humans abandon farming when the plan 
+back red? Partly because it took generations for the small 
+changes to accumulate and transform society and, by then, 
+nobody remembered that they had ever lived differently. 
+
+And partly because population growth burned humanity's 
+boats. If the adoption of ploughing increased a village's 
+population from a hundred to no, which ten people would 
+have volunteered to starve so that the others could go back 
+to the good old times? There was no going back. The trap 
+snapped shut. 
+
+The pursuit of an easier life resulted in much hardship, and 
+not for the last time. 
+
+
+
+It happens to us today. How many young college graduates 
+have taken demanding jobs in high-powered rms, vowing 
+that they will work hard to earn money that will enable them 
+to retire and pursue their real interests when they are thirty- 
+ve? But by the time they reach that age, they have large 
+mortgages, children to school, houses in the suburbs that 
+necessitate at least two cars per family, and a sense that life 
+is not worth living without really good wine and expensive 
+holidays abroad. What are they supposed to do, go back to 
+digging up roots? No, they double their efforts and keep 
+slaving away. 
+
+One of history's few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become 
+necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people get 
+used to a certain luxury, they take it for 
+
+granted. Then they begin to count on it. Finally they reach a 
+point where they can't live without it. Let's take another 
+familiar example from our own time. Over the last few 
+decades, we have invented countless time-saving devices 
+that are supposed to make life more relaxed - washing 
+machines, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, telephones, 
+mobile phones, computers, email. Previously it took a lot of 
+work to write a letter, address and stamp an envelope, and 
+take it to the mailbox. It took days or weeks, maybe even 
+months, to get a reply. Nowadays I can dash o an email, send 
+it halfway around the globe, and (if my addressee is online) 
+receive a reply a minute later. I've saved all that trouble and 
+time, but do I live a more relaxed life? 
+
+Sadly not. Back in the snail-mail era, people usually only 
+wrote letters when they had something important to relate. 
+Rather than writing the rst thing that came into their heads, 
+they considered carefully what they wanted to say and how 
+to phrase it. They expected to receive a similarly considered 
+answer. Most people wrote and received no more than a 
+
+
+
+handful of letters a month and seldom felt compelled to 
+reply immediately. Today I receive dozens of emails each 
+day, all from people who expect a prompt reply. We thought 
+we were saving time; instead we revved up the treadmill of 
+life to ten times its former speed and made our days more 
+anxious and agitated. 
+
+Here and there a Luddite holdout refuses to open an email 
+account, just as thousands of years ago some human bands 
+refused to take up farming and so escaped the luxury trap. 
+But the Agricultural Revolution didn't need every band in a 
+given region to join up. It only took one. Once one band 
+settled down and started tilling, whether in the Middle East 
+or Central America, agriculture was irresistible. Since 
+farming created the conditions for swift demographic 
+growth, farmers could usually overcome foragers by sheer 
+weight of numbers. The foragers could either run away, 
+abandoning their hunting grounds to eld and pasture, or 
+take up the ploughshare themselves. Either way, the old life 
+was doomed. 
+
+The story of the luxury trap carries with it an important 
+lesson. Humanity's search for an easier life released 
+immense forces of change that transformed the world in 
+ways nobody envisioned or wanted. Nobody plotted the 
+Agricultural Revolution or sought human dependence on 
+cereal cultivation. A series of trivial decisions aimed mostly 
+at lling a few stomachs and gaining a little security had the 
+cumulative e ect of forcing ancient foragers to spend their 
+days carrying water buckets under a scorching sun. 
+
+Divine Intervention 
+
+The above scenario explains the Agricultural Revolution as a 
+miscalculation. It's very plausible. History is full of far more 
+idiotic miscalculations. But there's another possibility. 
+
+
+
+Maybe it wasn't the search for an easier life that brought 
+about the transformation. Maybe Sapiens had other 
+aspirations, and were consciously willing to make their lives 
+harder in order to achieve them. 
+
+Scientists usually seek to attribute historical developments 
+to cold economic and demographic factors. It sits better with 
+their rational and mathematical methods. 
+
+In the case of modern history, scholars cannot avoid taking 
+into account non-material factors such as ideology and 
+culture. The written evidence forces their hand. We have 
+enough documents, letters and memoirs to prove that World 
+War Two was not caused by food shortages or demographic 
+pressures. But we have no documents from the Natu an 
+culture, so when dealing with ancient periods the materialist 
+school reigns supreme. It is di cult to prove that preliterate 
+people were motivated by faith rather than economic 
+necessity. 
+
+Yet, in some rare cases, we are lucky enough to nd telltale 
+clues. In 1995 
+
+archaeologists began to excavate a site in south-east Turkey 
+called Gobekli Tepe. 
+
+In the oldest stratum they discovered no signs of a 
+settlement, houses or daily activities. They did, however, nd 
+monumental pillared structures decorated with spectacular 
+engravings. Each stone pillar weighed up to seven tons and 
+reached a height of ve metres. In a nearby quarry they 
+found a half-chiselled pillar weighing fty tons. Altogether, 
+they uncovered more than ten monumental structures, the 
+largest of them nearly thirty metres across. 
+
+Archaeologists are familiar with such monumental structures 
+from sites around the world - the best-known example is 
+
+
+
+Stonehenge in Britain. Yet as they studied Gobekli Tepe, 
+they discovered an amazing fact. Stonehenge dates to 2500 
+BC, and was built by a developed agricultural society. The 
+structures at Gobekli Tepe are dated to about 9500 BC, and 
+all available evidence indicates that they were built by 
+hunter-gatherers. The archaeological community initially 
+found it difficult to credit these ndings, but one test after 
+another con rmed both the early date of the structures and 
+the pre-agricultural society of their builders. The capabilities 
+of ancient foragers, and the complexity of their cultures, 
+seem to be far more impressive than was previously 
+suspected. 
+
+
+
+13. Opposite: The remains of a monumental 
+structure from Gobekli Tepe. Right: One of the 
+decorated stone pillars (about five metres high). 
+
+
+
+Why would a foraging society build such structures? They 
+had no obvious utilitarian purpose. They were neither 
+mammoth slaughterhouses nor places to shelter from rain or 
+hide from lions. That leaves us with the theory that they 
+were built for some mysterious cultural purpose that 
+archaeologists have a hard time deciphering. Whatever it 
+was, the foragers thought it worth a huge amount of e ort 
+and time. The only way to build Gobekli Tepe was for 
+thousands of foragers belonging to di erent bands and tribes 
+to cooperate over an extended period of time. Only a 
+sophisticated religious or ideological system could sustain 
+such efforts. 
+
+Gobekli Tepe held another sensational secret. For many 
+years, geneticists have been tracing the origins of 
+domesticated wheat. Recent discoveries indicate that at 
+least one domesticated variant, einkorn wheat, originated in 
+the Karagadag Hills - 
+
+about thirty kilometres from Gobekli Tepe. 6 
+
+
+
+This can hardly be a coincidence. It's likely that the cultural 
+centre of Gobekli Tepe was somehow connected to the initial 
+domestication of wheat by humankind and of humankind by 
+wheat. In order to feed the people who built and used the 
+monumental structures, particularly large quantities of food 
+were required. It may well be that foragers switched from 
+gathering wild wheat to intense wheat cultivation, not to 
+increase their normal food supply, but rather to support the 
+building and running of a temple. In the conventional 
+picture, pioneers rst built a village, and when it prospered, 
+they set up a temple in the middle. But Gobekli Tepe 
+suggests that the temple may have been built rst, and that a 
+village later grew up around it. 
+
+
+Victims of the Revolution 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Faustian bargain between humans and grains was not 
+the only deal our species made. Another deal was struck 
+concerning the fate of animals such as sheep, goats, pigs 
+and chickens. Nomadic bands that stalked wild sheep 
+gradually altered the constitutions of the herds on which 
+they preyed. This process probably began with selective 
+hunting. Humans learned that it was to their advantage to 
+hunt only adult rams and old or sick sheep. They spared 
+fertile females and young 
+
+lambs in order to safeguard the long-term vitality of the 
+local herd. The second step might have been to actively 
+defend the herd against predators, driving away lions, 
+wolves and rival human bands. The band might next have 
+corralled the herd into a narrow gorge in order to better 
+control and defend it. Finally, people began to make a more 
+careful selection among the sheep in order to tailor them to 
+human needs. The most aggressive rams, those that showed 
+the greatest resistance to human control, were slaughtered 
+rst. So were the skinniest and most inquisitive females. 
+(Shepherds are not fond of sheep whose curiosity takes 
+them far from the herd.) With each passing generation, the 
+sheep became fatter, more submissive and less curious. 
+Voilal Mary had a little lamb and everywhere that Mary went 
+the lamb was sure to go. 
+
+Alternatively, hunters may have caught and adopted' a 
+lamb, fattening it during the months of plenty and 
+slaughtering it in the leaner season. At some stage they 
+began keeping a greater number of such lambs. Some of 
+these reached puberty and began to procreate. The most 
+aggressive and unruly lambs were rst to the slaughter. The 
+most submissive, most appealing lambs were allowed to live 
+longer and procreate. The result was a herd of domesticated 
+and submissive sheep. 
+
+
+
+Such domesticated animals - sheep, chickens, donkeys and 
+others - supplied food (meat, milk, eggs), raw materials 
+(skins, wool), and muscle power. 
+
+Transportation, ploughing, grinding and other tasks, hitherto 
+performed by human sinew, were increasingly carried out by 
+animals. In most farming societies people focused on plant 
+cultivation; raising animals was a secondary activity. But a 
+new kind of society also appeared in some places, based 
+primarily on the exploitation of animals: tribes of pastoralist 
+herders. 
+
+As humans spread around the world, so did their 
+domesticated animals. Ten thousand years ago, not more 
+than a few million sheep, cattle, goats, boars and chickens 
+lived in restricted Afro-Asian niches. Today the world 
+contains about a billion sheep, a billion pigs, more than a 
+billion cattle, and more than 25 billion chickens. And they 
+are all over the globe. The domesticated chicken is the most 
+widespread fowl ever. Following Homo sapiens , 
+domesticated cattle, pigs and sheep are the second, third 
+and fourth most widespread large mammals in the world. 
+From a narrow evolutionary perspective, which measures 
+success by the number of DNA copies, the Agricultural 
+Revolution was a wonderful boon for chickens, cattle, pigs 
+and sheep. 
+
+Unfortunately, the evolutionary perspective is an incomplete 
+measure of success. It judges everything by the criteria of 
+survival and reproduction, with no regard for individual su 
+ering and happiness. Domesticated chickens and cattle may 
+well be an evolutionary success story, but they are also 
+among the most miserable creatures that ever lived. The 
+domestication of animals was founded on a series of brutal 
+practices that only became crueller with the passing of the 
+
+
+
+
+centuries. 
+
+The natural lifespan of wild chickens is about seven to 
+twelve years, and of cattle about twenty to twenty- ve years. 
+In the wild, most chickens and cattle died long before that, 
+but they still had a fair chance of living for a respectable 
+number of years. In contrast, the vast majority of 
+domesticated chickens and cattle are slaughtered at the age 
+of between a few weeks and a few months, because this has 
+always been the optimal slaughtering age from an economic 
+perspective. 
+
+(Why keep feeding a cock for three years if it has already 
+reached its maximum weight after three months?) 
+
+Egg-laying hens, dairy cows and draught animals are 
+sometimes allowed to live for many years. But the price is 
+subjugation to a way of life completely alien to their urges 
+and desires. It's reasonable to assume, for example, that 
+bulls prefer to spend their days wandering over open 
+prairies in the company of other bulls and cows rather than 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+pulling carts and ploughshares under the yoke of a whip- 
+wielding ape. 
+
+In order to turn bulls, horses, donkeys and camels into 
+obedient draught animals, their natural instincts and social 
+ties had to be broken, their aggression and sexuality 
+contained, and their freedom of movement curtailed. 
+
+Farmers developed techniques such as locking animals 
+inside pens and cages, bridling them in harnesses and 
+leashes, training them with whips and cattle prods, and 
+mutilating them. The process of taming almost always 
+involves the castration of males. This restrains male 
+aggression and enables humans selectively to control the 
+herd's procreation. 
+
+14. A painting from an Egyptian grave, c.1200 BC: A 
+pair of oxen ploughing a field. In the wild, cattle 
+
+roamed as they pleased in herds with a complex 
+social structure. The castrated and domesticated ox 
+wasted away his life under the lash and in a narrow 
+pen, labouring alone or in pairs in a way that suited 
+neither its body nor its social and emotional needs. 
+When an ox could no longer pull the plough, it was 
+slaughtered. (Note the hunched position of the 
+Egyptian farmer who, much like the ox, spent his life 
+in hard labour oppressive to his body, his mind and 
+his social relationships.) In many New Guinean societies, 
+the wealth of a person has traditionally been determined by 
+the number of pigs he or she owns. To ensure that the pigs 
+can't run away, farmers in northern New Guinea slice o a 
+chunk of each pig's nose. 
+
+This causes severe pain whenever the pig tries to sni . Since 
+the pigs cannot nd food or even nd their way around without 
+sni ng, this mutilation makes them completely dependent on 
+
+
+
+their human owners. In another area of New Guinea, it has 
+been customary to gouge out pigs' eyes, so that they cannot 
+even see where they're going. 7 
+
+The dairy industry has its own ways of forcing animals to do 
+its will. Cows, goats and sheep produce milk only after 
+giving birth to calves, kids and lambs, and only as long as 
+the youngsters are suckling. To continue a supply of animal 
+milk, a farmer needs to have calves, kids or lambs for 
+suckling, but must prevent them from monopolising the 
+milk. One common method throughout history was to simply 
+slaughter the calves and kids shortly after birth, milk the 
+mother for all she was worth, and then get her pregnant 
+again. This is still a very widespread technique. In many 
+modern dairy farms a milk cow usually lives for about ve 
+years before being slaughtered. During these ve years she is 
+almost constantly pregnant, and is fertilised within 60 to 
+120 days after giving birth in order to preserve maximum 
+milk production. Her calves are separated from her shortly 
+after birth. The females are reared to become the next 
+generation of dairy cows, whereas the males are handed 
+over to the care of the meat industry. 8 
+
+Another method is to keep the calves and kids near their 
+mothers, but prevent them by various stratagems from 
+suckling too much milk. The simplest way to do that is to 
+allow the kid or calf to start suckling, but drive it away once 
+the milk starts owing. This method usually encounters 
+resistance from both kid and mother. Some shepherd tribes 
+used to kill the o spring, eat its esh, and then stu the skin. 
+The stu ed o spring was then presented to the mother so 
+that its presence would encourage her milk production. The 
+Nuer tribe in the Sudan went so far as to smear stu ed 
+animals with their mother's urine, to give the counterfeit 
+calves a familiar, live scent. Another Nuer technique was to 
+tie a ring of thorns around a calf's mouth, so that it pricks 
+
+
+the mother and causes her to resist suckling. 9_Tuareg camel 
+breeders in the Sahara used to puncture or cut o parts of the 
+nose and upper lip of young camels in order to make 
+suckling painful, thereby discouraging them from 
+consuming too much milk. 10 
+
+
+
+Not all agricultural societies were this cruel to their farm 
+animals. The lives of some domesticated animals could be 
+quite good. Sheep raised for wool, pet dogs and cats, war 
+horses and race horses often enjoyed comfortable 
+conditions. The Roman emperor Caligula allegedly planned 
+to appoint his favourite horse, Incitatus, to the consulship. 
+Shepherds and farmers throughout history showed a ection 
+for their animals and have taken great care of them, just as 
+many slaveholders felt a ection and concern for their slaves. 
+It was no accident that kings and prophets styled 
+themselves as shepherds and likened the way they and the 
+gods cared for their people to a shepherd's care for his flock 
+
+
+15. A modern calf in an industrial meat farm. 
+Immediately after birth the calf is separated from its 
+mother and locked inside a tiny cage not much 
+bigger than the calf's own body. There the calf 
+spends its entire life - about four months on 
+average. It never leaves its cage, nor is it allowed to 
+play with other calves or even walk - all so that its 
+muscles will not grow strong. Soft muscles mean a 
+soft and juicy steak. The first time the calf has a 
+chance to walk, stretch its muscles and touch other 
+calves is on its way to the slaughterhouse. In 
+evolutionary terms, cattle represent one of the most 
+successful animal species ever to exist. At the same 
+time, they are some of the most miserable animals 
+on the planet. 
+
+Yet from the viewpoint of the herd, rather than that of the 
+shepherd, it's hard to avoid the impression that for the vast 
+majority of domesticated animals, the Agricultural 
+Revolution was a terrible catastrophe. Their evolutionary 
+'success' is meaningless. A rare wild rhinoceros on the brink 
+of extinction is probably more satis ed than a calf who 
+spends its short life inside a tiny box, fattened to produce 
+
+juicy steaks. The contented rhinoceros is no less content for 
+being among the last of its kind. The numerical success of 
+the calf's species is little consolation for the suffering the 
+individual endures. 
+
+This discrepancy between evolutionary success and 
+individual su ering is perhaps the most important lesson we 
+can draw from the Agricultural Revolution. 
+
+When we study the narrative of plants such as wheat and 
+maize, maybe the purely evolutionary perspective makes 
+sense. Yet in the case of animals such as cattle, sheep and 
+
+
+
+Sapiens, each with a complex world of sensations and 
+emotions, we have to consider how evolutionary success 
+translates into individual experience. In the following 
+chapters we will see time and again how a dramatic increase 
+in the collective power and ostensible success of our species 
+went hand in hand with much individual suffering. 
+
+6 
+
+Building Pyramids 
+
+THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION IS ONE of the most 
+controversial events in history. Some partisans proclaim that 
+it set humankind on the road to prosperity and progress. 
+Others insist that it led to perdition. This was the turning 
+point, they say, where Sapiens cast o its intimate symbiosis 
+with nature and sprinted towards greed and alienation. 
+Whichever direction the road led, there was no going back. 
+Farming enabled populations to increase so radically and 
+rapidly that no complex agricultural society could ever again 
+sustain itself if it returned to hunting and gathering. Around 
+10,000 BC, before the transition to agriculture, earth was 
+home to about 5-8 million nomadic foragers. By the rst 
+century AD, only 1-2 million foragers remained (mainly in 
+Australia, America and Africa), but their numbers were 
+dwarfed by the world's 250 million farmers. 1 
+
+The vast majority of farmers lived in permanent settlements; 
+only a few were nomadic shepherds. Settling down caused 
+most peoples turf to shrink dramatically. Ancient hunter- 
+gatherers usually lived in territories covering many dozens 
+and even hundreds of square kilometres. 'Home' was the 
+entire territory, with its hills, streams, woods and open sky. 
+Peasants, on the other hand, spent most of their days 
+working a small eld or orchard, and their domestic lives 
+centred on a cramped structure of wood, stone or mud, 
+
+
+measuring no more than a few dozen metres - the house. 
+
+The typical peasant developed a very strong attachment to 
+this structure. This was a far-reaching revolution, whose 
+impact was psychological as much as architectural. 
+Henceforth, attachment to 'my house' and separation from 
+the neighbours became the psychological hallmark of a 
+much more self-centred creature. 
+
+The new agricultural territories were not only far smaller 
+than those of ancient foragers, but also far more arti cial. 
+Aside from the use of re, hunter-gatherers made few 
+deliberate changes to the lands in which they roamed. 
+Farmers, on the other hand, lived in artificial human islands 
+that they laboriously carved out of the surrounding wilds. 
+They cut down forests, dug canals, cleared elds, built 
+houses, ploughed furrows, and planted fruit trees in tidy 
+rows. The resulting arti cial habitat was meant only for 
+humans and 'their' plants and animals, and was often fenced 
+o by walls and hedges. Farmer families did all they could to 
+keep out 
+
+wayward weeds and wild animals. If such interlopers made 
+their way in, they were driven out. If they persisted, their 
+human antagonists sought ways to exterminate them. 
+Particularly strong defences were erected around the home. 
+
+From the dawn of agriculture until this very day, billions of 
+humans armed with branches, swatters, shoes and poison 
+sprays have waged relentless war against the diligent ants, 
+furtive roaches, adventurous spiders and misguided beetles 
+that constantly infiltrate the human domicile. 
+
+For most of history these man-made enclaves remained very 
+small, surrounded by expanses of untamed nature. The 
+earth's surface measures about 510 million square 
+kilometres, of which 155 million is land. As late as AD 1400, 
+
+
+
+the vast majority of farmers, along with their plants and 
+animals, clustered together in an area of just 11 million 
+square kilometres - 2 per cent of the planet's surface. 2 
+
+Everywhere else was too cold, too hot, too dry, too wet, or 
+otherwise unsuited for cultivation. This minuscule 2 per cent 
+of the earth's surface constituted the stage on which history 
+unfolded. 
+
+People found it di cult to leave their arti cial islands. They 
+could not abandon their houses, elds and granaries without 
+grave risk of loss. Furthermore, as time went on they 
+accumulated more and more things - objects, not easily 
+transportable, that tied them down. Ancient farmers might 
+seem to us dirt poor, but a typical family possessed more 
+artefacts than an entire forager tribe. 
+
+The Coming of the Future 
+
+While agricultural space shrank, agricultural time expanded. 
+Foragers usually didn't waste much time thinking about 
+next week or next month. Farmers sailed in their imagination 
+years and decades into the future. 
+
+Foragers discounted the future because they lived from 
+hand to mouth and could only preserve food or accumulate 
+possessions with di culty. Of course, they clearly engaged in 
+some advanced planning. The creators of the cave paintings 
+of Chauvet, Lascaux and Altamira almost certainly intended 
+them to last for generations. Social alliances and political 
+rivalries were long-term a airs. It often took years to repay a 
+favour or to avenge a wrong. Nevertheless, in the 
+subsistence economy of hunting and gathering, there was 
+an obvious limit to such long-term planning. Paradoxically, it 
+saved foragers a lot of anxieties. There was no sense in 
+worrying about things that they could not influence. 
+
+
+The Agricultural Revolution made the future far more 
+important than it had ever been before. Farmers must 
+always keep the future in mind and must work in its service. 
+The agricultural economy was based on a seasonal cycle of 
+production, 
+
+comprising long months of cultivation followed by short 
+peak periods of harvest. 
+
+On the night following the end of a plentiful harvest the 
+peasants might celebrate for all they were worth, but within 
+a week or so they were again up at dawn for a long day in 
+the eld. Although there was enough food for today, next 
+week, and even next month, they had to worry about next 
+year and the year after that. 
+
+Concern about the future was rooted not only in seasonal 
+cycles of production, but also in the fundamental 
+uncertainty of agriculture. Since most villages lived by 
+cultivating a very limited variety of domesticated plants and 
+animals, they were at the mercy of droughts, oods and 
+pestilence. Peasants were obliged to produce more than 
+they consumed so that they could build up reserves. 
+
+Without grain in the silo, jars of olive oil in the cellar, cheese 
+in the pantry and sausages hanging from the rafters, they 
+would starve in bad years. And bad years were bound to 
+come, sooner or later. A peasant living on the assumption 
+that bad years would not come didn't live long. 
+
+Consequently, from the very advent of agriculture, worries 
+about the future became major players in the theatre of the 
+human mind. Where farmers depended on rains to water 
+their elds, the onset of the rainy season meant that each 
+morning the farmers gazed towards the horizon, sni ng the 
+wind and straining their eyes. Is that a cloud? Would the 
+rains come on time? Would there be enough? 
+
+
+
+Would violent storms wash the seeds from the elds and 
+batter down seedlings? 
+
+Meanwhile, in the valleys of the Euphrates, Indus and Yellow 
+rivers, other peasants monitored, with no less trepidation, 
+the height of the water. They needed the rivers to rise in 
+order to spread the fertile topsoil washed down from the 
+highlands, and to enable their vast irrigation systems to II 
+with water. But oods that surged too high or came at the 
+wrong time could destroy their elds as much as a drought. 
+
+Peasants were worried about the future not just because 
+they had more cause for worry, but also because they could 
+do something about it. They could clear another eld, dig 
+another irrigation canal, sow more crops. The anxious 
+peasant was as frenetic and hardworking as a harvester ant 
+in the summer, sweating to plant olive trees whose oil would 
+be pressed by his children and grandchildren, putting o until 
+the winter or the following year the eating of the food he 
+craved today. 
+
+The stress of farming had far-reaching consequences. It was 
+the foundation of large-scale political and social systems. 
+Sadly, the diligent peasants almost never achieved the 
+future economic security they so craved through their hard 
+work in the present. Everywhere, rulers and elites sprang up, 
+living o the peasants' 
+
+surplus food and leaving them with only a bare subsistence. 
+
+These forfeited food surpluses fuelled politics, wars, art and 
+philosophy. They built palaces, forts, monuments and 
+temples. Until the late modern era, more than 
+
+90 per cent of humans were peasants who rose each 
+morning to till the land by the sweat of their brows. The 
+extra they produced fed the tiny minority of elites - 
+
+
+
+kings, government o cials, soldiers, priests, artists and 
+thinkers - who II the history books. History is something that 
+very few people have been doing while everyone else was 
+ploughing fields and carrying water buckets. 
+
+An Imagined Order 
+
+The food surpluses produced by peasants, coupled with new 
+transportation technology, eventually enabled more and 
+more people to cram together rst into large villages, then 
+into towns, and nally into cities, all of them joined together 
+by new kingdoms and commercial networks. 
+
+Yet in order to take advantage of these new opportunities, 
+food surpluses and improved transportation were not 
+enough. The mere fact that one can feed a thousand people 
+in the same town or a million people in the same kingdom 
+does not guarantee that they can agree how to divide the 
+land and water, how to settle disputes and con icts, and how 
+to act in times of drought or war. And if no agreement can be 
+reached, strife spreads, even if the storehouses are bulging. 
+
+It was not food shortages that caused most of history's wars 
+and revolutions. The French Revolution was spearheaded by 
+a uent lawyers, not by famished peasants. The Roman 
+Republic reached the height of its power in the rst century 
+BC, when treasure eets from throughout the Mediterranean 
+enriched the Romans beyond their ancestors' wildest 
+dreams. Yet it was at that moment of maximum a uence that 
+the Roman political order collapsed into a series of deadly 
+civil wars. Yugoslavia in 1991 had more than enough 
+resources to feed all its inhabitants, and still disintegrated 
+into a terrible bloodbath. 
+
+The problem at the root of such calamities is that humans 
+evolved for millions of years in small bands of a few dozen 
+individuals. The handful of millennia separating the 
+
+
+
+Agricultural Revolution from the appearance of cities, 
+kingdoms and empires was not enough time to allow an 
+instinct for mass cooperation to evolve. 
+
+Despite the lack of such biological instincts, during the 
+foraging era, hundreds of strangers were able to cooperate 
+thanks to their shared myths. However, this cooperation was 
+loose and limited. Every Sapiens band continued to run its 
+life independently and to provide for most of its own needs. 
+An archaic sociologist living 20,000 years ago, who had no 
+knowledge of events following the Agricultural Revolution, 
+might well have concluded that mythology had a fairly 
+limited scope. Stories about ancestral spirits and tribal 
+totems were strong enough 
+
+to enable 500 people to trade seashells, celebrate the odd 
+festival, and join forces to wipe out a Neanderthal band, but 
+no more than that. Mythology, the ancient sociologist would 
+have thought, could not possibly enable millions of 
+strangers to cooperate on a daily basis. 
+
+But that turned out to be wrong. Myths, it transpired, are 
+stronger than anyone could have imagined. When the 
+Agricultural Revolution opened opportunities for the 
+creation of crowded cities and mighty empires, people 
+invented stories about great gods, motherlands and joint 
+stock companies to provide the needed social links. While 
+human evolution was crawling at its usual snail's pace, the 
+human imagination was building astounding networks of 
+mass cooperation, unlike any other ever seen on earth. 
+
+Around 8500 BC the largest settlements in the world were 
+villages such asjericho, which contained a few hundred 
+individuals. By 7000 BC the town of Catalhoyuk in Anatolia 
+numbered between 5,000 and 10,000 individuals. It may 
+well have been the world's biggest settlement at the time. 
+
+
+
+During the fth and fourth millennia BC, cities with tens of 
+thousands of inhabitants sprouted in the Fertile Crescent, 
+and each of these held sway over many nearby villages. In 
+3100 
+
+BC the entire lower Nile Valley was united into the rst 
+Egyptian kingdom. Its pharaohs ruled thousands of square 
+kilometres and hundreds of thousands of people. Around 
+2250 BC Sargon the Great forged the rst empire, the 
+Akkadian. It boasted over a million subjects and a standing 
+army of 5,400 soldiers. Between 1000 BC and 500 BC, the 
+rst mega-empires appeared in the Middle East: the Late 
+Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, and the Persian 
+Empire. They ruled over many millions of subjects and 
+commanded tens of thousands of soldiers. 
+
+In 221 BC the Qin dynasty united China, and shortly 
+afterwards Rome united the Mediterranean basin. Taxes 
+levied on 40 million Qin subjects paid for a standing army of 
+hundreds of thousands of soldiers and a complex 
+bureaucracy that employed more than 100,000 o cials. The 
+Roman Empire at its zenith collected taxes from up to 100 
+million subjects. This revenue nanced a standing army of 
+250,000-500,000 soldiers, a road network still in use 1,500 
+years later, and theatres and amphitheatres that host 
+spectacles to this day. 
+
+
+
+
+16. A stone stela inscribed with the Code of 
+Hammurabi, c.1776 BC. 
+
+Impressive, no doubt, but we mustn't harbour rosy illusions 
+about 'mass cooperation networks' operating in pharaonic 
+Egypt or the Roman Empire. 
+
+'Cooperation' sounds very altruistic, but is not always 
+voluntary and seldom egalitarian. Most human cooperation 
+networks have been geared towards oppression and 
+exploitation. The peasants paid for the burgeoning 
+cooperation networks with their precious food surpluses, 
+
+
+
+
+despairing when the tax collector wiped out an entire year of 
+hard labour with a single stroke of his imperial pen. 
+
+
+The famed Roman amphitheatres were often built by slaves 
+so that wealthy and idle Romans could watch other slaves 
+engage in vicious gladiatorial combat. Even prisons and 
+concentration camps are cooperation networks, and can 
+function only because thousands of strangers somehow 
+manage to coordinate their actions. 
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+17. The Declaration of Independence of the United 
+States, signed 4 July 1776. 
+
+All these cooperation networks - from the cities of ancient 
+Mesopotamia to the Qin and Roman empires - were 
+'imagined orders'. The social norms that sustained them 
+were based neither on ingrained instincts nor on personal 
+acquaintances, but rather on belief in shared myths. 
+
+How can myths sustain entire empires? We have already 
+discussed one such example: Peugeot. Now let's examine 
+two of the best-known myths of history: the Code of 
+Hammurabi of c.1776 BC, which served as a cooperation 
+manual for hundreds of thousands of ancient Babylonians; 
+and the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 AD, 
+which today still serves as a cooperation manual for 
+hundreds of millions of modern Americans. 
+
+In 1776 BC Babylon was the world's biggest city. The 
+Babylonian Empire was probably the world's largest, with 
+more than a million subjects. It ruled most of Mesopotamia, 
+including the bulk of modern Iraq and parts of present-day 
+Syria and Iran. The Babylonian king most famous today was 
+Hammurabi. His fame is 
+
+due primarily to the text that bears his name, the Code of 
+Hammurabi. This was a collection of laws and judicial 
+decisions whose aim was to present Hammurabi as a role 
+model of a just king, serve as a basis for a more uniform 
+legal system across the Babylonian Empire, and teach future 
+generations what justice is and how a just king acts. 
+
+Future generations took notice. The intellectual and 
+bureaucratic elite of ancient Mesopotamia canonised the 
+text, and apprentice scribes continued to copy it long after 
+Hammurabi died and his empire lay in ruins. Hammurabi's 
+
+
+
+Code is therefore a good source for understanding the 
+ancient Mesopotamians' ideal of social order. 3 
+
+The text begins by saying that the gods Anu, Enlil and 
+Marduk - the leading deities of the Mesopotamian pantheon 
+- appointed Hammurabi 'to make justice prevail in the land, 
+to abolish the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong 
+from oppressing the weak'. 4_lt then lists about 300 
+judgements, given in the set formula 
+
+'If such and such a thing happens, such is the judgment.' For 
+example, judgements 196-9 and 209-14 read: 
+
+If a superior man should blind the eye of another superior 
+man, they shall 
+
+196. blind his eye. 
+
+If he should break the bone of another superior man, they 
+shall break his 
+
+197. bone. 
+
+If he should blind the eye of a commoner or break the bone 
+of a 
+
+198. commoner, he shall weigh and deliver 60 shekels of 
+silver. 
+
+If he should blind the eye of a slave of a superior man or 
+break the bone of 199. a slave of a superior man, he shall 
+weigh and deliver one-half of the slave's value (in silver). 5 
+
+If a superior man strikes a woman of superior class and 
+thereby causes her 
+
+
+209. to miscarry her fetus, he shall weigh and deliver ten 
+shekels of silver for her fetus. 
+
+210. If that woman should die, they shall kill his daughter. 
+
+If he should cause a woman of commoner class to miscarry 
+her fetus by the 
+
+211. beating, he shall weigh and deliver five shekels of 
+silver. 
+
+212. If that woman should die, he shall weigh and deliver 
+thirty shekels of 
+
+silver. 
+
+If he strikes a slave-woman of a superior man and thereby 
+causes her to 
+
+213. miscarry her fetus, he shall weigh and deliver two 
+shekels of silver. 
+
+If that slave-woman should die, he shall weigh and deliver 
+twenty shekels 
+
+214. of silver. 6 
+
+After listing his judgements, Hammurabi again declares that 
+
+These are the just decisions which Hammurabi, the able 
+king, has established and thereby has directed the land 
+along the course of truth and the correct way of life ... I am 
+Hammurabi, noble king. I have not been careless or 
+negligent toward humankind, granted to my care by the god 
+Enlil, and with whose shepherding the god Marduk charged 
+me. 7 
+
+
+Hammurabi's Code asserts that Babylonian social order is 
+rooted in universal and eternal principles of justice, dictated 
+by the gods. The principle of hierarchy is of paramount 
+importance. According to the code, people are divided into 
+two genders and three classes: superior people, commoners 
+and slaves. Members of each gender and class have di erent 
+values. The life of a female commoner is worth thirty silver 
+shekels and that of a slave-woman twenty silver shekels, 
+whereas the eye of a male commoner is worth sixty silver 
+shekels. 
+
+The code also establishes a strict hierarchy within families, 
+according to which children are not independent persons, 
+but rather the property of their parents. 
+
+Hence, if one superior man kills the daughter of another 
+superior man, the killer's daughter is executed in 
+punishment. To us it may seem strange that the killer 
+remains unharmed whereas his innocent daughter is killed, 
+but to Hammurabi and the Babylonians this seemed 
+perfectly just. Hammurabi's Code was based on the premise 
+that if the king's subjects all accepted their positions in the 
+hierarchy and acted accordingly, the empire's million 
+inhabitants would be able to cooperate e ectively. Their 
+society could then produce enough food for its members, 
+distribute it e ciently, protect itself against its enemies, and 
+expand its territory so as to acquire more wealth and better 
+security. 
+
+About 3,500 years after Hammurabi's death, the inhabitants 
+of thirteen British colonies in North America felt that the 
+king of England was treating them unjustly. Their 
+representatives gathered in the city of Philadelphia, and on 
+4 July 1776 the colonies declared that their inhabitants were 
+no longer subjects of the British Crown. Their Declaration of 
+
+
+
+Independence proclaimed universal and eternal principles of 
+justice, which, like those of Hammurabi, were inspired by a 
+
+divine power. However, the most important principle 
+dictated by the American god was somewhat di erent from 
+the principle dictated by the gods of Babylon. 
+
+The American Declaration of Independence asserts that: 
+
+We hold these truths to be self-evident, that al men are 
+created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
+certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, 
+and the pursuit of happiness. 
+
+Like Hammurabi's Code, the American founding document 
+promises that if humans act according to its sacred 
+principles, millions of them would be able to cooperate 
+effectively, living safely and peacefully in a just and 
+prosperous society. 
+
+Like the Code of Hammurabi, the American Declaration of 
+Independence was not just a document of its time and place 
+- it was accepted by future generations as well. For more 
+than 200 years, American schoolchildren have been copying 
+and learning it by heart. 
+
+The two texts present us with an obvious dilemma. Both the 
+Code of Hammurabi and the American Declaration of 
+Independence claim to outline universal and eternal 
+principles of justice, but according to the Americans all 
+people are equal, whereas according to the Babylonians 
+people are decidedly unequal. The Americans would, of 
+course, say that they are right, and that Hammurabi is 
+wrong. Hammurabi, naturally, would retort that he is right, 
+and that the Americans are wrong. In fact, they are both 
+wrong. Hammurabi and the American Founding Fathers alike 
+imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable 
+
+
+
+principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the 
+only place where such universal principles exist is in the 
+fertile imagination of Sapiens, and in the myths they invent 
+and tell one another. These principles have no objective 
+validity. 
+
+It is easy for us to accept that the division of people into 
+'superiors' and commoners' is a gment of the imagination. 
+Yet the idea that all humans are equal is also a myth. In what 
+sense do all humans equal one another? Is there any 
+objective reality, outside the human imagination, in which 
+we are truly equal? Are all humans equal to one another 
+biologically? Let us try to translate the most famous line of 
+the American Declaration of Independence into biological 
+terms: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that al men 
+are created equal, that they are endowed by their 
+Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among 
+these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 
+
+According to the science of biology, people were not 
+created'. They have evolved. 
+
+And they certainly did not evolve to be 'equal'. The idea of 
+equality is inextricably intertwined with the idea of creation. 
+The Americans got the idea of equality from Christianity, 
+which argues that every person has a divinely created soul, 
+and that 
+
+all souls are equal before God. However, if we do not believe 
+in the Christian myths about God, creation and souls, what 
+does it mean that all people are 
+
+'equal'? Evolution is based on di erence, not on equality. 
+Every person carries a somewhat di erent genetic code, and 
+is exposed from birth to di erent environmental in uences. 
+This leads to the development of di erent qualities that carry 
+
+
+
+with them di erent chances of survival. 'Created equal' 
+should therefore be translated into 'evolved differently'. 
+
+
+Just as people were never created, neither, according to the 
+science of biology, is there a 'Creator' who 'endows' them 
+with anything. There is only a blind evolutionary process, 
+devoid of any purpose, leading to the birth of individuals. 
+
+'Endowed by their creator' should be translated simply into 
+'born. 
+
+Equally, there are no such things as rights in biology. There 
+are only organs, abilities and characteristics. Birds y not 
+because they have a right to y, but because they have 
+wings. And it's not true that these organs, abilities and 
+characteristics are 'unalienable'. Many of them undergo 
+constant mutations, and may well be completely lost over 
+time. The ostrich is a bird that lost its ability to fly. So 
+'unalienable rights' should be translated into 'mutable 
+characteristics'. 
+
+And what are the characteristics that evolved in humans? 
+'Life', certainly. But 
+
+'liberty'? There is no such thing in biology. Just like equality, 
+rights and limited liability companies, liberty is something 
+that people invented and that exists only in their 
+imagination. From a biological viewpoint, it is meaningless 
+to say that humans in democratic societies are free, whereas 
+humans in dictatorships are unfree. And what about 
+'happiness'? So far biological research has failed to come up 
+with a clear de nition of happiness or a way to measure it 
+objectively. Most biological studies acknowledge only the 
+existence of pleasure, which is more easily de ned and 
+measured. So 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' 
+should be translated into 'life and the pursuit of pleasure'. 
+
+
+
+So here is that line from the American Declaration of 
+Independence translated into biological terms: 
+
+We hold these truths to be self-evident, that al men evolved 
+di erently, that they are born with certain mutable 
+characteristics, and that among these are life and the 
+pursuit of pleasure. 
+
+Advocates of equality and human rights may be outraged by 
+this line of reasoning. 
+
+Their response is likely to be, 'We know that people are not 
+equal biologically! 
+
+But if we believe that we are all equal in essence, it will 
+enable us to create a stable and prosperous society.' I have 
+no argument with that. This is exactly what I mean by 
+'imagined order'. We believe in a particular order not 
+because it is objectively true, but because believing in it 
+enables us to cooperate e ectively and forge a better society. 
+Imagined orders are not evil conspiracies or useless 
+
+mirages. Rather, they are the only way large numbers of 
+humans can cooperate e ectively. Bear in mind, though, that 
+Hammurabi might have defended his principle of hierarchy 
+using the same logic: 'I know that superiors, commoners and 
+slaves are not inherently di erent kinds of people. But if we 
+believe that they are, it will enable us to create a stable and 
+prosperous society.' 
+
+True Believers 
+
+It's likely that more than a few readers squirmed in their 
+chairs while reading the preceding paragraphs. Most of us 
+today are educated to react in such a way. It is easy to 
+accept that Hammurabi's Code was a myth, but we do not 
+want to hear that human rights are also a myth. If people 
+
+
+
+realise that human rights exist only in the imagination, isn't 
+there a danger that our society will collapse? Voltaire said 
+about God that 'there is no God, but don't tell that to my 
+servant, lest he murder me at night'. Hammurabi would have 
+said the same about his principle of hierarchy, and Thomas 
+Je erson about human rights. Homo sapiens has no natural 
+rights, just as spiders, hyenas and chimpanzees have no 
+natural rights. But don't tell that to our servants, lest they 
+murder us at night. 
+
+Such fears are well justified. A natural order is a stable order. 
+There is no chance that gravity will cease to function 
+tomorrow, even if people stop believing in it. In contrast, an 
+imagined order is always in danger of collapse, because it 
+depends upon myths, and myths vanish once people stop 
+believing in them. In order to safeguard an imagined order, 
+continuous and strenuous e orts are imperative. 
+
+Some of these e orts take the shape of violence and 
+coercion. Armies, police forces, courts and prisons are 
+ceaselessly at work forcing people to act in accordance with 
+the imagined order. If an ancient Babylonian blinded his 
+neighbour, some violence was usually necessary in order to 
+enforce the law of 'an eye for an eye'. When, in 1860, a 
+majority of American citizens concluded that African slaves 
+are human beings and must therefore enjoy the right of 
+liberty, it took a bloody civil war to make the southern states 
+acquiesce. 
+
+However, an imagined order cannot be sustained by 
+violence alone. It requires some true believers as well. Prince 
+Talleyrand, who began his chameleon-like career under Louis 
+XVI, later served the revolutionary and Napoleonic regimes, 
+and switched loyalties in time to end his days working for 
+the restored monarchy, summed up decades of 
+governmental experience by saying that 'You can do many 
+
+
+
+things with bayonets, but it is rather uncomfortable to sit on 
+them.' A single priest often does the work of a hundred 
+soldiers far more cheaply and e ectively. 
+
+Moreover, no matter how e cient bayonets are, somebody 
+must wield them. Why 
+
+should the soldiers, jailors, judges and police maintain an 
+imagined order in which they do not believe? Of all human 
+collective activities, the one most di cult to organise is 
+violence. To say that a social order is maintained by military 
+force immediately raises the question: what maintains the 
+military order? It is impossible to organise an army solely by 
+coercion. At least some of the commanders and soldiers 
+must truly believe in something, be it God, honour, 
+motherland, manhood or money. 
+
+An even more interesting question concerns those standing 
+at the top of the social pyramid. Why should they wish to 
+enforce an imagined order if they themselves don't believe 
+in it? It is quite common to argue that the elite may do so 
+out of cynical greed. Yet a cynic who believes in nothing is 
+unlikely to be greedy. 
+
+It does not take much to provide the objective biological 
+needs of Homo sapiens. 
+
+After those needs are met, more money can be spent on 
+building pyramids, taking holidays around the world, 
+nancing election campaigns, funding your favourite terrorist 
+organisation, or investing in the stock market and making 
+yet more money - all of which are activities that a true cynic 
+would nd utterly meaningless. Diogenes, the Greek 
+philosopher who founded the Cynical school, lived in a 
+barrel. When Alexander the Great once visited Diogenes as 
+he was relaxing in the sun, and asked if there were anything 
+
+
+
+he might do for him, the Cynic answered the all-powerful 
+conqueror, 'Yes, there is something you can do for me. 
+
+Please move a little to the side. You are blocking the 
+sunlight.' 
+
+This is why cynics don't build empires and why an imagined 
+order can be maintained only if large segments of the 
+population - and in particular large segments of the elite 
+and the security forces - truly believe in it. Christianity 
+would not have lasted 2,000 years if the majority of bishops 
+and priests failed to believe in Christ. American democracy 
+would not have lasted 250 years if the majority of presidents 
+and congressmen failed to believe in human rights. The 
+modern economic system would not have lasted a single day 
+if the majority of investors and bankers failed to believe in 
+capitalism. 
+
+The Prison Wal s 
+
+How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order 
+such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you 
+never admit that the order is imagined. You always insist 
+that the order sustaining society is an objective reality 
+created by the great gods or by the laws of nature. People 
+are unequal, not because Hammurabi said so, but because 
+Enlil and Marduk decreed it. People are equal, not because 
+Thomas Je erson said so, but because God created them that 
+way. Free markets 
+
+are the best economic system, not because Adam Smith said 
+so, but because these are the immutable laws of nature. 
+
+You also educate people thoroughly. From the moment they 
+are born, you constantly remind them of the principles of the 
+imagined order, which are incorporated into anything and 
+everything. They are incorporated into fairy tales, dramas, 
+
+
+
+paintings, songs, etiquette, political propaganda, 
+architecture, recipes and fashions. For example, today 
+people believe in equality, so it's fashionable for rich kids to 
+wear jeans, which were originally working-class attire. In the 
+Middle Ages people believed in class divisions, so no young 
+nobleman would have worn a peasant's smock. Back then, to 
+be addressed as 'Sir' or 'Madam' was a rare privilege 
+reserved for the nobility, and often purchased with blood. 
+Today all polite correspondence, regardless of the recipient, 
+begins with 'Dear Sir or Madam'. 
+
+The humanities and social sciences devote most of their 
+energies to explaining exactly how the imagined order is 
+woven into the tapestry of life. In the limited space at our 
+disposal we can only scratch the surface. Three main factors 
+prevent people from realising that the order organising their 
+lives exists only in their imagination: 
+
+a. The imagined order is embedded in the material 
+world. Though the imagined order exists only in our minds, 
+it can be woven into the material reality around us, and 
+even set in stone. Most Westerners today believe in 
+individualism. 
+
+They believe that every human is an individual, whose worth 
+does not depend on what other people think of him or her. 
+Each of us has within ourselves a brilliant ray of light that 
+gives value and meaning to our lives. In modern Western 
+schools teachers and parents tell children that if their 
+classmates make fun of them, they should ignore it. Only 
+they themselves, not others, know their true worth. 
+
+In modern architecture, this myth leaps out of the 
+imagination to take shape in stone and mortar. The ideal 
+modern house is divided into many small rooms so that each 
+child can have a private space, hidden from view, providing 
+
+
+
+for maximum autonomy. This private room almost invariably 
+has a door, and in many households it is accepted practice 
+for the child to close, and perhaps lock, the door. Even 
+parents are forbidden to enter without knocking and asking 
+permission. The room is decorated as the child sees t, with 
+rock-star posters on the wall and dirty socks on the oor. 
+Somebody growing up in such a space cannot help but 
+imagine himself 'an individual', his true worth emanating 
+from within rather than from without. 
+
+Medieval noblemen did not believe in individualism. 
+Someone's worth was determined by their place in the social 
+hierarchy, and by what other people said about them. Being 
+laughed at was a horrible indignity. Noblemen taught their 
+
+children to protect their good name whatever the cost. Like 
+modern individualism, the medieval value system left the 
+imagination and was manifested in the stone of medieval 
+castles. The castle rarely contained private rooms for 
+children (or anyone else, for that matter). The teenage son 
+of a medieval baron did not have a private room on the 
+castle's second oor, with posters of Richard the Lionheart 
+and King Arthur on the walls and a locked door that his 
+parents were not allowed to open. He slept alongside many 
+other youths in a large hall. He was always on display and 
+always had to take into account what others saw and said. 
+Someone growing up in such conditions naturally concluded 
+that a man's true worth was determined by his place in the 
+social hierarchy and by what other people said of him. 8 
+
+b. The imagined order shapes our desires. Most people 
+do not wish to accept that the order governing their lives is 
+imaginary, but in fact every person is born into a pre¬ 
+existing imagined order, and his or her desires are shaped 
+from birth by its dominant myths. Our personal desires 
+
+
+thereby become the imagined order's most important 
+defences. 
+
+For instance, the most cherished desires of present-day 
+Westerners are shaped by romantic, nationalist, capitalist 
+and humanist myths that have been around for centuries. 
+Friends giving advice often tell each other, 'Follow your 
+heart.' But the heart is a double agent that usually takes its 
+instructions from the dominant myths of the day, and the 
+very recommendation to 'Follow your heart' was implanted 
+in our minds by a combination of nineteenth-century 
+Romantic myths and twentieth-century consumerist myths. 
+The Coca-Cola Company, for example, has marketed Diet 
+Coke around the world under the slogan, 'Diet Coke. Do what 
+feels good.' 
+
+Even what people take to be their most personal desires are 
+usually programmed by the imagined order. Let's consider, 
+for example, the popular desire to take a holiday abroad. 
+There is nothing natural or obvious about this. A 
+chimpanzee alpha male would never think of using his 
+power in order to go on holiday into the territory of a 
+neighbouring chimpanzee band. The elite of ancient Egypt 
+spent their fortunes building pyramids and having their 
+corpses mummi ed, but none of them thought of going 
+shopping in Babylon or taking a skiing holiday in Phoenicia. 
+People today spend a great deal of money on holidays 
+abroad because they are true believers in the myths of 
+romantic consumerism. 
+
+Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our 
+human potential we must have as many di erent 
+experiences as we can. We must open ourselves to a wide 
+spectrum of emotions; we must sample various kinds of 
+relationships; we must try di erent cuisines; we must learn to 
+appreciate di erent styles of music. 
+
+
+
+One of the best ways to do all that is to break free from our 
+daily routine, leave behind our familiar setting, and go 
+travelling in distant lands, where we can 
+
+
+
+'experience' the culture, the smells, the tastes and the 
+norms of other people. We hear again and again the 
+romantic myths about 'how a new experience opened 
+
+my eyes and changed my life'. 
+
+Consumerism tells us that in order to be happy we must 
+consume as many products and services as possible. If we 
+feel that something is missing or not quite right, then we 
+probably need to buy a product (a car, new clothes, organic 
+food) or a service (housekeeping, relationship therapy, yoga 
+classes). Every television commercial is another little legend 
+about how consuming some product or service will make life 
+better. 
+
+Romanticism, which encourages variety, meshes perfectly 
+with consumerism. 
+
+
+
+
+
+Their marriage has given birth to the infinite 'market of 
+experiences', on which the modern tourism industry is 
+founded. The tourism industry does not sell ight tickets and 
+hotel bedrooms. It sells experiences. Paris is not a city, nor 
+India a country - they are both experiences, the 
+consumption of which is supposed to widen our horizons, ful 
+I our human potential, and make us happier. 
+
+Consequently, when the relationship between a millionaire 
+and his wife is going through a rocky patch, he takes her on 
+an expensive trip to Paris. The trip is not a re ection of some 
+independent desire, but rather of an ardent belief in the 
+myths of romantic consumerism. A wealthy man in ancient 
+Egypt would never have dreamed of solving a relationship 
+crisis by taking his wife on holiday to Babylon. 
+
+Instead, he might have built for her the sumptuous tomb she 
+had always wanted. 
+
+18. The Great Pyramid of Giza. The kind of thing rich 
+people in ancient Egypt did with their money. 
+
+Like the elite of ancient Egypt, most people in most cultures 
+dedicate their lives to building pyramids. Only the names, 
+shapes and sizes of these pyramids change 
+
+from one culture to the other. They may take the form, for 
+example, of a suburban cottage with a swimming pool and 
+an evergreen lawn, or a gleaming penthouse with an 
+enviable view. Few question the myths that cause us to 
+desire the pyramid in the first place. 
+
+c. The imagined order is inter-subjective. Even if by 
+some superhuman e ort I succeed in freeing my personal 
+desires from the grip of the imagined order, I am just one 
+person. In order to change the imagined order I must 
+convince millions of strangers to cooperate with me. For the 
+
+
+
+imagined order is not a subjective order existing in my own 
+imagination - it is rather an inter-subjective order, existing 
+in the shared imagination of thousands and millions of 
+people. 
+
+In order to understand this, we need to understand the di 
+erence between 
+
+'objective', 'subjective', and 'inter-subjective'. 
+
+A n objective phenomenon exists independently of human 
+consciousness and human beliefs. Radioactivity, for 
+example, is not a myth. Radioactive emissions occurred long 
+before people discovered them, and they are dangerous 
+even when people do not believe in them. Marie Curie, one 
+of the discoverers of radioactivity, did not know, during her 
+long years of studying radioactive materials, that they could 
+harm her body. While she did not believe that radioactivity 
+could kill her, she nevertheless died of aplastic anaemia, a 
+disease caused by overexposure to radioactive materials. 
+
+The subjective is something that exists depending on the 
+consciousness and beliefs of a single individual. It 
+disappears or changes if that particular individual changes 
+his or her beliefs. Many a child believes in the existence of 
+an imaginary friend who is invisible and inaudible to the rest 
+of the world. The imaginary friend exists solely in the child's 
+subjective consciousness, and when the child grows up and 
+ceases to believe in it, the imaginary friend fades away. 
+
+The inter-subjective is something that exists within the 
+communication network linking the subjective 
+consciousness of many individuals. If a single individual 
+changes his or her beliefs, or even dies, it is of little 
+importance. 
+
+
+
+However, if most individuals in the network die or change 
+their beliefs, the inter-subjective phenomenon will mutate or 
+disappear. Inter-subjective phenomena are neither 
+malevolent frauds nor insigni cant charades. They exist in a 
+di erent way from physical phenomena such as radioactivity, 
+but their impact on the world may still be enormous. Many of 
+history's most important drivers are inter-subjective: law, 
+money, gods, nations. 
+
+Peugeot, for example, is not the imaginary friend of 
+Peugeot's CEO. The company exists in the shared 
+imagination of millions of people. The CEO believes in the 
+company's existence because the board of directors also 
+believes in it, as do the company's lawyers, the secretaries 
+in the nearby o ce, the tellers in the bank, 
+
+the brokers on the stock exchange, and car dealers from 
+France to Australia. If the CEO alone were suddenly to stop 
+believing in Peugeot's existence, he'd quickly land in the 
+nearest mental hospital and someone else would occupy his 
+office. 
+
+Similarly, the dollar, human rights and the United States of 
+America exist in the shared imagination of billions, and no 
+single individual can threaten their existence. If I alone were 
+to stop believing in the dollar, in human rights, or in the 
+United States, it wouldn't much matter. These imagined 
+orders are inter-subjective, so in order to change them we 
+must simultaneously change the consciousness of billions of 
+people, which is not easy. A change of such magnitude can 
+be accomplished only with the help of a complex 
+organisation, such as a political party, an ideological 
+movement, or a religious cult. However, in order to establish 
+such complex organisations, it's necessary to convince many 
+strangers to cooperate with one another. And this will 
+happen only if these strangers believe in some shared 
+
+
+
+myths. It follows that in order to change an existing 
+imagined order, we must first believe in an alternative 
+imagined order. 
+
+In order to dismantle Peugeot, for example, we need to 
+imagine something more powerful, such as the French legal 
+system. In order to dismantle the French legal system we 
+need to imagine something even more powerful, such as the 
+French state. And if we would like to dismantle that too, we 
+will have to imagine something yet more powerful. 
+
+There is no way out of the imagined order. When we break 
+down our prison walls and run towards freedom, we are in 
+fact running into the more spacious exercise yard of a bigger 
+prison. 
+
+7 
+
+Memory Overload 
+
+EVOLUTION DID NOT ENDOW HUMANS with the ability to 
+play football. True, it 
+
+produced legs for kicking, elbows for fouling and mouths for 
+cursing, but all that this enables us to do is perhaps practise 
+penalty kicks by ourselves. To get into a game with the 
+strangers we nd in the schoolyard on any given afternoon, 
+we not only have to work in concert with ten teammates we 
+may never have met before, we also need to know that the 
+eleven players on the opposing team are playing by the 
+same rules. Other animals that engage strangers in 
+ritualised aggression do so largely by instinct - puppies 
+throughout the world have the rules for rough-and-tumble 
+play hard-wired into their genes. But human teenagers have 
+no genes for football. They can nevertheless play the game 
+with complete strangers because they have all learned an 
+identical set of ideas about football. These ideas are entirely 
+
+
+
+imaginary, but if everyone shares them, we can all play the 
+game. 
+
+The same applies, on a larger scale, to kingdoms, churches 
+and trade networks, with one important di erence. The rules 
+of football are relatively simple and concise, much like those 
+necessary for cooperation in a forager band or small village. 
+Each player can easily store them in his brain and still have 
+room for songs, images and shopping lists. But large 
+systems of cooperation that involve not twenty-two but 
+thousands or even millions of humans require the handling 
+and storage of huge amounts of information, much more 
+than any single human brain can contain and process. 
+
+The large societies found in some other species, such as ants 
+and bees, are stable and resilient because most of the 
+information needed to sustain them is encoded in the 
+genome. A female honeybee larva can, for example, grow up 
+to be either a queen or a worker, depending on what food it 
+is fed. Its DNA programmes the necessary behaviours for 
+whatever role it will ful I in life. Hives can be very complex 
+social structures, containing many di erent kinds of workers, 
+such as harvesters, nurses and cleaners. But so far 
+researchers have failed to locate lawyer bees. Bees don't 
+need lawyers, because there is no danger that they might 
+forget or violate the hive constitution. The queen does not 
+cheat the cleaner bees of their food, and they never go on 
+strike demanding higher wages. 
+
+But humans do such things all the time. Because the 
+Sapiens social order is 
+
+imagined, humans cannot preserve the critical information 
+for running it simply by making copies of their DNA and 
+passing these on to their progeny. A conscious e ort has to 
+be made to sustain laws, customs, procedures and manners, 
+
+
+
+otherwise the social order would quickly collapse. For 
+example, King Hammurabi decreed that people are divided 
+into superiors, commoners and slaves. Unlike the beehive 
+class system, this is not a natural division - there is no trace 
+of it in the human genome. If the Babylonians could not 
+keep this 'truth' in mind, their society would have ceased to 
+function. Similarly, when Hammurabi passed his DNA to his 
+o spring, it did not encode his ruling that a superior man 
+who killed a commoner woman must pay thirty silver 
+shekels. Hammurabi deliberately had to instruct his sons in 
+the laws of his empire, and his sons and grandsons had to do 
+the same. 
+
+Empires generate huge amounts of information. Beyond 
+laws, empires have to 
+
+keep accounts of transactions and taxes, inventories of 
+military supplies and merchant vessels, and calendars of 
+festivals and victories. For millions of years people stored 
+information in a single place - their brains. Unfortunately, 
+the human brain is not a good storage device for empire¬ 
+sized databases, for three main reasons. 
+
+First, its capacity is limited. True, some people have 
+astonishing memories, and in ancient times there were 
+memory professionals who could store in their heads the 
+topographies of whole provinces and the law codes of entire 
+states. 
+
+Nevertheless, there is a limit that even master mnemonists 
+cannot transcend. A lawyer might know by heart the entire 
+law code of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but not 
+the details of every legal proceeding that took place in 
+Massachusetts from the Salem witch trials onward. 
+
+
+
+Secondly, humans die, and their brains die with them. Any 
+information stored in a brain will be erased in less than a 
+century. It is, of course, possible to pass memories from one 
+brain to another, but after a few transmissions, the 
+information tends to get garbled or lost. 
+
+Thirdly and most importantly, the human brain has been 
+adapted to store and process only particular types of 
+information. In order to survive, ancient hunter-gatherers 
+had to remember the shapes, qualities and behaviour 
+patterns of thousands of plant and animal species. They had 
+to remember that a wrinkled yellow mushroom growing in 
+autumn under an elm tree is most probably poisonous, 
+whereas a similar-looking mushroom growing in winter under 
+an oak tree is a good stomach-ache remedy. Hunter- 
+gatherers also had to bear in mind the opinions and 
+relations of several dozen band members. If Lucy needed a 
+band member's help to get John to stop harassing her, it was 
+important for her to remember that John had fallen out last 
+week with Mary, who would thus be a likely and enthusiastic 
+ally. Consequently, evolutionary pressures have adapted the 
+human brain to store immense quantities of botanical, 
+zoological, 
+
+topographical and social information. 
+
+But when particularly complex societies began to appear in 
+the wake of the Agricultural Revolution, a completely new 
+type of information became vital - 
+
+numbers. Foragers were never obliged to handle large 
+amounts of mathematical data. No forager needed to 
+remember, say, the number of fruit on each tree in the 
+forest. So human brains did not adapt to storing and 
+processing numbers. Yet in order to maintain a large 
+kingdom, mathematical data was vital. It was never enough 
+
+
+
+to legislate laws and tell stories about guardian gods. One 
+also had to collect taxes. In order to tax hundreds of 
+thousands of people, it was imperative to collect data about 
+peoples incomes and possessions; data about payments 
+made; data about arrears, debts and nes; data about 
+discounts and exemptions. This added up to millions of data 
+bits, which had to be stored and processed. Without this 
+capacity, the state would never know what resources it had 
+and what further resources it could tap. When confronted 
+with the need to memorise, recall and handle all these 
+numbers, most human brains overdosed or fell asleep. 
+
+This mental limitation severely constrained the size and 
+complexity of human collectives. When the amount of 
+people and property in a particular society crossed a critical 
+threshold, it became necessary to store and process large 
+amounts of mathematical data. Since the human brain could 
+not do it, the system collapsed. For thousands of years after 
+the Agricultural Revolution, human social networks 
+remained relatively small and simple. 
+
+The rst to overcome the problem were the ancient 
+Sumerians, who lived in southern Mesopotamia. There, a 
+scorching sun beating upon rich muddy plains produced 
+plentiful harvests and prosperous towns. As the number of 
+inhabitants grew, so did the amount of information required 
+to coordinate their a airs. 
+
+Between the years 3500 BC and 3000 BC, some unknown 
+Sumerian geniuses invented a system for storing and 
+processing information outside their brains, one that was 
+custom-built to handle large amounts of mathematical data. 
+The Sumerians thereby released their social order from the 
+limitations of the human brain, opening the way for the 
+appearance of cities, kingdoms and empires. The data- 
+
+
+
+processing system invented by the Sumerians is called 
+'writing'. 
+
+Signed, Kushim 
+
+Writing is a method for storing information through material 
+signs. The Sumerian writing system did so by combining two 
+types of signs, which were pressed in clay tablets. One type 
+of signs represented numbers. There were signs for 1, 10, 
+
+60, 600, 3,600 and 36,000. (The Sumerians used a 
+combination of base-6 and base-10 
+
+
+
+numeral systems. Their base-6 system bestowed on us 
+several important legacies, such as the division of the day 
+into twenty-four hours and of the circle into 360 
+
+degrees.) The other type of signs represented people, 
+animals, merchandise, territories, dates and so forth. By 
+combining both types of signs the Sumerians were able to 
+preserve far more data than any human brain could 
+remember or any DNA chain could encode. 
+
+
+
+
+
+19. A clay tablet with an administrative text from 
+the city of Uruk, c.3400-3000 BC. 'Kushim' may be 
+the generic title of an officeholder, or the name of a 
+particular individual. If Kushim was indeed a person, 
+he may be the first individual in history whose name 
+is known to us! All the names applied earlier in 
+human history - the Neanderthals, the Natufians, 
+Chauvet Cave, Gobekli Tepe - are modern inventions. 
+We have no idea what the builders of Gobekli Tepe 
+actually called the place. With the appearance of 
+writing, we are beginning to hear history through the 
+ears of its protagonists. When Kushim's neighbours 
+called out to him, they might really have shouted 
+'Kushim!' It is telling that the first recorded name in 
+history belongs to an accountant, rather than a 
+prophet, a poet or a great conqueror. 1 
+
+At this early stage, writing was limited to facts and gures. 
+The great Sumerian novel, if there ever was one, was never 
+committed to clay tablets. Writing was time-consuming and 
+the reading public tiny, so no one saw any reason to use it 
+for anything other than essential record-keeping. If we look 
+for the rst words of wisdom reaching us from our ancestors, 
+5,000 years ago, we're in for a big disappointment. The 
+earliest messages our ancestors have left us read, for 
+example, '29,086 measures barley 37 months Kushim.' The 
+most probable reading of this sentence is: 'A total of 29,086 
+measures of barley were received over the course of 37 
+months. Signed, Kushim.' Alas, the rst texts of history 
+contain no philosophical insights, no poetry, legends, laws, 
+or even royal triumphs. They are 
+
+
+
+partial script 
+
+
+c^oken 1 an SUa ge 
+
+
+
+humdrum economic documents, recording the payment of 
+taxes, the accumulation of debts and the ownership of 
+property. 
+
+Partial script cannot express the entire spectrum of 
+a spoken language, but it can express things that fall 
+outside the scope of spoken language. Partial scripts 
+such as the Sumerian and mathematical scripts 
+cannot be used to write poetry, but they can keep 
+tax accounts very effectively. 
+
+Only one other type of text survived from these ancient 
+days, and it is even less exciting: lists of words, copied over 
+and over again by apprentice scribes as training exercises. 
+Even had a bored student wanted to write out some of his 
+poems instead of copy a bill of sale, he could not have done 
+so. The earliest Sumerian writing was a partial rather than a 
+full script. Full script is a system of material signs that can 
+represent spoken language more or less completely. It can 
+therefore express everything people can say, including 
+poetry. Partial script, on the other hand, is a system of 
+material signs that can represent only particular types of 
+information, belonging to a limited eld of activity. Latin 
+
+
+script, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and Braille are full 
+scripts. You can use them to write tax registers, love poems, 
+history books, food recipes and business law. In contrast, the 
+earliest Sumerian script, like modern mathematical symbols 
+and musical notation, are partial scripts. You can use 
+mathematical script to make calculations, but you cannot 
+use it to write love poems. 
+
+
+
+20. A man holding a quipu, as depicted in a Spanish 
+manuscript following the fall of the Inca Empire. 
+
+It didn't disturb the Sumerians that their script was ill-suited 
+for writing poetry. 
+
+They didn't invent it in order to copy spoken language, but 
+rather to do things that spoken language failed at. There 
+were some cultures, such as those of the pre-Columbian 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Andes, which used only partial scripts throughout their 
+entire histories, unfazed by their scripts' limitations and 
+feeling no need for a full version. Andean script was very di 
+erent from its Sumerian counterpart. In fact, it was so di 
+erent that many people would argue it wasn't a script at all. 
+
+It was not written on clay tablets or pieces of paper. Rather, 
+it was written by tying knots on colourful cords called 
+quipus. Each quipu consisted of many cords of di erent 
+colours, made of wool or cotton. On each cord, several knots 
+were tied in di erent places. A single quipu could contain 
+hundreds of cords and thousands of knots. By combining di 
+erent knots on di erent cords with di erent colours, it was 
+possible to record large amounts of mathematical data 
+relating to, for example, tax collection and property 
+ownership. 2 
+
+For hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, quipus were 
+essential to the business of cities, kingdoms and empires. 3 
+They reached their full potential under the Inca Empire, 
+which ruled 10-12 million people and covered today's Peru, 
+Ecuador and Bolivia, as well as chunks of Chile, Argentina 
+and Colombia. Thanks to quipus, the Incas could save and 
+process large amounts of data, without which they would not 
+
+have been able to maintain the complex administrative 
+machinery that an empire of that size requires. 
+
+In fact, quipus were so e ective and accurate that in the 
+early years following the Spanish conquest of South 
+America, the Spaniards themselves employed quipus in the 
+work of administering their new empire. The problem was 
+that the Spaniards did not themselves know how to record 
+and read quipus, making them dependent on local 
+professionals. The continent's new rulers realised that this 
+placed them in a tenuous position - the native quipu experts 
+could easily mislead and cheat their overlords. So once 
+
+
+Spain's dominion was more rmly established, quipus were 
+phased out and the new empire's records were kept entirely 
+in Latin script and numerals. Very few quipus survived the 
+Spanish occupation, and most of those remaining are 
+undecipherable, since, unfortunately, the art of reading 
+quipus has been lost. 
+
+The Wonders of Bureaucracy 
+
+The Mesopotamians eventually started to want to write 
+down things other than monotonous mathematical data. 
+Between 3000 BC and 2500 BC more and more signs were 
+added to the Sumerian system, gradually transforming it 
+into a full script that we today call cuneiform. By 2500 BC, 
+kings were using cuneiform to issue decrees, priests were 
+using it to record oracles, and less exalted citizens were 
+using it to write personal letters. At roughly the same time, 
+Egyptians developed another full script known as 
+hieroglyphics. Other full scripts were developed in China 
+around 1200 BC and in Central America around 1000-500 
+BC. 
+
+From these initial centres, full scripts spread far and wide, 
+taking on various new forms and novel tasks. People began 
+to write poetry, history books, romances, dramas, prophecies 
+and cookbooks. Yet writing's most important task continued 
+to be the storage of reams of mathematical data, and that 
+task remained the prerogative of partial script. The Hebrew 
+Bible, the Greek Iliad, the Hindu Mahabharata and the 
+Buddhist Tipitika all began as oral works. For many 
+generations they were transmitted orally and would have 
+lived on even had writing never been invented. But tax 
+registries and complex bureaucracies were born together 
+with partial script, and the two remain inexorably linked to 
+this day like Siamese twins - think of the cryptic entries in 
+computerised data bases and spreadsheets. 
+
+
+
+As more and more things were written, and particularly as 
+administrative archives grew to huge proportions, new 
+problems appeared. Information stored in a persons brain is 
+easy to retrieve. My brain stores billions of bits of data, yet I 
+
+can quickly, almost instantaneously, recall the name of 
+Italy's capital, immediately afterwards recollect what I did on 
+11 September 2001, and then reconstruct the route leading 
+from my house to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. 
+
+Exactly how the brain does it remains a mystery, but we all 
+know that the brain's retrieval system is amazingly e dent, 
+except when you are trying to remember where you put your 
+car keys. 
+
+How, though, do you find and retrieve information stored on 
+quipu cords or clay tablets? If you have just ten tablets or a 
+hundred tablets, it's not a problem. But what if you have 
+accumulated thousands of them, as did one of Hammurabi's 
+contemporaries, King Zimrilim of Mari? 
+
+Imagine for a moment that it's 1776 BC. Two Marians are 
+quarrelling over possession of a wheat eld. Jacob insists that 
+he bought the eld from Esau thirty years ago. Esau retorts 
+that he in fact rented the eld to Jacob for a term of thirty 
+years, and that now, the term being up, he intends to 
+reclaim it. They shout and wrangle and start pushing one 
+another before they realise that they can resolve their 
+dispute by going to the royal archive, where are housed the 
+deeds and bills of sale that apply to all the kingdom's real 
+estate. Upon arriving at the archive they are shuttled from 
+one o cial to the other. They wait through several herbal tea 
+breaks, are told to come back tomorrow, and eventually are 
+taken by a grumbling clerk to look for the relevant clay 
+tablet. The clerk opens a door and leads them into a huge 
+room lined, oor to ceiling, with thousands of clay tablets. No 
+wonder the clerk is sour-faced. How is he supposed to locate 
+
+
+
+the deed to the disputed wheat eld written thirty years ago? 
+Even if he nds it, how will he be able to cross-check to 
+ensure that the one from thirty years ago is the latest 
+document relating to the eld in question? If he can't nd it, 
+does that prove that Esau never sold or rented out the eld? 
+Or just that the document got lost, or turned to mush when 
+some rain leaked into the archive? 
+
+Clearly, just imprinting a document in clay is not enough to 
+guarantee e cient, accurate and convenient data processing. 
+That requires methods of organisation like catalogues, 
+methods of reproduction like photocopy machines, methods 
+of rapid and accurate retrieval like computer algorithms, and 
+pedantic (but hopefully cheerful) librarians who know how 
+to use these tools. 
+
+Inventing such methods proved to be far more di cult than 
+inventing writing. 
+
+Many writing systems developed independently in cultures 
+distant in time and place from each other. Every decade 
+archaeologists discover another few forgotten scripts. Some 
+of them might prove to be even older than the Sumerian 
+scratches in clay. But most of them remain curiosities 
+because those who invented them failed to invent e cient 
+ways of cataloguing and retrieving data. What set apart 
+Sumer, as well as pharaonic Egypt, ancient China and the 
+Inca Empire, is that these cultures developed good 
+techniques of archiving, cataloguing and retrieving 
+
+written records. They also invested in schools for scribes, 
+clerks, librarians and accountants. 
+
+A writing exercise from a school in ancient Mesopotamia 
+discovered by modern archaeologists gives us a glimpse into 
+the lives of these students, some 4,000 years ago: 
+
+
+
+I went in and sat down, and my teacher read my tablet. He 
+said, 'There's something missing!' 
+
+And he caned me. 
+
+One of the people in charge said, 'Why did you open your 
+mouth without my permission?' 
+
+And he caned me. 
+
+The one in charge of rules said, 'Why did you get up without 
+my permission?' 
+
+And he caned me. 
+
+The gatekeeper said, 'Why are you going out without my 
+permission?' And he caned me. 
+
+The keeper of the beer jug said, 'Why did you get some 
+without my permission?' 
+
+And he caned me. 
+
+The Sumerian teacher said, 'Why did you speak Akkadian?'* 
+And he caned me. 
+
+My teacher said, 'Your handwriting is no good!' 
+
+And he caned me. 4 
+
+Ancient scribes learned not merely to read and write, but 
+also to use catalogues, dictionaries, calendars, forms and 
+tables. They studied and internalised techniques of 
+cataloguing, retrieving and processing information very di 
+erent from those used by the brain. In the brain, all data is 
+freely associated. When I go with my spouse to sign on a 
+mortgage for our new home, I am reminded of the rst place 
+
+
+we lived together, which reminds me of our honeymoon in 
+New Orleans, which 
+
+reminds me of alligators, which remind me of dragons, which 
+remind me of The Ring of the Nibelungen , and suddenly, 
+before I know it, there I am humming the Siegfried leitmotif 
+to a puzzled bank clerk. In bureaucracy, things must be kept 
+apart. There is one drawer for home mortgages, another for 
+marriage certi cates, a third for tax registers, and a fourth for 
+lawsuits. Otherwise, how can you nd anything? Things that 
+belong in more than one drawer, like Wagnerian music 
+dramas (do I le them under 'music', 'theatre', or perhaps 
+invent a new category altogether?), are a terrible headache. 
+So one is forever adding, deleting and rearranging drawers. 
+
+In order to function, the people who operate such a system 
+of drawers must be reprogrammed to stop thinking as 
+humans and to start thinking as clerks and accountants. As 
+everyone from ancient times till today knows, clerks and 
+accountants think in a non-human fashion. They think like 
+ling cabinets. This is not their fault. If they don't think that 
+way their drawers will all get mixed up and 
+
+they won't be able to provide the services their government, 
+company or organisation requires. The most important 
+impact of script on human history is precisely this: it has 
+gradually changed the way humans think and view the 
+world. 
+
+Free association and holistic thought have given way to 
+compartmentalisation and bureaucracy. 
+
+The Language of Numbers 
+
+As the centuries passed, bureaucratic methods of data 
+processing grew ever more di erent from the way humans 
+naturally think - and ever more important. A critical step 
+
+
+
+was made sometime before the ninth century AD, when a 
+new partial script was invented, one that could store and 
+process mathematical data with unprecedented e ciency. 
+This partial script was composed of ten signs, representing 
+the numbers from 0 to 9. Confusingly, these signs are known 
+as Arabic numerals even though they were rst invented by 
+the Hindus (even more confusingly, modern Arabs use a set 
+of digits that look quite di erent from Western ones). But the 
+Arabs get the credit because when they invaded India they 
+encountered the system, understood its usefulness, re ned 
+it, and spread it through the Middle East and then to Europe. 
+When several other signs were later added to the Arab 
+numerals (such as the signs for addition, subtraction and 
+multiplication), the basis of modern mathematical notation 
+came into being. 
+
+Although this system of writing remains a partial script, it 
+has become the world's dominant language. Almost all 
+states, companies, organisations and institutions - whether 
+they speak Arabic, Hindi, English or Norwegian - use 
+mathematical script to record and process data. Every piece 
+of information that can be translated into mathematical 
+script is stored, spread and processed with mind-boggling 
+speed and efficiency. 
+
+A person who wishes to in uence the decisions of 
+governments, organisations and companies must therefore 
+learn to speak in numbers. Experts do their best to translate 
+even ideas such as 'poverty', 'happiness' and 'honesty' into 
+numbers ('the poverty line', 'subjective well-being levels', 
+'credit rating'). Entire elds of knowledge, such as physics 
+and engineering, have already lost almost all touch with the 
+spoken human language, and are maintained solely by 
+mathematical script. 
+
+
+
+
+An equation for calculating the acceleration of mass 
+/ under the influence of gravity, according to the 
+Theory of Relativity. When most laypeople see such 
+an equation, they usually panic and freeze, like a 
+deer caught in the headlights of a speeding vehicle. 
+The reaction is quite natural, and does not betray a 
+lack of intelligence or curiosity. With rare 
+exceptions, human brains are simply incapable of 
+thinking through concepts like relativity and 
+quantum mechanics. Physicists nevertheless manage 
+to do so, because they set aside the traditional 
+human way of thinking, and learn to think anew with 
+the help of external data-processing systems. 
+
+Crucial parts of their thought process take place not 
+in the head, but inside computers or on classroom 
+blackboards. 
+
+
+More recently, mathematical script has given rise to an even 
+more revolutionary writing system, a computerised binary 
+script consisting of only two signs: 0 and 1. The words I am 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+now typing on my keyboard are written within my computer 
+by different combinations of 0 and 1. 
+
+Writing was born as the maidservant of human 
+consciousness, but is increasingly becoming its master. Our 
+computers have trouble understanding how Homo sapiens 
+talks, feels and dreams. So we are teaching Homo sapiens to 
+talk, feel and dream in the language of numbers, which can 
+be understood by computers. 
+
+And this is not the end of the story. The eld of arti cial 
+intelligence is seeking to create a new kind of intelligence 
+based solely on the binary script of computers. 
+
+Science- ction movies such as The Matrix and The 
+Terminatorte\\ of a day when the binary script throws o the 
+yoke of humanity. When humans try to regain control of the 
+rebellious script, it responds by attempting to wipe out the 
+human race. 
+
+^_Even after Akkadian became the spoken language, 
+Sumerian remained the language of administration and thus 
+
+the language recorded with writing. Aspiring scribes thus 
+had to speak Sumerian. 
+
+8 
+
+There is No Justice in History 
+
+UNDERSTANDING HUMAN HISTORY IN THE millennia 
+following the Agricultural 
+
+Revolution boils down to a single question: how did humans 
+organise themselves in mass-cooperation networks, when 
+they lacked the biological instincts necessary to sustain 
+such networks? The short answer is that humans created 
+
+
+imagined orders and devised scripts. These two inventions 
+lied the gaps left by our biological inheritance. 
+
+
+However, the appearance of these networks was, for many, a 
+dubious blessing. 
+
+The imagined orders sustaining these networks were neither 
+neutral nor fair. They divided people into make-believe 
+groups, arranged in a hierarchy. The upper levels enjoyed 
+privileges and power, while the lower ones su ered from 
+discrimination and oppression. Hammurabi's Code, for 
+example, established a pecking order of superiors, 
+commoners and slaves. Superiors got all the good things in 
+life. Commoners got what was left. Slaves got a beating if 
+they complained. 
+
+Despite its proclamation of the equality of all men, the 
+imagined order established by the Americans in 1776 also 
+established a hierarchy. It created a hierarchy between men, 
+who bene ted from it, and women, whom it left 
+disempowered. It created a hierarchy between whites, who 
+enjoyed liberty, and blacks and American Indians, who were 
+considered humans of a lesser type and therefore did not 
+share in the equal rights of men. Many of those who signed 
+the Declaration of Independence were slaveholders. They 
+did not release their slaves upon signing the Declaration, 
+nor did they consider themselves hypocrites. In their view, 
+the rights of men had little to do with Negroes. 
+
+The American order also consecrated the hierarchy between 
+rich and poor. Most Americans at that time had little problem 
+with the inequality caused by wealthy parents passing their 
+money and businesses on to their children. In their view, 
+equality meant simply that the same laws applied to rich 
+and poor. It had nothing to do with unemployment bene ts, 
+integrated education or health insurance. 
+
+
+
+Liberty, too, carried very di erent connotations than it does 
+today. In 1776, it did not mean that the disempowered 
+(certainly not blacks or Indians or, God forbid, women) could 
+gain and exercise power. It meant simply that the state 
+could not, 
+
+
+
+
+RAND & SEE 
+ETBLANKESf' 
+
+ACH & SEA 
+HITES ONLY f. 
+
+
+
+
+~ - ?V 
+
+[*. - - 
+■■■H ■ r 
+
+
+
+except in unusual circumstances, con scate a citizen's 
+private property or tell him what to do with it. The American 
+order thereby upheld the hierarchy of wealth, which some 
+thought was mandated by God and others viewed as 
+representing the immutable laws of nature. Nature, it was 
+claimed, rewarded merit with wealth while penalising 
+indolence. 
+
+
+All the above-mentioned distinctions - between free persons 
+and slaves, between whites and blacks, between rich and 
+poor - are rooted in ctions. (The hierarchy of men and 
+women will be discussed later.) Yet it is an iron rule of history 
+that every imagined hierarchy disavows its ctional origins 
+and claims to be natural and inevitable. For instance, many 
+people who have viewed the hierarchy of free persons and 
+
+
+slaves as natural and correct have argued that slavery is not 
+a human invention. Hammurabi saw it as ordained by the 
+gods. 
+
+Aristotle argued that slaves have a 'slavish nature' whereas 
+free people have a 
+
+'free nature'. Their status in society is merely a reflection of 
+their innate nature. 
+
+Ask white supremacists about the racial hierarchy, and you 
+are in for a pseudoscienti c lecture concerning the biological 
+di erences between the races. 
+
+You are likely to be told that there is something in Caucasian 
+blood or genes that makes whites naturally more intelligent, 
+moral and hardworking. Ask a diehard capitalist about the 
+hierarchy of wealth, and you are likely to hear that it is the 
+inevitable outcome of objective di erences in abilities. The 
+rich have more money, in this view, because they are more 
+capable and diligent. No one should be bothered, then, if the 
+wealthy get better health care, better education and better 
+nutrition. The rich richly deserve every perk they enjoy. 
+
+21. A sign on a South African beach from the period 
+of apartheid, restricting its usage to whites' only. 
+
+People with lighter skin colour are typically more in 
+danger of sunburn than people with darker skin. Yet 
+
+there was no biological logic behind the division of 
+South African beaches. Beaches reserved for people 
+with lighter skin were not characterised by lower 
+levels of ultraviolet radiation. 
+
+Hindus who adhere to the caste system believe that cosmic 
+forces have made one caste superior to another. According 
+
+
+
+to a famous Hindu creation myth, the gods fashioned the 
+world out of the body of a primeval being, the Purusa. The 
+sun was created from the Purusa's eye, the moon from the 
+Purusa's brain, the Brahmins (priests) from its mouth, the 
+Kshatriyas (warriors) from its arms, the Vaishyas (peasants 
+and merchants) from its thighs, and the Shudras (servants) 
+from its legs. Accept this explanation and the sociopolitical 
+di erences between Brahmins and Shudras are as natural 
+and eternal as the di erences between the sun and the 
+moon. IThe ancient Chinese believed that when the 
+goddess Nu Wa created humans from earth, she kneaded 
+aristocrats from ne yellow soil, whereas commoners were 
+formed from brown mud. 2 
+
+Yet, to the best of our understanding, these hierarchies are 
+all the product of human imagination. Brahmins and 
+Shudras were not really created by the gods from different 
+body parts of a primeval being. Instead, the distinction 
+between the two castes was created by laws and norms 
+invented by humans in northern India about 3,000 years 
+ago. Contrary to Aristotle, there is no known biological di 
+erence between slaves and free people. Human laws and 
+norms have turned 
+
+some people into slaves and others into masters. Between 
+blacks and whites there are some objective biological di 
+erences, such as skin colour and hair type, but there is no 
+evidence that the differences extend to intelligence or 
+morality. 
+
+Most people claim that their social hierarchy is natural and 
+just, while those of other societies are based on false and 
+ridiculous criteria. Modern Westerners are taught to sco at 
+the idea of racial hierarchy. They are shocked by laws 
+prohibiting blacks to live in white neighbourhoods, or to 
+study in white schools, or to be treated in white hospitals. 
+
+
+But the hierarchy of rich and poor - which mandates that 
+rich people live in separate and more luxurious 
+neighbourhoods, study in separate and more prestigious 
+schools, and receive medical treatment in separate and 
+better-equipped facilities - seems perfectly sensible to many 
+Americans and Europeans. Yet it's a proven fact that most 
+rich people are rich for the simple reason that they were 
+born into a rich family, while most poor people will remain 
+poor throughout their lives simply because they were born 
+into a poor family. 
+
+Unfortunately, complex human societies seem to require 
+imagined hierarchies and unjust discrimination. Of course 
+not all hierarchies are morally identical, and some societies 
+su ered from more extreme types of discrimination than 
+others, yet scholars know of no large society that has been 
+able to dispense with 
+
+discrimination altogether. Time and again people have 
+created order in their societies by classifying the population 
+into imagined categories, such as superiors, commoners and 
+slaves; whites and blacks; patricians and plebeians; 
+Brahmins and Shudras; or rich and poor. These categories 
+have regulated relations between millions of humans by 
+making some people legally, politically or socially superior 
+to others. 
+
+Hierarchies serve an important function. They enable 
+complete strangers to know how to treat one another 
+without wasting the time and energy needed to become 
+personally acquainted. In George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, 
+Henry Higgins doesn't need to establish an intimate 
+acquaintance with Eliza Doolittle in order to understand how 
+he should relate to her. Just hearing her talk tells him that 
+she is a member of the underclass with whom he can do as 
+he wishes - for example, using her as a pawn in his bet to 
+
+
+
+pass o a ower girl as a duchess. A modern Eliza working at a 
+orist's needs to know how much e ort to put into selling 
+roses and gladioli to the dozens of people who enter the 
+shop each day. She can't make a detailed enquiry into the 
+tastes and wallets of each individual. 
+
+Instead, she uses social cues - the way the person is 
+dressed, his or her age, and if she's not politically correct his 
+skin colour. That is how she immediately distinguishes 
+between the accounting- rm partner who's likely to place a 
+large order for expensive roses, and a messenger boy who 
+can only a ord a bunch of daisies. 
+
+Of course, di erences in natural abilities also play a role in 
+the formation of social distinctions. But such diversities of 
+aptitudes and character are usually mediated through 
+imagined hierarchies. This happens in two important ways. 
+First and foremost, most abilities have to be nurtured and 
+developed. Even if somebody is born with a particular talent, 
+that talent will usually remain latent if it is not fostered, 
+honed and exercised. Not all people get the same chance to 
+cultivate and re ne their abilities. Whether or not they have 
+such an opportunity will usually depend on their place 
+within their society's imagined hierarchy. Harry Potter is a 
+good example. Removed from his distinguished wizard 
+family and brought up by ignorant muggles, he arrives at 
+Hogwarts without any experience in magic. It takes him 
+seven books to gain a rm command of his powers and 
+knowledge of 
+
+his unique abilities. 
+
+Second, even if people belonging to di erent classes develop 
+exactly the same abilities, they are unlikely to enjoy equal 
+success because they will have to play the game by di erent 
+rules. If, in British-ruled India, an Untouchable, a Brahmin, a 
+
+
+
+Catholic Irishman and a Protestant Englishman had 
+somehow developed exactly the same business acumen, 
+they still would not have had the same chance of becoming 
+rich. The economic game was rigged by legal restrictions 
+and uno cial glass ceilings. 
+
+The Vicious Circle 
+
+All societies are based on imagined hierarchies, but not 
+necessarily on the same hierarchies. What accounts for the 
+di erences? Why did traditional Indian society classify 
+people according to caste, Ottoman society according to 
+religion, and American society according to race? In most 
+cases the hierarchy originated as the result of a set of 
+accidental historical circumstances and was then 
+perpetuated and refined over many generations as different 
+groups developed vested interests in it. 
+
+For instance, many scholars surmise that the Hindu caste 
+system took shape when Indo-Aryan people invaded the 
+Indian subcontinent about 3,000 years ago, subjugating the 
+local population. The invaders established a strati ed 
+society, in which they - of course - occupied the leading 
+positions (priests and warriors), leaving the natives to live as 
+servants and slaves. The invaders, who were few in number, 
+feared losing their privileged status and unique identity. To 
+forestall this danger, they divided the population into 
+castes, each of which was required to pursue a speci c 
+occupation or perform a speci c role in society. Each had di 
+erent legal status, privileges and duties. Mixing of castes - 
+social interaction, marriage, even the sharing of meals - was 
+prohibited. And the distinctions were not just legal - they 
+became an inherent part of religious mythology and 
+practice. 
+
+
+
+The rulers argued that the caste system re ected an eternal 
+cosmic reality rather than a chance historical development. 
+Concepts of purity and impurity were essential elements in 
+Hindu religion, and they were harnessed to buttress the 
+social pyramid. Pious Hindus were taught that contact with 
+members of a di erent caste could pollute not only them 
+personally, but society as a whole, and should therefore be 
+abhorred. Such ideas are hardly unique to Hindus. 
+Throughout history, and in almost all societies, concepts of 
+pollution and purity have played a leading role in enforcing 
+social and political divisions and have been exploited by 
+numerous ruling classes to maintain their privileges. The 
+fear of pollution is not a complete fabrication of priests and 
+princes, however. It probably has its roots in biological 
+survival mechanisms that make humans feel an instinctive 
+revulsion towards potential disease carriers, such as sick 
+persons and dead bodies. If you want to keep any human 
+group isolated - women, Jews, Roma, gays, blacks - the best 
+way to do it is convince everyone that these people are a 
+source of pollution. 
+
+The Hindu caste system and its attendant laws of purity 
+became deeply embedded in Indian culture. Long after the 
+Indo-Aryan invasion was forgotten, Indians continued to 
+believe in the caste system and to abhor the pollution 
+caused by caste mixing. Castes were not immune to change. 
+In fact, as time went by, large castes were divided into sub¬ 
+castes. Eventually the original four castes turned into 3,000 
+di erent groupings called jati {literally 'birth')- But this 
+proliferation of castes did not change the basic principle of 
+the system, according 
+
+to which every person is born into a particular rank, and any 
+infringement of its rules pollutes the person and society as a 
+whole. A persons jati determines her profession, the food she 
+can eat, her place of residence and her eligible marriage 
+
+
+
+partners. Usually a person can marry only within his or her 
+caste, and the resulting children inherit that status. 
+
+Whenever a new profession developed or a new group of 
+people appeared on 
+
+the scene, they had to be recognised as a caste in order to 
+receive a legitimate place within Hindu society. Groups that 
+failed to win recognition as a caste were, literally, outcasts - 
+in this strati ed society, they did not even occupy the lowest 
+rung. They became known as Untouchables. They had to live 
+apart from all other people and scrape together a living in 
+humiliating and disgusting ways, such as sifting through 
+garbage dumps for scrap material. Even members of the 
+lowest caste avoided mingling with them, eating with them, 
+touching them and certainly marrying them. In modern 
+India, matters of marriage and work are still heavily in 
+uenced by the caste system, despite all attempts by the 
+democratic government of India to break down such 
+distinctions and convince Hindus that there is nothing 
+polluting in caste mixing.3 
+
+Purity in America 
+
+A similar vicious circle perpetuated the racial hierarchy in 
+modern America. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth 
+century, the European conquerors imported millions of 
+African slaves to work the mines and plantations of America. 
+They chose to import slaves from Africa rather than from 
+Europe or East Asia due to three circumstantial factors. 
+Firstly, Africa was closer, so it was cheaper to import slaves 
+from Senegal than from Vietnam. 
+
+Secondly, in Africa there already existed a well-developed 
+slave trade (exporting slaves mainly to the Middle East), 
+whereas in Europe slavery was very rare. It was obviously far 
+
+
+easier to buy slaves in an existing market than to create a 
+new one from scratch. 
+
+Thirdly, and most importantly, American plantations in 
+places such as Virginia, Haiti and Brazil were plagued by 
+malaria and yellow fever, which had originated in Africa. 
+Africans had acquired over the generations a partial genetic 
+immunity to these diseases, whereas Europeans were totally 
+defenceless and died in droves. 
+
+It was consequently wiser for a plantation owner to invest 
+his money in an African slave than in a European slave or 
+indentured labourer. Paradoxically, genetic superiority (in 
+terms of immunity) translated into social inferiority: 
+precisely because Africans were tter in tropical climates than 
+Europeans, they 
+
+ended up as the slaves of European masters! Due to these 
+circumstantial factors, the burgeoning new societies of 
+America were to be divided into a ruling caste of white 
+Europeans and a subjugated caste of black Africans. 
+
+But people don't like to say that they keep slaves of a 
+certain race or origin simply because it's economically 
+expedient. Like the Aryan conquerors of India, white 
+Europeans in the Americas wanted to be seen not only as 
+economically successful but also as pious, just and 
+objective. Religious and scienti c myths were pressed into 
+service to justify this division. Theologians argued that 
+Africans descend from Ham, son of Noah, saddled by his 
+father with a curse that his o spring would be slaves. 
+Biologists argued that blacks are less intelligent than whites 
+and their moral sense less developed. Doctors alleged that 
+blacks live in filth and spread diseases - in other words, they 
+are a source of pollution. 
+
+
+
+These myths struck a chord in American culture, and in 
+Western culture generally. They continued to exert their in 
+uence long after the conditions that created slavery had 
+disappeared. In the early nineteenth century imperial Britain 
+outlawed slavery and stopped the Atlantic slave trade, and 
+in the decades that followed slavery was gradually outlawed 
+throughout the American continent. 
+
+Notably, this was the rst and only time in history that 
+slaveholding societies voluntarily abolished slavery. But, 
+even though the slaves were freed, the racist myths that 
+justi ed slavery persisted. Separation of the races was 
+maintained by racist legislation and social custom. 
+
+The result was a self-reinforcing cycle of cause and e ect, a 
+vicious circle. 
+
+Consider, for example, the southern United States 
+immediately after the Civil War. 
+
+In 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution 
+outlawed slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment mandated 
+that citizenship and the equal protection of the law could 
+not be denied on the basis of race. However, two centuries 
+of slavery meant that most black families were far poorer 
+and far less educated than most white families. A black 
+person born in Alabama in 1865 thus had much less chance 
+of getting a good education and a well-paid job than did his 
+white neighbours. His children, born in the 1880S and 
+1890s, started life with the same disadvantage - they, too, 
+were born to an uneducated, poor family. 
+
+But economic disadvantage was not the whole story. 
+Alabama was also home to many poor whites who lacked the 
+opportunities available to their better-o racial brothers and 
+sisters. In addition, the Industrial Revolution and the waves 
+
+
+
+of immigration made the United States an extremely uid 
+society, where rags could quickly turn into riches. If money 
+was all that mattered, the sharp divide between the races 
+should soon have blurred, not least through intermarriage. 
+
+But that did not happen. By 1865 whites, as well as many 
+blacks, took it to be a simple matter of fact that blacks were 
+less intelligent, more violent and sexually dissolute, lazier 
+and less concerned about personal cleanliness than whites. 
+They 
+
+were thus the agents of violence, theft, rape and disease - in 
+other words, pollution. If a black Alabaman in 1895 
+miraculously managed to get a good education and then 
+applied for a respectable job such as a bank teller, his odds 
+of being accepted were far worse than those of an equally 
+quali ed white candidate. 
+
+The stigma that labelled blacks as, by nature, unreliable, 
+lazy and less intelligent conspired against him. 
+
+You might think that people would gradually understand 
+that these stigmas were myth rather than fact and that 
+blacks would be able, over time, to prove themselves just as 
+competent, law-abiding and clean as whites. In fact, the 
+opposite happened - these prejudices became more and 
+more entrenched as time went by. Since all the best jobs 
+were held by whites, it became easier to believe that blacks 
+really are inferior. 'Look,' said the average white citizen, 
+'blacks have been free for generations, yet there are almost 
+no black professors, lawyers, doctors or even bank tellers. 
+Isn't that proof that blacks are simply less intelligent and 
+hard-working?' Trapped in this vicious circle, blacks were not 
+hired for white-collar jobs because they were deemed 
+unintelligent, and the proof of their inferiority was the 
+paucity of blacks in white-collar jobs. 
+
+
+
+The vicious circle did not stop there. As anti-black stigmas 
+grew stronger, they were translated into a system of 'Jim 
+Crow' laws and norms that were meant to safeguard the 
+racial order. Blacks were forbidden to vote in elections, to 
+study in white schools, to buy in white stores, to eat in white 
+restaurants, to sleep in white hotels. The justi cation for all 
+of this was that blacks were foul, slothful and vicious, so 
+whites had to be protected from them. Whites did not want 
+to sleep in the same hotel as blacks or to eat in the same 
+restaurant, for fear of diseases. They did not want their 
+children learning in the same school as black children, for 
+fear of brutality and bad in uences. They did not want blacks 
+voting in elections, since blacks were ignorant and immoral. 
+These fears were substantiated by scienti c studies that 
+'proved' that blacks were indeed less educated, that various 
+diseases were more common among them, and that their 
+crime rate was far higher (the studies ignored the fact that 
+these 'facts' resulted from discrimination against blacks). 
+
+By the mid-twentieth century, segregation in the former 
+Confederate states was probably worse than in the late 
+nineteenth century. Clennon King, a black student who 
+applied to the University of Mississippi in 1958, was 
+forcefully committed to a mental asylum. The presiding 
+judge ruled that a black person must surely be insane to 
+think that he could be admitted to the University of 
+Mississippi. 
+
+
+
+Chance historical event 
+
+
+White control of blacks 
+
+Discriminatory laws 
+
+Poverty and lack of 
+education among blacks 
+
+Cultural prejudices 
+
+The vicious circle: a chance histotical situation is translated 
+into a rigid social system. 
+
+Nothing was as revolting to American southerners (and 
+many northerners) as sexual relations and marriage between 
+black men and white women. Sex between the races became 
+the greatest taboo and any violation, or suspected violation, 
+was viewed as deserving immediate and summary 
+punishment in the form of lynching. 
+
+The Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist secret society, 
+perpetrated many such killings. They could have taught the 
+Hindu Brahmins a thing or two about purity laws. 
+
+With time, the racism spread to more and more cultural 
+arenas. American aesthetic culture was built around white 
+standards of beauty. The physical attributes of the white 
+race - for example light skin, fair and straight hair, a small 
+upturned nose - came to be identi ed as beautiful. Typical 
+black features - dark skin, dark and bushy hair, a attened 
+nose - were deemed ugly. These preconceptions ingrained 
+the imagined hierarchy at an even deeper level of human 
+consciousness. 
+
+
+Such vicious circles can go on for centuries and even 
+millennia, perpetuating an imagined hierarchy that sprang 
+from a chance historical occurrence. Unjust discrimination 
+often gets worse, not better, with time. Money comes to 
+money, and poverty to poverty. Education comes to 
+education, and ignorance to ignorance. Those once 
+victimised by history are likely to be victimised yet again. 
+
+And those whom history has privileged are more likely to be 
+privileged again. 
+
+Most sociopolitical hierarchies lack a logical or biological 
+basis - they are nothing but the perpetuation of chance 
+events supported by myths. That is one good reason to 
+study history. If the division into blacks and whites or 
+Brahmins and Shudras was grounded in biological realities - 
+that is, if Brahmins really had better brains than Shudras - 
+biology would be su dent for understanding human society. 
+Since the biological distinctions between di erent groups of 
+Homo sapiens are, in fact, negligible, biology can't explain 
+the intricacies of Indian society or 
+
+American racial dynamics. We can only understand those 
+phenomena by studying the events, circumstances, and 
+power relations that transformed gments of imagination into 
+cruel - and very real - social structures. 
+
+He and She 
+
+Di erent societies adopt di erent kinds of imagined 
+hierarchies. Race is very important to modern Americans but 
+was relatively insigni cant to medieval Muslims. Caste was a 
+matter of life and death in medieval India, whereas in 
+modern Europe it is practically non-existent. One hierarchy, 
+however, has been of supreme importance in all known 
+human societies: the hierarchy of gender. 
+
+
+
+People everywhere have divided themselves into men and 
+women. And almost everywhere men have got the better 
+deal, at least since the Agricultural Revolution. 
+
+Some of the earliest Chinese texts are oracle bones, dating 
+to 1200 BC, used to divine the future. On one was engraved 
+the question: 'Will Lady Hao's childbearing be lucky?' To 
+which was written the reply: 'If the child is born on a ding 
+day, lucky; if on a geng day, vastly auspicious.' However, 
+Lady Hao was to give birth on a jiayin day. The text ends 
+with the morose observation: 'Three weeks and one day 
+later, on jiayin day, the child was born. Not lucky. It was a 
+girl. '4 
+
+More than 3,000 years later, when Communist China 
+enacted the 'one child' 
+
+policy, many Chinese families continued to regard the birth 
+of a girl as a misfortune. Parents would occasionally abandon 
+or murder newborn baby girls in order to have another shot 
+at getting a boy. 
+
+In many societies women were simply the property of men, 
+most often their fathers, husbands or brothers. Rape, in 
+many legal systems, falls under property violation - in other 
+words, the victim is not the woman who was raped but the 
+male who owns her. This being the case, the legal remedy 
+was the transfer of ownership - the rapist was required to 
+pay a bride price to the woman's father or brother, upon 
+which she became the rapist's property. The Bible decrees 
+that 'If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and 
+seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the 
+man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young 
+woman fty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife' 
+(Deuteronomy 22:28-9). The ancient Hebrews considered 
+this a reasonable arrangement. 
+
+
+Raping a woman who did not belong to any man was not 
+considered a crime at 
+
+all, just as picking up a lost coin on a busy street is not 
+considered theft. And if a husband raped his own wife, he 
+had committed no crime. In fact, the idea that a husband 
+could rape his wife was an oxymoron. To be a husband was 
+to have full 
+
+control of your wife's sexuality. To say that a husband 'raped' 
+his wife was as illogical as saying that a man stole his own 
+wallet. Such thinking was not confined to the ancient Middle 
+East. As of 2006, there were still fty-three countries where a 
+husband could not be prosecuted for the rape of his wife. 
+Even in Germany, rape laws were amended only in 1997 to 
+create a legal category of marital rape. 5 
+
+Is the division into men and women a product of the 
+imagination, like the caste system in India and the racial 
+system in America, or is it a natural division with deep 
+biological roots? And if it is indeed a natural division, are 
+there also biological explanations for the preference given to 
+men over women? 
+
+Some of the cultural, legal and political disparities between 
+men and women re ect the obvious biological di erences 
+between the sexes. Childbearing has always been women's 
+job, because men don't have wombs. Yet around this hard 
+universal kernel, every society accumulated layer upon layer 
+of cultural ideas and norms that have little to do with 
+biology. Societies associate a host of attributes with 
+masculinity and femininity that, for the most part, lack a rm 
+biological basis. 
+
+For instance, in democratic Athens of the fth century BC, an 
+individual possessing a womb had no independent legal 
+
+
+status and was forbidden to participate in popular 
+assemblies or to be a judge. With few exceptions, such an 
+individual could not bene t from a good education, nor 
+engage in business or in philosophical discourse. None of 
+Athens' political leaders, none of its great philosophers, 
+orators, artists or merchants had a womb. Does having a 
+womb make a person un t, biologically, for these 
+professions? The ancient Athenians thought so. Modern 
+Athenians disagree. In present-day Athens, women vote, are 
+elected to public o ce, make speeches, design everything 
+from jewellery to buildings to software, and go to university. 
+Their wombs do not keep them from doing any of these 
+things as successfully as men do. True, they are still under¬ 
+represented in politics and business - only about 12 per cent 
+of the members of Greece's parliament are women. But there 
+is no legal barrier to their participation in politics, and most 
+modern Greeks think it is quite normal for a woman to serve 
+in public office. 
+
+Many modern Greeks also think that an integral part of 
+being a man is being sexually attracted to women only, and 
+having sexual relations exclusively with the opposite sex. 
+They don't see this as a cultural bias, but rather as a 
+biological reality - relations between two people of the 
+opposite sex are natural, and between two people of the 
+same sex unnatural. In fact, though, Mother Nature does not 
+mind if men are sexually attracted to one another. It's only 
+human mothers steeped in particular cultures who make a 
+scene if their son has a ing with the boy next door. The 
+mother's tantrums are not a biological imperative. A signi 
+cant number of human cultures have viewed homosexual 
+relations as not 
+
+only legitimate but even socially constructive, ancient 
+Greece being the most notable example. The Iliad does not 
+mention that Thetis had any objection to her son Achilles' 
+
+
+
+relations with Patroclus. Queen Olympias of Macedon was 
+one of the most temperamental and forceful women of the 
+ancient world, and even had her own husband, King Philip, 
+assassinated. Yet she didn't have a t when her son, 
+
+Alexander the Great, brought his lover Hephaestion home 
+for dinner. 
+
+How can we distinguish what is biologically determined from 
+what people merely try to justify through biological myths? 
+
+A good rule of thumb is 'Biology enables, Culture forbids.' 
+Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of 
+possibilities. It's culture that obliges people to realise some 
+possibilities while forbidding others. Biology enables women 
+to have children - some cultures oblige women to realise this 
+possibility. Biology enables men to enjoy sex with one 
+another - some cultures forbid them to realise this 
+possibility. 
+
+Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is 
+unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is 
+unnatural. Whatever is possible is by de nition also natural. 
+
+A truly unnatural behaviour, one that goes against the laws 
+of nature, simply cannot exist, so it would need no 
+prohibition. No culture has ever bothered to forbid men to 
+photosynthesise, women to run faster than the speed of 
+light, or negatively charged electrons to be attracted to each 
+other. 
+
+In truth, our concepts 'natural' and unnatural' are taken not 
+from biology, but from Christian theology. The theological 
+meaning of 'natural' is 'in accordance with the intentions of 
+the God who created nature'. Christian theologians argued 
+that God created the human body, intending each limb and 
+organ to serve a particular purpose. If we use our limbs and 
+organs for the purpose envisioned by God, then it is a 
+natural activity. To use them di erently than God intends is 
+
+
+
+unnatural. But evolution has no purpose. Organs have not 
+evolved with a purpose, and the way they are used is in 
+constant ux. There is not a single organ in the human body 
+that only does the job its prototype did when it rst appeared 
+hundreds of millions of years ago. Organs evolve to perform 
+a particular function, but once they exist, they can be 
+adapted for other usages as well. Mouths, for example, 
+appeared because the earliest multicellular organisms 
+needed a way to take nutrients into their bodies. We still use 
+our mouths for that purpose, but we also use them to kiss, 
+speak and, if we are Rambo, to pull the pins out of hand 
+grenades. Are any of these uses unnatural simply because 
+our worm-like ancestors 600 million years ago didn't do 
+those things with their mouths? 
+
+Similarly, wings didn't suddenly appear in all their 
+aerodynamic glory. They developed from organs that served 
+another purpose. According to one theory, insect wings 
+evolved millions of years ago from body protrusions on 
+ightless bugs. Bugs with bumps had a larger surface area 
+than those without bumps, and this enabled them to absorb 
+more sunlight and thus stay warmer. In a slow 
+
+evolutionary process, these solar heaters grew larger. The 
+same structure that was good for maximum sunlight 
+absorption - lots of surface area, little weight - also, by 
+coincidence, gave the insects a bit of a lift when they 
+skipped and jumped. 
+
+Those with bigger protrusions could skip and jump farther. 
+Some insects started using the things to glide, and from 
+there it was a small step to wings that could actually propel 
+the bug through the air. Next time a mosquito buzzes in 
+your ear, accuse her of unnatural behaviour. If she were well 
+behaved and content with what God gave her, she'd use her 
+wings only as solar panels. 
+
+
+
+The same sort of multitasking applies to our sexual organs 
+and behaviour. Sex rst evolved for procreation and courtship 
+rituals as a way of sizing up the tness of a potential mate. 
+But many animals now put both to use for a multitude of 
+social purposes that have little to do with creating little 
+copies of themselves. 
+
+Chimpanzees, for example, use sex to cement political 
+alliances, establish intimacy and defuse tensions. Is that 
+unnatural? 
+
+Sex and Gender 
+
+There is little sense, then, in arguing that the natural 
+function of women is to give birth, or that homosexuality is 
+unnatural. Most of the laws, norms, rights and obligations 
+that de ne manhood and womanhood re ect human 
+imagination more than biological reality. 
+
+Biologically, humans are divided into males and females. A 
+male Homo sapiens is one who has one X chromosome and 
+one Y chromosome; a female is one with 
+
+two Xs. But 'man' and woman' name social, not biological, 
+categories. While in the great majority of cases in most 
+human societies men are males and women are females, the 
+social terms carry a lot of baggage that has only a tenuous, 
+if any, relationship to the biological terms. A man is not a 
+Sapiens with particular biological qualities such as XY 
+chromosomes, testicles and lots of testosterone. 
+
+Rather, he ts into a particular slot in his society's imagined 
+human order. His culture's myths assign him particular 
+masculine roles (like engaging in politics), rights (like 
+voting) and duties (like military service). Likewise, a woman 
+is not a Sapiens with two X chromosomes, a womb and 
+plenty of oestrogen. Rather, she is a female member of an 
+
+
+
+imagined human order. The myths of her society assign her 
+unique feminine roles (raising children), rights (protection 
+against violence) and duties (obedience to her husband). 
+Since myths, rather than biology, de ne the roles, rights and 
+duties of men and women, the meaning of 'manhood' and 
+
+'womanhood' have varied immensely from one society to 
+another. 
+
+
+A female 
+
+■ a biological category 
+
+9 A woman 
+
+H =a cultural category 
+
+Ancient 
+
+Modern 
+
+Ancient 
+
+Modern 
+
+Athens 
+
+Athens 
+
+Athens 
+
+Athens 
+
+XX 
+
+XX 
+
+Can’t vote 
+
+Can vote 
+
+chromosomes 
+
+chromosomes 
+
+
+
+Womb 
+
+Womb 
+
+Can’t be a 
+
+Can be a judge 
+
+
+
+judge 
+
+
+Ovaries 
+
+Ovaries 
+
+Can’t hold 
+
+Can hold 
+
+
+
+government 
+
+government 
+
+
+
+office 
+
+office 
+
+Little 
+
+Little 
+
+Can’t decide 
+
+Can decide for 
+
+testosterone 
+
+testosterone 
+
+for herself who 
+
+herself who to 
+
+
+
+to marry 
+
+marry 
+
+Much 
+
+Much 
+
+Typically 
+
+Typically 
+
+oestrogen 
+
+oestrogen 
+
+illiterate 
+
+literate 
+
+Can produce 
+
+Can produce 
+
+Legally owned 
+
+Legally 
+
+milk 
+
+milk 
+
+by father or 
+
+independent 
+
+
+
+husband 
+
+
+Exactly the same thing 
+
+Very different things 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+22. Eiahteenth-centurv masculinity: an official 
+portrait of King Louis XIV of France. Note the long 
+wig, stockings, high-heeled shoes, dancers posture - 
+and huge sword. In contemporary Europe, all these 
+(except for the sword) would be considered marks of 
+effeminacy. But in his time Louis was a European 
+paragon of manhood and virility. 
+
+
+
+
+23. Twentv-first-centurv masculinity: an official 
+portrait of Barack Obama. What happened to the 
+wig, stockings, high heels - and sword? Dominant 
+men have never looked so dull and dreary as they do 
+today. 
+
+During most of history, dominant men have been 
+colourful and flamboyant, such as American Indian 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+chiefs with their feathered headdresses and Hindu 
+maharajas decked out in silks and diamonds. 
+
+Throughout the animal kingdom males tend to be 
+more colourful and accessorised than females - think 
+of peacocks' tails and lions' manes. 
+
+To make things less confusing, scholars usually distinguish 
+between 'sex', which is a biological category, and 'gender', a 
+cultural category. Sex is divided between males and 
+females, and the qualities of this division are objective and 
+have remained constant throughout history. Gender is 
+divided between men and women (and some cultures 
+recognise other categories). So-called 'masculine' and 
+
+'feminine' qualities are inter-subjective and undergo 
+constant changes. For 
+
+example, there are far-reaching di erences in the behaviour, 
+desires, dress and even body posture expected from women 
+in classical Athens and women in modern Athens. 6 
+
+Sex is child's play; but gender is serious business. To get to 
+be a member of the male sex is the simplest thing in the 
+world. You just need to be born with an X and a Y 
+chromosome. To get to be a female is equally simple. A pair 
+of X chromosomes will do it. In contrast, becoming a man or 
+a woman is a very complicated and demanding undertaking. 
+Since most masculine and feminine qualities are cultural 
+rather than biological, no society automatically crowns each 
+male a man, or every female a woman. Nor are these titles 
+laurels that can be rested on once they are acquired. Males 
+must prove their masculinity constantly, throughout their 
+lives, from cradle to grave, in an endless series of rites and 
+performances. And a woman's work is never done - she must 
+
+
+continually convince herself and others that she is feminine 
+enough. 
+
+Success is not guaranteed. Males in particular live in 
+constant dread of losing their claim to manhood. Throughout 
+history, males have been willing to risk and even sacrifice 
+their lives, just so that people will say 'He's a real man!' 
+
+What's So Good About Men? 
+
+At least since the Agricultural Revolution, most human 
+societies have been patriarchal societies that valued men 
+more highly than women. No matter how a society de ned 
+'man' and 'woman', to be a man was always better. 
+Patriarchal societies educate men to think and act in a 
+masculine way and women to think and act in a feminine 
+way, punishing anyone who dares cross those boundaries. 
+
+Yet they do not equally reward those who conform. Qualities 
+considered masculine are more valued than those 
+considered feminine, and members of a society who 
+personify the feminine ideal get less than those who 
+exemplify the masculine ideal. Fewer resources are invested 
+in the health and education of women; they have fewer 
+economic opportunities, less political power, and less 
+freedom of movement. Gender is a race in which some of the 
+runners compete only for the bronze medal. 
+
+True, a handful of women have made it to the alpha position, 
+such as Cleopatra of Egypt, Empress Wu Zetian of China ( c. 
+AD 700) and Elizabeth I of England. Yet they are the 
+exceptions that prove the rule. Throughout Elizabeth's forty- 
+ve-year reign, all Members of Parliament were men, all o cers 
+in the Royal Navy and army were men, all judges and 
+lawyers were men, all bishops and archbishops were men, all 
+
+
+
+theologians and priests were men, all doctors and surgeons 
+were 
+
+men, all students and professors in all universities and 
+colleges were men, all mayors and sheri s were men, and 
+almost all the writers, architects, poets, philosophers, 
+painters, musicians and scientists were men. 
+
+Patriarchy has been the norm in almost all agricultural and 
+industrial societies. 
+
+It has tenaciously weathered political upheavals, social 
+revolutions and economic transformations. Egypt, for 
+example, was conquered numerous times over the centuries. 
+Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Arabs, 
+
+Mameluks, Turks and British occupied it - and its society 
+always remained patriarchal. Egypt was governed by 
+pharaonic law, Greek law, Roman law, Muslim law, Ottoman 
+law and British law - and they all discriminated against 
+people who were not 'real men'. 
+
+Since patriarchy is so universal, it cannot be the product of 
+some vicious circle that was kick-started by a chance 
+occurrence. It is particularly noteworthy that even before 
+1492, most societies in both America and Afro-Asia were 
+patriarchal, even though they had been out of contact for 
+thousands of years. If patriarchy in Afro-Asia resulted from 
+some chance occurrence, why were the Aztecs and Incas 
+patriarchal? It is far more likely that even though the precise 
+de nition of 'man' 
+
+and 'woman' varies between cultures, there is some 
+universal biological reason why almost all cultures valued 
+manhood over womanhood. We do not know what 
+
+this reason is. There are plenty of theories, none of them 
+convincing. 
+
+
+
+Muscle Power 
+
+
+The most common theory points to the fact that men are 
+stronger than women, and that they have used their greater 
+physical power to force women into submission. A more 
+subtle version of this claim argues that their strength allows 
+men to monopolise tasks that demand hard manual labour, 
+such as ploughing and harvesting. This gives them control of 
+food production, which in turn translates into political clout. 
+
+There are two problems with this emphasis on muscle power. 
+First, the statement that men are stronger than women' is 
+true only on average, and only with regard to certain types 
+of strength. Women are generally more resistant to hunger, 
+disease and fatigue than men. There are also many women 
+who can run faster and lift heavier weights than many men. 
+Furthermore, and most problematically for this theory, 
+women have, throughout history, been excluded mainly 
+from jobs that require little physical e ort (such as the 
+priesthood, law and politics), while engaging in hard manual 
+labour in the elds, in crafts and in the household. If social 
+power were divided in direct relation to physical strength or 
+
+stamina, women should have got far more of it. 
+
+Even more importantly, there simply is no direct relation 
+between physical strength and social power among humans. 
+People in their sixties usually exercise power over people in 
+their twenties, even though twentysomethings are much 
+stronger than their elders. The typical plantation owner in 
+Alabama in the mid-nineteenth century could have been 
+wrestled to the ground in seconds by any of the slaves 
+cultivating his cotton elds. Boxing matches were not used to 
+select Egyptian pharaohs or Catholic popes. In forager 
+societies, political dominance generally resides with the 
+person possessing the best social skills rather than the most 
+
+
+
+developed musculature. In organised crime, the big boss is 
+not necessarily the strongest man. He is often an older man 
+who very rarely uses his own sts; he gets younger and tter 
+men to do the dirty jobs for him. A guy who thinks that the 
+way to take over the syndicate is to beat up the don is 
+unlikely to live long enough to learn from his mistake. Even 
+among chimpanzees, the alpha male wins his position by 
+building a stable coalition with other males and females, not 
+through mindless violence. 
+
+In fact, human history shows that there is often an inverse 
+relation between physical prowess and social power. In most 
+societies, it's the lower classes who do the manual labour. 
+This may re ect Homo sapiens position in the food chain. If 
+all that counted were raw physical abilities, Sapiens would 
+have found themselves on a middle rung of the ladder. But 
+their mental and social skills placed them at the top. It is 
+therefore only natural that the chain of power within the 
+species will also be determined by mental and social 
+abilities more than by brute force. It is therefore hard to 
+believe that the most in uential and most stable social 
+hierarchy in history is founded on men's ability physically to 
+coerce women. 
+
+The Scum of Society 
+
+Another theory explains that masculine dominance results 
+not from strength but from aggression. Millions of years of 
+evolution have made men far more violent than women. 
+Women can match men as far as hatred, greed and abuse 
+are concerned, but when push comes to shove, the theory 
+goes, men are more willing to engage in raw physical 
+violence. This is why throughout history warfare has been a 
+masculine prerogative. 
+
+
+
+In times of war, men's control of the armed forces has made 
+them the masters of civilian society, too. They then used 
+their control of civilian society to ght more and more wars, 
+and the greater the number of wars, the greater men's 
+control of society. This feedback loop explains both the 
+ubiquity of war and the ubiquity of 
+
+patriarchy. 
+
+Recent studies of the hormonal and cognitive systems of 
+men and women strengthen the assumption that men 
+indeed have more aggressive and violent tendencies, and 
+are therefore, on average, better suited to serve as common 
+soldiers. Yet granted that the common soldiers are all men, 
+does it follow that the ones managing the war and enjoying 
+its fruits must also be men? That makes no sense. It's like 
+assuming that because all the slaves cultivating cotton elds 
+are black, plantation owners will be black as well. Just as an 
+all-black workforce might be controlled by an all-white 
+management, why couldn't an all-male soldiery be 
+controlled by an all-female or at least partly female 
+government? In fact, in numerous societies throughout 
+history, the top o cers did not work their way up from the 
+rank of private. Aristocrats, the wealthy and the educated 
+were automatically assigned officer rank and never served a 
+day in the ranks. 
+
+When the Duke of Wellington, Napoleon's nemesis, enlisted 
+in the British army at the age of eighteen, he was 
+immediately commissioned as an o cer. He didn't think much 
+of the plebeians under his command. 'We have in the 
+service the scum of the earth as common soldiers,' he wrote 
+to a fellow aristocrat during the wars against France. These 
+common soldiers were usually recruited from among the 
+very poorest, or from ethnic minorities (such as the Irish 
+Catholics). Their chances of ascending the military ranks 
+
+
+
+were negligible. The senior ranks were reserved for dukes, 
+princes and kings. But why only for dukes, and not for 
+duchesses? 
+
+The French Empire in Africa was established and defended 
+by the sweat and blood of Senegalese, Algerians and 
+working-class Frenchmen. The percentage of well-born 
+Frenchmen within the ranks was negligible. Yet the 
+percentage of well-born Frenchmen within the small elite 
+that led the French army, ruled the empire and enjoyed its 
+fruits was very high. Why just Frenchmen, and not French 
+women? 
+
+In China there was a long tradition of subjugating the army 
+to the civilian bureaucracy, so mandarins who had never 
+held a sword often ran the wars. 'You do not waste good iron 
+to make nails,' went a common Chinese saying, meaning 
+that really talented people join the civil bureaucracy, not the 
+army. Why, then, were all of these mandarins men? 
+
+One can't reasonably argue that their physical weakness or 
+low testosterone levels prevented women from being 
+successful mandarins, generals and politicians. In order to 
+manage a war, you surely need stamina, but not much 
+physical strength or aggressiveness. Wars are not a pub 
+brawl. They are very complex projects that require an 
+extraordinary degree of organisation, cooperation and 
+appeasement. The ability to maintain peace at home, 
+acquire allies abroad, and understand what goes through 
+the minds of other people (particularly your enemies) is 
+usually the key to victory. Hence an aggressive 
+
+brute is often the worst choice to run a war. Much better is a 
+cooperative person who knows how to appease, how to 
+manipulate and how to see things from di erent 
+perspectives. This is the stu empire-builders are made of. 
+
+
+
+The militarily incompetent Augustus succeeded in 
+establishing a stable imperial regime, achieving something 
+that eluded both Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, who 
+were much better generals. Both his admiring 
+contemporaries and modern historians often attribute this 
+feat to his virtue of dementia - mildness and clemency. 
+
+Women are often stereotyped as better manipulators and 
+appeasers than men, 
+
+and are famed for their superior ability to see things from 
+the perspective of others. If there's any truth in these 
+stereotypes, then women should have made excellent 
+politicians and empire-builders, leaving the dirty work on 
+the battlefields to testosterone-charged but simple-minded 
+machos. Popular myths 
+
+notwithstanding, this rarely happened in the real world. It is 
+not at all clear why not. 
+
+Patriarchal Genes 
+
+A third type of biological explanation gives less importance 
+to brute force and violence, and suggests that through 
+millions of years of evolution, men and women evolved di 
+erent survival and reproduction strategies. As men 
+competed against each other for the opportunity to 
+impregnate fertile women, an individual's chances of 
+reproduction depended above all on his ability to 
+outperform and defeat other men. As time went by, the 
+masculine genes that made it to the next generation were 
+those belonging to the most ambitious, aggressive and 
+competitive men. 
+
+A woman, on the other hand, had no problem nding a man 
+willing to impregnate her. However, if she wanted her 
+children to provide her with grandchildren, she needed to 
+
+
+
+carry them in her womb for nine arduous months, and then 
+nurture them for years. During that time she had fewer 
+opportunities to obtain food, and required a lot of help. She 
+needed a man. In order to ensure her own survival and the 
+survival of her children, the woman had little choice but to 
+agree to whatever conditions the man stipulated so that he 
+would stick around and share some of the burden. As time 
+went by, the feminine genes that made it to the next 
+generation belonged to women who were submissive 
+caretakers. Women who spent too much time ghting for 
+power did not leave any of those powerful genes for future 
+generations. 
+
+The result of these di erent survival strategies - so the 
+theory goes - is that men 
+
+have been programmed to be ambitious and competitive, 
+and to excel in politics and business, whereas women have 
+tended to move out of the way and dedicate their lives to 
+raising children. 
+
+But this approach also seems to be belied by the empirical 
+evidence. Particularly problematic is the assumption that 
+women's dependence on external help made them 
+dependent on men, rather than on other women, and that 
+male competitiveness made men socially dominant. There 
+are many species of animals, such as elephants and bonobo 
+chimpanzees, in which the dynamics between dependent 
+females and competitive males results in a matriarchal 
+society. Since females need external help, they are obliged 
+to develop their social skills and learn how to cooperate and 
+appease. They construct all-female social networks that help 
+each member raise her children. Males, meanwhile, spend 
+their time ghting and competing. Their social skills and 
+social bonds remain 
+
+
+
+underdeveloped. Bonobo and elephant societies are 
+controlled by strong networks of cooperative females, while 
+the self-centred and uncooperative males are pushed to the 
+sidelines. Though bonobo females are weaker on average 
+than the males, the females often gang up to beat males 
+who overstep their limits. 
+
+If this is possible among bonobos and elephants, why not 
+among Homo sapiens ? 
+
+Sapiens are relatively weak animals, whose advantage rests 
+in their ability to cooperate in large numbers. If so, we 
+should expect that dependent women, even if they are 
+dependent on men, would use their superior social skills to 
+cooperate to outmanoeuvre and manipulate aggressive, 
+autonomous and self-centred men. 
+
+How did it happen that in the one species whose success 
+depends above all on cooperation, individuals who are 
+supposedly less cooperative (men) control individuals who 
+are supposedly more cooperative (women)? At present, we 
+have no good answer. Maybe the common assumptions are 
+just wrong. Maybe males of the 
+
+species Homo sapiens are characterised not by physical 
+strength, aggressiveness and competitiveness, but rather by 
+superior social skills and a greater tendency to cooperate. 
+We just don't know. 
+
+What we do know, however, is that during the last century 
+gender roles have undergone a tremendous revolution. More 
+and more societies today not only give men and women 
+equal legal status, political rights and economic 
+opportunities, but also completely rethink their most basic 
+conceptions of gender and sexuality. 
+
+
+
+Though the gender gap is still signi cant, events have been 
+moving at a breathtaking speed. At the beginning of the 
+twentieth century the idea of giving voting rights to women 
+was generally seen in the USA as outrageous; the prospect 
+of a female cabinet secretary or Supreme Court justice was 
+simply ridiculous; whereas homosexuality was such a taboo 
+subject that it could not even be openly discussed. At the 
+beginning of the twenty- rst century women's voting rights 
+are taken for granted; female cabinet secretaries are hardly 
+a cause for comment; and 
+
+in 2013 ve US Supreme Court justices, three of them 
+women, decided in favour of legalising same-sex marriages 
+(overruling the objections of four male justices). 
+
+These dramatic changes are precisely what makes the 
+history of gender so bewildering. If, as is being 
+demonstrated today so clearly, the patriarchal system has 
+been based on unfounded myths rather than on biological 
+facts, what accounts for the universality and stability of this 
+system? 
+
+
+
+Part Three 
+
+
+The Unification of Humankind 
+
+
+24. Pilgrims circling the Ka'aba in Mecca. 
+
+9 
+
+The Arrow of History 
+
+AFTER THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION, human societies 
+grew ever larger and 
+
+more complex, while the imagined constructs sustaining the 
+social order also became more elaborate. Myths and ctions 
+accustomed people, nearly from the moment of birth, to 
+think in certain ways, to behave in accordance with certain 
+standards, to want certain things, and to observe certain 
+rules. They thereby created arti cial instincts that enabled 
+millions of strangers to cooperate effectively. This network of 
+artificial instincts is called culture'. 
+
+During the rst half of the twentieth century, scholars taught 
+that every culture was complete and harmonious, 
+possessing an unchanging essence that de ned it for all 
+time. Each human group had its own world view and system 
+of social, legal and political arrangements that ran as 
+smoothly as the planets going around the sun. In this view, 
+cultures left to their own devices did not change. They just 
+kept going at the same pace and in the same direction. Only 
+a force applied from outside could change them. 
+Anthropologists, historians and politicians thus referred to 
+'Samoan Culture' or Tasmanian Culture' as if the same 
+beliefs, norms and values had characterised Samoans and 
+Tasmanians from time immemorial. 
+
+Today, most scholars of culture have concluded that the 
+opposite is true. Every culture has its typical beliefs, norms 
+and values, but these are in constant ux. The culture may 
+
+
+
+transform itself in response to changes in its environment or 
+through interaction with neighbouring cultures. But cultures 
+also undergo transitions due to their own internal dynamics. 
+Even a completely isolated culture existing in an 
+ecologically stable environment cannot avoid change. 
+
+Unlike the laws of physics, which are free of inconsistencies, 
+every man-made order is packed with internal 
+contradictions. Cultures are constantly trying to reconcile 
+these contradictions, and this process fuels change. 
+
+For instance, in medieval Europe the nobility believed in 
+both Christianity and chivalry. A typical nobleman went to 
+church in the morning, and listened as the priest held forth 
+on the lives of the saints. 'Vanity of vanities,' said the priest, 
+'all is vanity. Riches, lust and honour are dangerous 
+temptations. You must rise above them, and follow in 
+Christ's footsteps. Be meek like Him, avoid violence and 
+extravagance, and if attacked - just turn the other cheek.' 
+Returning home in a 
+
+meek and pensive mood, the nobleman would change into 
+his best silks and go to a banquet in his lord's castle. There 
+the wine owed like water, the minstrel sang of Lancelot and 
+Guinevere, and the guests exchanged dirty jokes and bloody 
+war tales. 'It is better to die,' declared the barons, 'than to 
+live with shame. If someone questions your honour, only 
+blood can wipe out the insult. And what is better in life than 
+to see your enemies flee before you, and their pretty 
+daughters tremble at your feet?' 
+
+The contradiction was never fully resolved. But as the 
+European nobility, clergy and commoners grappled with it, 
+their culture changed. One attempt to gure it out produced 
+the Crusades. On crusade, knights could demonstrate their 
+military prowess and their religious devotion at one stroke. 
+The same contradiction produced military orders such as the 
+
+
+
+Templars and Hospitallers, who tried to mesh Christian and 
+chivalric ideals even more tightly. It was also responsible for 
+a large part of medieval art and literature, such as the tales 
+of King Arthur and the Holy Grail. What was Camelot but an 
+attempt to prove that a good knight can and should be a 
+good Christian, and that good Christians make the best 
+knights? 
+
+Another example is the modern political order. Ever since 
+the French Revolution, people throughout the world have 
+gradually come to see both equality and individual freedom 
+as fundamental values. Yet the two values contradict each 
+other. Equality can be ensured only by curtailing the 
+freedoms of those who are better o . Guaranteeing that 
+every individual will be free to do as he wishes inevitably 
+short-changes equality. The entire political history of the 
+world since 1789 can be seen as a series of attempts to 
+reconcile this contradiction. 
+
+Anyone who has read a novel by Charles Dickens knows that 
+the liberal regimes of nineteenth-century Europe gave 
+priority to individual freedom even if it meant throwing 
+insolvent poor families in prison and giving orphans little 
+choice but to join schools for pickpockets. Anyone who has 
+read a novel by Alexander Solzhenitsyn knows how 
+Communisms egalitarian ideal produced brutal tyrannies 
+that tried to control every aspect of daily life. 
+
+Contemporary American politics also revolve around this 
+contradiction. 
+
+Democrats want a more equitable society, even if it means 
+raising taxes to fund programmes to help the poor, elderly 
+and in rm. But that infringes on the freedom of individuals to 
+spend their money as they wish. Why should the 
+government force me to buy health insurance if I prefer 
+
+
+
+using the money to put my kids through college? 
+Republicans, on the other hand, want to maximise individual 
+freedom, even if it means that the income gap between rich 
+and poor will grow wider and that many Americans will not 
+be able to afford health care. 
+
+Just as medieval culture did not manage to square chivalry 
+with Christianity, so the modern world fails to square liberty 
+with equality. But this is no defect. Such contradictions are 
+an inseparable part of every human culture. In fact, they are 
+
+culture's engines, responsible for the creativity and 
+dynamism of our species. Just as when two clashing musical 
+notes played together force a piece of music forward, so 
+discord in our thoughts, ideas and values compel us to think, 
+reevaluate and criticise. Consistency is the playground of 
+dull minds. 
+
+If tensions, con icts and irresolvable dilemmas are the spice 
+of every culture, a human being who belongs to any 
+particular culture must hold contradictory beliefs and be 
+riven by incompatible values. It's such an essential feature 
+of any culture that it even has a name: cognitive 
+dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is often considered a 
+failure of the human psyche. In fact, it is a vital asset. Had 
+people been unable to hold contradictory beliefs and values, 
+it would probably have been impossible to establish and 
+maintain any human culture. 
+
+If, say, a Christian really wants to understand the Muslims 
+who attend that mosque down the street, he shouldn't look 
+for a pristine set of values that every Muslim holds dear. 
+Rather, he should enquire into the catch-22s of Muslim 
+culture, those places where rules are at war and standards 
+scu e. It's at the very spot where the Muslims teeter between 
+two imperatives that you'll understand them best. 
+
+
+
+The Spy Satel ite 
+
+
+Human cultures are in constant ux. Is this ux completely 
+random, or does it have some overall pattern? In other 
+words, does history have a direction? 
+
+The answer is yes. Over the millennia, small, simple cultures 
+gradually coalesce into bigger and more complex 
+civilisations, so that the world contains fewer and fewer 
+mega-cultures, each of which is bigger and more complex. 
+This is of course a very crude generalisation, true only at the 
+macro level. At the micro level, it seems that for every group 
+of cultures that coalesces into a mega-culture, there's a 
+mega-culture that breaks up into pieces. The Mongol Empire 
+expanded to dominate a huge swathe of Asia and even parts 
+of Europe, only to shatter into fragments. 
+
+Christianity converted hundreds of millions of people at the 
+same time that it splintered into innumerable sects. The 
+Latin language spread through western and central Europe, 
+then split into local dialects that themselves eventually 
+became national languages. But these break-ups are 
+temporary reversals in an inexorable trend towards unity. 
+
+Perceiving the direction of history is really a question of 
+vantage point. When we adopt the proverbial bird's-eye 
+view of history, which examines developments in terms of 
+decades or centuries, it's hard to say whether history moves 
+in the direction of unity or of diversity. However, to 
+understand long-term processes the 
+
+bird's-eye view is too myopic. We would do better to adopt 
+instead the viewpoint of a cosmic spy satellite, which scans 
+millennia rather than centuries. From such a vantage point it 
+becomes crystal clear that history is moving relentlessly 
+towards unity. The sectioning of Christianity and the 
+
+
+
+collapse of the Mongol Empire are just speed bumps on 
+history's highway. 
+
+* 
+
+
+
+The best way to appreciate the general direction of history is 
+to count the number of separate human worlds that 
+coexisted at any given moment on planet Earth. 
+
+Today, we are used to thinking about the whole planet as a 
+single unit, but for most of history, earth was in fact an 
+entire galaxy of isolated human worlds. 
+
+Consider Tasmania, a medium-sized island south of 
+Australia. It was cut off from the Australian mainland in 
+about 10,000 BC as the end of the Ice Age caused the sea 
+level to rise. A few thousand hunter-gatherers were left on 
+the island, and had no contact with any other humans until 
+the arrival of the Europeans in the nineteenth century. For 
+12,000 years, nobody else knew the Tasmanians were there, 
+and they didn't know that there was anyone else in the 
+world. They had their wars, political struggles, social 
+oscillations and cultural developments. Yet as far as the 
+emperors of China or the rulers of Mesopotamia were 
+concerned, Tasmania could just as well have been located on 
+one of Jupiter's moons. The Tasmanians lived in a world of 
+their own. 
+
+America and Europe, too, were separate worlds for most of 
+their histories. In AD 
+
+378, the Roman emperor Valence was defeated and killed by 
+the Goths at the battle of Adrianople. In the same year, King 
+Chak Tok Ich'aak of Tikal was defeated and killed by the 
+army of Teotihuacan. (Tikal was an important Mayan city 
+state, while Teotihuacan was then the largest city in 
+America, with almost 250,000 inhabitants - of the same 
+order of magnitude as its contemporary, Rome.) There was 
+absolutely no connection between the defeat of Rome and 
+
+
+
+the rise of Teotihuacan. Rome might just as well have been 
+located on Mars, and Teotihuacan on Venus. 
+
+How many di erent human worlds coexisted on earth? 
+
+Around 10.000 BC our planet contained many thousands of 
+them. By 2000 BC, their numbers had dwindled to the 
+hundreds, or at most a few thousand. By AD 1450, their 
+numbers had declined even more drastically. At that time, 
+just prior to the age of European exploration, earth still 
+contained a signi cant number of dwarf worlds such as 
+Tasmania. But close to 90 per cent of humans lived in a 
+single mega-world: the world of Afro-Asia. Most of Asia, most 
+of Europe, and most of Africa (including substantial chunks 
+of sub-Saharan Africa) were already connected by signi cant 
+
+cultural, political and economic ties. 
+
+Most of the remaining tenth of the world's human population 
+was divided between four worlds of considerable size and 
+complexity: 
+
+1. The Mesoamerican World, which encompassed most of 
+Central America and parts of North America. 
+
+2. The Andean World, which encompassed most of western 
+South America. 
+
+3. The Australian World, which encompassed the continent 
+of Australia. 
+
+4. The Oceanic World, which encompassed most of the 
+islands of the south-western Pacific Ocean, from Hawaii to 
+New Zealand. 
+
+Over the next 300 years, the Afro-Asian giant swallowed up 
+all the other worlds. It consumed the Mesoamerican World in 
+1521, when the Spanish conquered the Aztec Empire. It took 
+
+
+
+its rst bite out of the Oceanic World at the same time, during 
+Ferdinand Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe, and 
+soon after that completed its conquest. The Andean World 
+collapsed in 1532, when Spanish conquistadors crushed the 
+Inca Empire. The rst European landed on the Australian 
+continent in 1606, and that pristine world came to an end 
+when British colonisation began in earnest in 1788. Fifteen 
+years later the Britons established their rst settlement in 
+Tasmania, thus bringing the last autonomous human world 
+into the Afro-Asian sphere of influence. 
+
+It took the Afro-Asian giant several centuries to digest all 
+that it had swallowed, but the process was irreversible. 
+
+Today almost all humans share the same geopolitical system 
+(the entire planet is divided into internationally recognised 
+states); the same economic system (capitalist market forces 
+shape even the remotest corners of the globe); the same 
+legal system (human rights and international law are valid 
+everywhere, at least theoretically); and the same scienti c 
+system (experts in Iran, Israel, Australia and Argentina have 
+exactly the same views about the structure of atoms or the 
+treatment of tuberculosis). 
+
+The single global culture is not homogeneous. Just as a 
+single organic body contains many di erent kinds of organs 
+and cells, so our single global culture contains many di erent 
+types of lifestyles and people, from New York stockbrokers to 
+Afghan shepherds. Yet they are all closely connected and 
+they in uence one another in myriad ways. They still argue 
+and ght, but they argue using the same concepts and ght 
+using the same weapons. A real 'clash of civilisations' is like 
+the proverbial dialogue of the deaf. Nobody can grasp what 
+the other is saying. Today when Iran and the United States 
+rattle swords at one another, they both speak the language 
+of nation states, capitalist economies, international rights 
+and nuclear physics. 
+
+
+
+THt 
+
+AFRO-ASIAN 
+WORL O 
+
+
+T Ml 
+
+MISOAMf RICAN 
+NORl 0 
+
+
+9 
+
++*yU**^ pt , hi 
+
+
+tors 
+
+
+
+♦ 
+
+
+rm 
+
+ociAmc 
+
+NOR ID 
+
+
+THt 
+
+OCSANjC 
+WORL D 
+
+
+'''•nuntn* * 
+
+
+v rut 
+
+A HOC AN 
+WORLD 
+
+
+THt 
+
+AUSTRALIAN 
+
+WORLD 
+
+
+Ml fASMANtAN 
+IVOAlfi 
+
+
+Map 3. Earth in AD 1450. The named locations within 
+the Afro-Asian World were places visited by the 
+fourteenth-century Muslim traveller Ibn Battuta. A 
+native of Tangier, in Morocco, Ibn Battuta visited 
+Timbuktu, Zanzibar, southern Russia, Central Asia, 
+India, China and Indonesia. His travels illustrate the 
+unity of Afro-Asia on the eve of the modern era. 
+
+We still talk a lot about 'authentic' cultures, but if by 
+authentic' we mean something that developed 
+independently, and that consists of ancient local traditions 
+free of external in uences, then there are no authentic 
+cultures left on earth. Over the last few centuries, all 
+cultures were changed almost beyond recognition by a flood 
+of global influences. 
+
+One of the most interesting examples of this globalisation is 
+'ethnic' cuisine. In an Italian restaurant we expect to nd 
+spaghetti in tomato sauce; in Polish and Irish restaurants 
+lots of potatoes; in an Argentinian restaurant we can choose 
+between dozens of kinds of beefsteaks; in an Indian 
+restaurant hot chillies are incorporated into just about 
+everything; and the highlight at any Swiss cafe is thick hot 
+
+
+chocolate under an alp of whipped cream. But none of these 
+foods is native to those nations. Tomatoes, chilli peppers and 
+cocoa are all Mexican in origin; they reached Europe and 
+Asia only after the Spaniards conquered Mexico. 
+
+Julius Caesar and Dante Alighieri never twirled tomato- 
+drenched spaghetti on their forks (even forks hadn't been 
+invented yet), William Tell never tasted chocolate, and 
+Buddha never spiced up his food with chilli. Potatoes 
+reached Poland and Ireland no more than 400 years ago. The 
+only steak you could obtain in Argentina in 1492 was from a 
+llama. 
+
+Hollywood Ims have perpetuated an image of the Plains 
+Indians as brave horsemen, courageously charging the 
+wagons of European pioneers to protect the customs of their 
+ancestors. However, these Native American horsemen were 
+not the defenders of some ancient, authentic culture. 
+
+Instead, they were the product of 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+a major military and political revolution that swept the 
+plains of western North America in the seventeenth and 
+eighteenth centuries, a consequence of the arrival of 
+European horses. In 1492 there were no horses in America. 
+The culture of the nineteenth-century Sioux and Apache has 
+many appealing features, but it was a modern culture - a 
+result of global forces - much more than authentic'. 
+
+The Global Vision 
+
+From a practical perspective, the most important stage in 
+the process of global uni cation occurred in the last few 
+centuries, when empires grew and trade intensi ed. Ever- 
+tightening links were formed between the people of Afro- 
+Asia, America, Australia and Oceania. Thus Mexican chilli 
+peppers made it into Indian food and Spanish cattle began 
+grazing in Argentina. Yet from an ideological perspective, an 
+even more important development occurred during the rst 
+millennium BC, when the idea of a universal order took root. 
+For thousands of years previously, history was already 
+moving slowly in the direction of global unity, but the idea 
+of a universal order governing the entire world was still alien 
+to most people. 
+
+25. Sioux chiefs (1905). Neither the Sioux nor any 
+other Great Plains tribe had horses prior to 1492. 
+
+Homo sapiens evolved to think of people as divided into us 
+and them. 'Us' was the group immediately around you, 
+whoever you were, and 'them' was everyone 
+
+else. In fact, no social animal is ever guided by the interests 
+of the entire species to which it belongs. No chimpanzee 
+cares about the interests of the chimpanzee species, no snail 
+will lift a tentacle for the global snail community, no lion 
+alpha male makes a bid for becoming the king of all lions, 
+
+
+
+and at the entrance of no beehive can one find the slogan: 
+'Worker bees of the world - unite!' 
+
+But beginning with the Cognitive Revolution, Homo sapiens 
+became more and more exceptional in this respect. People 
+began to cooperate on a regular basis with complete 
+strangers, whom they imagined as 'brothers' or 'friends'. Yet 
+this brotherhood was not universal. Somewhere in the next 
+valley, or beyond the mountain range, one could still sense 
+'them'. When the rst pharaoh, Menes, united Egypt around 
+3000 BC, it was clear to the Egyptians that Egypt had a 
+border, and beyond the border lurked 'barbarians'. The 
+barbarians were alien, threatening, and interesting only to 
+the extent that they had land or natural resources that the 
+Egyptians wanted. All the imagined orders people created 
+tended to ignore a substantial part of humankind. 
+
+The rst millennium BC witnessed the appearance of three 
+potentially universal orders, whose devotees could for the 
+rst time imagine the entire world and the entire human race 
+as a single unit governed by a single set of laws. Everyone 
+was 
+
+'us', at least potentially. There was no longer 'them'. The rst 
+universal order to appear was economic: the monetary order. 
+The second universal order was political: the imperial order. 
+The third universal order was religious: the order of universal 
+religions such as Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. 
+
+Merchants, conquerors and prophets were the rst people 
+who managed to transcend the binary evolutionary division, 
+'us vs them', and to foresee the potential unity of 
+humankind. For the merchants, the entire world was a single 
+market and all humans were potential customers. They tried 
+to establish an economic order that would apply to all, 
+everywhere. For the conquerors, the entire world was a 
+
+
+
+single empire and all humans were potential subjects, and 
+for the prophets, the entire world held a single truth and all 
+humans were potential believers. They too tried to establish 
+an order that would be applicable for everyone everywhere. 
+
+During the last three millennia, people made more and more 
+ambitious attempts to realise that global vision. The next 
+three chapters discuss how money, empires and universal 
+religions spread, and how they laid the foundation of the 
+united world of today. We begin with the story of the 
+greatest conqueror in history, a conqueror possessed of 
+extreme tolerance and adaptability, thereby turning people 
+into ardent disciples. This conqueror is money. People who 
+do not believe in the same god or obey the same king are 
+more than willing to use the same money. Osama Bin Laden, 
+for all his hatred of American culture, American religion and 
+American politics, was very fond of American dollars. How 
+did 
+
+money succeed where gods and kings failed? 
+
+10 
+
+The Scent of Money 
+
+IN 1519 HERNAN CORTES AND HIS CONQUISTADORS 
+invaded Mexico, hitherto 
+
+an isolated human world. The Aztecs, as the people who 
+lived there called themselves, quickly noticed that the aliens 
+showed an extraordinary interest in a certain yellow metal. 
+
+In fact, they never seemed to stop talking about it. The 
+natives were not unfamiliar with gold - it was pretty and 
+easy to work, so they used it to make jewellery and statues, 
+and they occasionally used gold dust as a medium of 
+exchange. But when an Aztec wanted to buy something, he 
+generally paid in cocoa beans or bolts of cloth. The Spanish 
+
+
+
+obsession with gold thus seemed inexplicable. What was so 
+important about a metal that could not be eaten, drunk or 
+woven, and was too soft to use for tools or weapons? When 
+the natives questioned Cortes as to why the Spaniards had 
+such a passion for gold, the conquistador answered, 
+
+'Because I and my companions suffer from a disease of the 
+heart which can be cured only with gold.'! 
+
+In the Afro-Asian world from which the Spaniards came, the 
+obsession for gold was indeed an epidemic. Even the 
+bitterest of enemies lusted after the same useless yellow 
+metal. Three centuries before the conquest of Mexico, the 
+ancestors of Cortes and his army waged a bloody war of 
+religion against the Muslim kingdoms in Iberia and North 
+Africa. The followers of Christ and the followers of Allah 
+killed each other by the thousands, devastated elds and 
+orchards, and turned prosperous cities into smouldering 
+ruins - all for the greater glory of Christ or Allah. 
+
+As the Christians gradually gained the upper hand, they 
+marked their victories not only by destroying mosques and 
+building churches,but also by issuing new gold and silver 
+coins bearing the sign of the cross and thanking God for His 
+help in combating the in dels. Yet alongside the new 
+currency, the victors minted another type of coin, called the 
+millares, which carried a somewhat di erent message. These 
+square coins made by the Christian conquerors were 
+emblazoned with owing Arabic script that declared: There is 
+no god except Allah, and Muhammad is Allah's messenger.' 
+Even the Catholic bishops of Melgueil and Agde issued these 
+faithful copies of popular Muslim coins, and God-fearing 
+Christians happily used them. 2 
+
+Tolerance ourished on the other side of the hill too. Muslim 
+merchants in North Africa conducted business using 
+Christian coins such as the Florentine orin, the Venetian 
+
+
+ducat and the Neapolitan gigliato. Even Muslim rulers who 
+called for jihad against the in del Christians were glad to 
+receive taxes in coins that invoked Christ and His Virgin 
+Mother. 3 
+
+How Much is It? 
+
+Hunter-gatherers had no money. Each band hunted, 
+gathered and manufactured almost everything it required, 
+from meat to medicine, from sandals to sorcery. 
+
+Di erent band members may have specialised in di erent 
+tasks, but they shared their goods and services through an 
+economy of favours and obligations. A piece of meat given 
+for free would carry with it the assumption of reciprocity - 
+say, free medical assistance. The band was economically 
+independent; only a few rare items that could not be found 
+locally - seashells, pigments, obsidian and the like - 
+
+had to be obtained from strangers. This could usually be 
+done by simple barter: 
+
+'We'll give you pretty seashells, and you'll give us high- 
+quality flint.' 
+
+Little of this changed with the onset of the Agricultural 
+Revolution. Most people continued to live in small, intimate 
+communities. Much like a hunter-gatherer band, each village 
+was a self-su dent economic unit, maintained by mutual 
+favours and obligations plus a little barter with outsiders. 
+One villager may have been particularly adept at making 
+shoes, another at dispensing medical care, so villagers knew 
+where to turn when barefoot or sick. But villages were small 
+and their economies limited, so there could be no full-time 
+shoemakers and doctors. 
+
+
+The rise of cities and kingdoms and the improvement in 
+transport infrastructure brought about new opportunities for 
+specialisation. Densely populated cities provided full-time 
+employment not just for professional shoemakers and 
+doctors, but also for carpenters, priests, soldiers and 
+lawyers. Villages that gained a reputation for producing 
+really good wine, olive oil or ceramics discovered that it was 
+worth their while to specialise nearly exclusively in that 
+product and trade it with other settlements for all the other 
+goods they needed. This made a lot of sense. Climates and 
+soils differ, so why drink mediocre wine from your backyard 
+if you can buy a smoother variety from a place whose soil 
+and climate is much better suited to grape vines? If the clay 
+in your backyard makes stronger and prettier pots, then you 
+can make an exchange. Furthermore, full-time specialist 
+vintners and potters, not to mention doctors and lawyers, 
+can hone their expertise to the bene t of all. But 
+specialisation created a problem - how do you manage the 
+exchange of goods between the specialists? 
+
+An economy of favours and obligations doesn't work when 
+large numbers of strangers try to cooperate. It's one thing to 
+provide free assistance to a sister or a neighbour, a very di 
+erent thing to take care of foreigners who might never 
+reciprocate the favour. One can fall back on barter. But 
+barter is e ective only when exchanging a limited range of 
+products. It cannot form the basis for a complex economy. 4 
+
+In order to understand the limitations of barter, imagine that 
+you own an apple orchard in the hill country that produces 
+the crispest, sweetest apples in the entire province. You work 
+so hard in your orchard that your shoes wear out. So you 
+harness up your donkey cart and head to the market town 
+down by the river. Your neighbour told you that a shoemaker 
+on the south end of the marketplace made him a really 
+sturdy pair of boots that's lasted him through ve seasons. 
+
+
+You nd the shoemaker's shop and o er to barter some of your 
+apples in exchange for the shoes you need. 
+
+The shoemaker hesitates. How many apples should he ask 
+for in payment? 
+
+Every day he encounters dozens of customers, a few of 
+whom bring along sacks of apples, while others carry wheat, 
+goats or cloth - all of varying quality. Still others o er their 
+expertise in petitioning the king or curing backaches. The 
+last time the shoemaker exchanged shoes for apples was 
+three months ago, and back then he asked for three sacks of 
+apples. Or was it four? But come to think of it, those apples 
+were sour valley apples, rather than prime hill apples. On 
+the other hand, on that previous occasion, the apples were 
+given in exchange for small women's shoes. This fellow is 
+asking for man-size boots. Besides, in recent weeks a 
+disease has decimated the ocks around town, and skins are 
+becoming scarce. The tanners are starting to demand twice 
+as many nished shoes in exchange for the same quantity of 
+leather. Shouldn't that be taken into consideration? 
+
+In a barter economy, every day the shoemaker and the 
+apple grower will have to learn anew the relative prices of 
+dozens of commodities. If one hundred di erent commodities 
+are traded in the market, then buyers and sellers will have 
+to know 4,950 di erent exchange rates. And if 1,000 di erent 
+commodities are traded, buyers and sellers must juggle 
+499,500 di erent exchange rates! 5_How do you figure it 
+out? 
+
+It gets worse. Even if you manage to calculate how many 
+apples equal one pair of shoes, barter is not always possible. 
+After all, a trade requires that each side want what the other 
+has to o er. What happens if the shoemaker doesn't like 
+apples and, if at the moment in question, what he really 
+
+
+wants is a divorce? True, the farmer could look for a lawyer 
+who likes apples and set up a three-way deal. 
+
+But what if the lawyer is full up on apples but really needs a 
+haircut? 
+
+Some societies tried to solve the problem by establishing a 
+central barter system that collected products from specialist 
+growers and manufacturers and distributed 
+
+them to those who needed them. The largest and most 
+famous such experiment was conducted in the Soviet Union, 
+and it failed miserably. 'Everyone would work according to 
+their abilities, and receive according to their needs' turned 
+out in practice into 'everyone would work as little as they 
+can get away with, and receive as much as they could grab'. 
+More moderate and more successful experiments were made 
+on other occasions, for example in the Inca Empire. Yet most 
+societies found a more easy way to connect large numbers 
+of experts - they developed money. 
+
+Shel s and Cigarettes 
+
+Money was created many times in many places. Its 
+development required no technological breakthroughs - it 
+was a purely mental revolution. It involved the creation of a 
+new inter-subjective reality that exists solely in people's 
+shared imagination. 
+
+Money is not coins and banknotes. Money is anything that 
+people are willing to use in order to represent systematically 
+the value of other things for the purpose of exchanging 
+goods and services. Money enables people to compare 
+quickly and easily the value of di erent commodities (such 
+as apples, shoes and divorces), to easily exchange one thing 
+for another, and to store wealth conveniently. There have 
+been many types of money. The most familiar is the coin, 
+
+
+
+which is a standardised piece of imprinted metal. Yet money 
+existed long before the invention of coinage, and cultures 
+have prospered using other things as currency, such as 
+shells, cattle, skins, salt, grain, beads, cloth and promissory 
+notes. Cowry shells were used as money for about 4,000 
+years all over Africa, South Asia, East Asia and Oceania. 
+Taxes could still be paid in cowry shells in British Uganda in 
+the early twentieth century. 
+
+
+worthy 
+
+
+to store 
+
+
+to sell 
+
+
+to buy 
+
+
+riches 
+
+
+treasure 
+
+
+to trade 
+
+
+reward to barter to demand payment 
+
+26. In ancient Chinese script the cowry-shell sign 
+represented money, in words such as 'to sell' or 
+
+
+'reward'. 
+
+
+
+
+In modern prisons and POW camps, cigarettes have often 
+served as money. 
+
+Even non-smoking prisoners have been willing to accept 
+cigarettes in payment, and to calculate the value of all other 
+goods and services in cigarettes. One Auschwitz survivor 
+described the cigarette currency used in the camp: 'We had 
+our own currency, whose value no one questioned: the 
+cigarette. The price of every article was stated in cigarettes 
+... In "normal" times, that is, when the candidates to the gas 
+chambers were coming in at a regular pace, a loaf of bread 
+cost twelve cigarettes; a 300-gram package of margarine, 
+thirty; a watch, eighty to 200; a litre of alcohol, 400 
+cigarettes! '6 
+
+In fact, even today coins and banknotes are a rare form of 
+money. In 2006, the sum total of money in the world is about 
+$60 trillion, yet the sum total of coins and banknotes was 
+less than $6 trillion^ More than 90 per cent of all money - 
+
+more than $50 trillion appearing in our accounts - exists 
+only on computer servers. Accordingly, most business 
+transactions are executed by moving electronic data from 
+one computer le to another, without any exchange of 
+physical cash. 
+
+Only a criminal buys a house, for example, by handing over 
+a suitcase full of banknotes. As long as people are willing to 
+trade goods and services in exchange for electronic data, it's 
+even better than shiny coins and crisp banknotes - lighter, 
+less bulky, and easier to keep track of. 
+
+For complex commercial systems to function, some kind of 
+money is indispensable. A shoemaker in a money economy 
+needs to know only the prices charged for various kinds of 
+shoes - there is no need to memorise the exchange rates 
+
+
+between shoes and apples or goats. Money also frees apple 
+experts from the need to search out apple-craving 
+shoemakers, because everyone always wants money. This is 
+perhaps its most basic quality. Everyone always wants 
+money because everyone else also always wants money, 
+which means you can exchange money for whatever you 
+want or need. The shoemaker will always be happy to 
+
+take your money, because no matter what he really wants - 
+apples, goats or a divorce - he can get it in exchange for 
+money. 
+
+Money is thus a universal medium of exchange that enables 
+people to convert almost everything into almost anything 
+else. Brawn gets converted to brain when a discharged 
+soldier nances his college tuition with his military bene ts. 
+Land gets converted into loyalty when a baron sells property 
+to support his retainers. 
+
+Health is converted to justice when a physician uses her fees 
+to hire a lawyer - or bribe a judge. It is even possible to 
+convert sex into salvation, as fteenth-century prostitutes did 
+when they slept with men for money, which they in turn 
+used to buy indulgences from the Catholic Church. 
+
+Ideal types of money enable people not merely to turn one 
+thing into another, but to store wealth as well. Many 
+valuables cannot be stored - such as time or beauty. Some 
+things can be stored only for a short time, such as 
+strawberries. 
+
+Other things are more durable, but take up a lot of space 
+and require expensive facilities and care. Grain, for example, 
+can be stored for years, but to do so you need to build huge 
+storehouses and guard against rats, mould, water, re and 
+thieves. Money, whether paper, computer bits or cowry 
+
+
+
+shells, solves these problems. Cowry shells don't rot, are 
+unpalatable to rats, can survive res and are compact enough 
+to be locked up in a safe. 
+
+In order to use wealth it is not enough just to store it. It often 
+needs to be transported from place to place. Some forms of 
+wealth, such as real estate, cannot be transported at all. 
+Commodities such as wheat and rice can be transported 
+only with di culty. Imagine a wealthy farmer living in a 
+moneyless land who emigrates to a distant province. His 
+wealth consists mainly of his house and rice paddies. The 
+farmer cannot take with him the house or the paddies. He 
+might exchange them for tons of rice, but it would be very 
+burdensome and expensive to transport all that rice. Money 
+solves these problems. The farmer can sell his property in 
+exchange for a sack of cowry shells, which he can easily 
+carry 
+
+wherever he goes. 
+
+Because money can convert, store and transport wealth 
+easily and cheaply, it made a vital contribution to the 
+appearance of complex commercial networks and dynamic 
+markets. Without money, commercial networks and markets 
+would have 
+
+been doomed to remain very limited in their size, complexity 
+and dynamism. 
+
+How Does Money Work? 
+
+Cowry shells and dollars have value only in our common 
+imagination. Their worth is not inherent in the chemical 
+structure of the shells and paper, or their colour, or their 
+shape. In other words, money isn't a material reality - it is a 
+psychological construct. It works by converting matter into 
+mind. But why does it succeed? Why should anyone be 
+
+
+
+willing to exchange a fertile rice paddy for a handful of 
+useless cowry shells? Why are you willing to ip hamburgers, 
+sell health insurance or babysit three obnoxious brats when 
+all you get for your exertions is a few pieces of coloured 
+paper? 
+
+People are willing to do such things when they trust the 
+gments of their collective imagination. Trust is the raw 
+material from which all types of money are minted. When a 
+wealthy farmer sold his possessions for a sack of cowry 
+shells and travelled with them to another province, he 
+trusted that upon reaching his destination other people 
+would be willing to sell him rice, houses and elds in 
+exchange for the shells. Money is accordingly a system of 
+mutual trust, and not just any system of mutual trust: 
+money is the most universal and most efficient system of 
+mutual trust ever devised. 
+
+What created this trust was a very complex and long-term 
+network of political, social and economic relations. Why do I 
+believe in the cowry shell or gold coin or dollar bill? Because 
+my neighbours believe in them. And my neighbours believe 
+in them because I believe in them. And we all believe in 
+them because our king believes in them and demands them 
+in taxes, and because our priest believes in them and 
+demands them in tithes. Take a dollar bill and look at it 
+carefully. You will see that it is simply a colourful piece of 
+paper with the signature of the US 
+
+secretary of the treasury on one side, and the slogan 'In God 
+We Trust' on the other. We accept the dollar in payment, 
+because we trust in God and the US 
+
+secretary of the treasury. The crucial role of trust explains 
+why our nancial systems are so tightly bound up with our 
+political, social and ideological systems, why nancial crises 
+
+
+
+are often triggered by political developments, and why the 
+stock market can rise or fall depending on the way traders 
+feel on a particular morning. 
+
+Initially, when the rst versions of money were created, 
+people didn't have this sort of trust, so it was necessary to 
+de ne as 'money' things that had real intrinsic value. 
+History's first known money Sumerian barley money - is a 
+good example. It appeared in Sumer around 3000 BC, at the 
+same time and place, and under the same circumstances, in 
+which writing appeared. Just as writing developed to answer 
+the needs of intensifying administrative activities, so barley 
+money developed to answer the needs of intensifying 
+economic activities. 
+
+Barley money was simply barley - xed amounts of barley 
+grains used as a universal measure for evaluating and 
+exchanging all other goods and services. The most common 
+measurement was the sila, equivalent to roughly one litre. 
+
+Standardised bowls, each capable of containing one sila, 
+were mass-produced so that whenever people needed to buy 
+or sell anything, it was easy to measure the necessary 
+amounts of barley. Salaries, too, were set and paid in silas of 
+barley. A male labourer earned sixty silas a month, a female 
+labourer thirty silas. A foreman could earn between 1,200 
+and 5,000 silas. Not even the most ravenous foreman could 
+eat 5,000 litres of barley a month, but he could use the silas 
+he didn't eat to buy all sorts of other commodities - oil, 
+goats, slaves, and something else to eat besides barley. 8 
+
+Even though barley has intrinsic value, it was not easy to 
+convince people to use it as money rather than as just 
+another commodity. In order to understand why, just think 
+what would happen if you took a sack full of barley to your 
+local shopping centre, and tried to buy a shirt or a pizza. The 
+
+
+vendors would probably call security. Still, it was somewhat 
+easier to build trust in barley as the rst type of money, 
+because barley has an inherent biological value. Humans 
+can eat it. On the other hand, it was di cult to store and 
+transport barley. The real breakthrough in monetary history 
+occurred when people gained trust in money that lacked 
+inherent value, but was easier to store and transport. Such 
+money appeared in ancient Mesopotamia in the middle of 
+the third millennium BC. This was the silver shekel. 
+
+
+The silver shekel was not a coin, but rather 8.33 grams of 
+silver. When Hammurabi's Code declared that a superior 
+man who killed a slave woman must pay her owner twenty 
+silver shekels, it meant that he had to pay 166 grams of 
+silver, not twenty coins. Most monetary terms in the Old 
+Testament are given in terms of silver rather than coins. 
+Josephs brothers sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty silver 
+shekels, or rather 166 grams of silver (the same price as a 
+slave woman - he was a youth, after all). 
+
+
+Unlike the barley sila, the silver shekel had no inherent 
+value. You cannot eat, drink or clothe yourself in silver, and 
+it's too soft for making useful tools - 
+
+
+ploughshares or swords of silver would crumple almost as 
+fast as ones made out of aluminium foil. When they are used 
+for anything, silver and gold are made into 
+
+
+
+jewellery, crowns and other status symbols - luxury goods 
+that members of a particular culture identify with high social 
+status. Their value is purely cultural. 
+
+Set weights of precious metals eventually gave birth to 
+coins. The rst coins in history were struck around 640 BC by 
+King Alyattes of Lydia, in western Anatolia. 
+
+These coins had a standardised weight of gold or silver, and 
+were imprinted with an identi cation mark. The mark testi ed 
+to two things. First, it indicated how much precious metal 
+the coin contained. Second, it identi ed the authority that 
+issued the coin and that guaranteed its contents. Almost all 
+coins in use today are descendants of the Lydian coins. 
+
+Coins had two important advantages over unmarked metal 
+ingots. First, the latter had to be weighed for every 
+transaction. Second, weighing the ingot is not enough. How 
+does the shoemaker know that the silver ingot I put down for 
+my boots is really made of pure silver, and not of lead 
+covered on the outside by a thin silver coating? Coins help 
+solve these problems. The mark imprinted on them testi es 
+to their exact value, so the shoemaker doesn't have to keep 
+a scale on his cash register. More importantly, the mark on 
+the coin is the signature of some political authority that 
+guarantees the coin's value. 
+
+The shape and size of the mark varied tremendously 
+throughout history, but the message was always the same: 
+
+'I, the Great King So-And-So, give you my personal word that 
+this metal disc contains exactly ve grams of gold. If anyone 
+dares counterfeit this coin, it means he is fabricating my 
+own signature, which would be a blot on my reputation. I will 
+punish such a crime with the utmost severity.' 
+
+
+
+That's why counterfeiting money has always been 
+considered a much more serious crime than other acts of 
+deception. Counterfeiting is not just cheating - it's a breach 
+of sovereignty, an act of subversion against the power, 
+privileges and person of the king. The legal term is lese- 
+majesty (violating majesty), and was typically punished by 
+torture and death. As long as people trusted the power and 
+integrity of the king, they trusted his coins. Total strangers 
+could easily agree on the worth of a Roman denarius coin, 
+because they trusted the power and integrity of the Roman 
+emperor, whose name and picture adorned it. 
+
+27. One of the earliest coins in history, from Lydia of 
+the seventh century BC. 
+
+In turn, the power of the emperor rested on the denarius. 
+
+Just think how di cult it would have been to maintain the 
+Roman Empire without coins - if the emperor had to raise 
+taxes and pay salaries in barley and wheat. It would have 
+been impossible to collect barley taxes in Syria, transport 
+the funds to the central treasury in Rome, and transport 
+them again to Britain in order to pay the legions there. It 
+would have been equally di cult to maintain the empire if 
+the inhabitants of the city of Rome believed in gold coins, 
+but the subject populations rejected this belief, putting their 
+trust instead in cowry shells, ivory beads or rolls of cloth. 
+
+The Gospel of Gold 
+
+The trust in Rome's coins was so strong that even outside 
+the empire's borders, people were happy to receive payment 
+in denarii. In the rst century AD, Roman coins were an 
+accepted medium of exchange in the markets of India, even 
+though the closest Roman legion was thousands of 
+kilometres away. The Indians had such a strong con dence in 
+the denarius and the image of the emperor that when local 
+
+
+
+rulers struck coins of their own they closely imitated the 
+denarius, down to the portrait of the Roman emperor! The 
+name 'denarius' became a generic name for coins. Muslim 
+caliphs Arabicised this name and issued 'dinars'. The dinar is 
+still the o cial name of the currency in Jordan, Iraq, Serbia, 
+Macedonia, Tunisia and several other countries. 
+
+As Lydian-style coinage was spreading from the 
+Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, China developed a 
+slightly di erent monetary system, based on bronze coins 
+and unmarked silver and gold ingots. Yet the two monetary 
+systems had enough in common (especially the reliance on 
+gold and silver) that close monetary and commercial 
+relations were established between the Chinese zone and 
+the Lydian zone. Muslim and European merchants and 
+conquerors gradually spread the Lydian system and the 
+gospel of gold to the far corners of the earth. By the late 
+modern era the entire world was a single monetary zone, 
+relying rst on gold and silver, and later on a few trusted 
+currencies such as the British pound and the American 
+dollar. 
+
+The appearance of a single transnational and transcultural 
+monetary zone laid the foundation for the uni cation of Afro- 
+Asia, and eventually of the entire globe, into a single 
+economic and political sphere. People continued to speak 
+mutually incomprehensible languages, obey di erent rulers 
+and worship distinct gods, but 
+
+all believed in gold and silver and in gold and silver coins. 
+Without this shared belief, global trading networks would 
+have been virtually impossible. The gold and silver that 
+sixteenth-century conquistadors found in America enabled 
+European merchants to buy silk, porcelain and spices in East 
+Asia, thereby moving the wheels of economic growth in both 
+Europe and East Asia. Most of the gold and silver mined in 
+
+
+
+Mexico and the Andes slipped through European ngers to nd 
+a welcome home in the purses of Chinese silk and porcelain 
+manufacturers. What would have happened to the global 
+economy if the Chinese hadn't su ered from the same 
+'disease of the heart' that a icted Cortes and his companions 
+- and had refused to accept payment in gold and silver? 
+
+Yet why should Chinese, Indians, Muslims and Spaniards - 
+who belonged to very di erent cultures that failed to agree 
+about much of anything - nevertheless share the belief in 
+gold? Why didn't it happen that Spaniards believed in gold, 
+while Muslims believed in barley, Indians in cowry shells, 
+and Chinese in rolls of silk? Economists have a ready answer. 
+Once trade connects two areas, the forces of supply and 
+demand tend to equalise the prices of transportable goods. 
+
+In order to understand why, consider a hypothetical case. 
+Assume that when regular trade opened between India and 
+the Mediterranean, Indians were uninterested in gold, so it 
+was almost worthless. But in the Mediterranean, gold was a 
+coveted status symbol, hence its value was high. What 
+would happen next? 
+
+Merchants travelling between India and the Mediterranean 
+would notice the di erence in the value of gold. In order to 
+make a pro t, they would buy gold cheaply in India and sell 
+it dearly in the Mediterranean. Consequently, the demand 
+for gold in India would skyrocket, as would its value. At the 
+same time the Mediterranean would experience an in ux of 
+gold, whose value would consequently drop. Within a short 
+time the value of gold in India and the Mediterranean would 
+be quite similar. The mere fact that Mediterranean people 
+believed in gold would cause Indians to start believing in it 
+as well. Even if Indians still had no real use for gold, the fact 
+that Mediterranean people wanted it would be enough to 
+make the Indians value it. 
+
+
+
+Similarly, the fact that another person believes in cowry 
+shells, or dollars, or electronic data, is enough to strengthen 
+our own belief in them, even if that person is otherwise 
+hated, despised or ridiculed by us. Christians and Muslims 
+who could not agree on religious beliefs could nevertheless 
+agree on a monetary belief, because whereas religion asks 
+us to believe in something, money asks us to believe that 
+other people believe in something. 
+
+For thousands of years, philosophers, thinkers and prophets 
+have besmirched money and called it the root of all evil. Be 
+that as it may, money is also the apogee of human 
+tolerance. Money is more open-minded than language, state 
+laws, cultural codes, religious beliefs and social habits. 
+Money is the only trust 
+
+system created by humans that can bridge almost any 
+cultural gap, and that does not discriminate on the basis of 
+religion, gender, race, age or sexual orientation. 
+
+Thanks to money, even people who don't know each other 
+and don't trust each other can nevertheless cooperate 
+effectively. 
+
+The Price of Money 
+
+Money is based on two universal principles: 
+
+a. Universal convertibility: with money as an alchemist, you 
+can turn land into loyalty, justice into health, and violence 
+into knowledge. 
+
+b. Universal trust: with money as a go-between, any two 
+people can cooperate on any project. 
+
+
+These principles have enabled millions of strangers to 
+cooperate e ectively in trade and industry. But these 
+
+
+
+seemingly benign principles have a dark side. When 
+everything is convertible, and when trust depends on 
+anonymous coins and cowry shells, it corrodes local 
+traditions, intimate relations and human values, replacing 
+them with the cold laws of supply and demand. 
+
+Human communities and families have always been based 
+on belief in 'priceless' 
+
+things, such as honour, loyalty, morality and love. These 
+things lie outside the domain of the market, and they 
+shouldn't be bought or sold for money. Even if the market o 
+ers a good price, certain things just aren't done. Parents 
+mustn't sell their children into slavery; a devout Christian 
+must not commit a mortal sin; a loyal knight must never 
+betray his lord; and ancestral tribal lands shall never be sold 
+to foreigners. 
+
+Money has always tried to break through these barriers, like 
+water seeping through cracks in a dam. Parents have been 
+reduced to selling some of their children into slavery in 
+order to buy food for the others. Devout Christians have 
+murdered, stolen and cheated - and later used their spoils to 
+buy forgiveness from the church. Ambitious knights 
+auctioned their allegiance to the highest bidder, while 
+securing the loyalty of their own followers by cash 
+payments. Tribal lands were sold to foreigners from the other 
+side of the world in order to purchase an entry ticket into the 
+global economy. 
+
+Money has an even darker side. For although money builds 
+universal trust between strangers, this trust is invested not 
+in humans, communities or sacred values, but in money 
+itself and in the impersonal systems that back it. We do not 
+trust the stranger, or the next-door neighbour - we trust the 
+coin they hold. If they run out of coins, we run out of trust. 
+
+
+
+As money brings down the dams of community, religion and 
+state, the world is in danger of becoming one big and 
+
+rather heartless marketplace. 
+
+Hence the economic history of humankind is a delicate 
+dance. People rely on money to facilitate cooperation with 
+strangers, but they're afraid it will corrupt human values and 
+intimate relations. With one hand people willingly destroy 
+the communal dams that held at bay the movement of 
+money and commerce for so 
+
+long. Yet with the other hand they build new dams to protect 
+society, religion and the environment from enslavement to 
+market forces. 
+
+It is common nowadays to believe that the market always 
+prevails, and that the dams erected by kings, priests and 
+communities cannot long hold back the tides of money. This 
+is naive. Brutal warriors, religious fanatics and concerned 
+citizens have repeatedly managed to trounce calculating 
+merchants, and even to reshape the economy. It is therefore 
+impossible to understand the uni cation of humankind as a 
+purely economic process. In order to understand how 
+thousands of isolated cultures coalesced over time to form 
+the global village of today, we must take into account the 
+role of gold and silver, but we cannot disregard the equally 
+crucial role of steel. 
+
+II 
+
+Imperial Visions 
+
+THE ANCIENT ROMANS WERE USED TO being defeated. Like 
+the rulers of most of 
+
+
+
+history's great empires, they could lose battle after battle 
+but still win the war. An empire that cannot sustain a blow 
+and remain standing is not really an empire. 
+
+Yet even the Romans found it hard to stomach the news 
+arriving from northern Iberia in the middle of the second 
+century BC. A small, insigni cant mountain town called 
+Numantia, inhabited by the peninsula's native Celts, had 
+dared to throw o the Roman yoke. Rome at the time was the 
+unquestioned master of the entire Mediterranean basin, 
+having vanquished the Macedonian and Seleucid empires, 
+subjugated the proud city states of Greece, and turned 
+Carthage into a smouldering ruin. The Numantians had 
+nothing on their side but their erce love of freedom and their 
+inhospitable terrain. Yet they forced legion after legion to 
+surrender or retreat in shame. 
+
+Eventually, in 134 BC, Roman patience snapped. The Senate 
+decided to send Scipio Aemilianus, Rome's foremost general 
+and the man who had levelled Carthage, to take care of the 
+Numantians. He was given a massive army of more than 
+30,000 soldiers. Scipio, who respected the ghting spirit and 
+martial skill of the Numantians, preferred not to waste his 
+soldiers in unnecessary combat. 
+
+Instead, he encircled Numantia with a line of forti cations, 
+blocking the town's contact with the outside world. Hunger 
+did his work for him. After more than a year, the food supply 
+ran out. When the Numantians realised that all hope was 
+lost, they burned down their town; according to Roman 
+accounts, most of them killed themselves so as not to 
+become Roman slaves. 
+
+Numantia later became a symbol of Spanish independence 
+and courage. Miguel 
+
+
+
+de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, wrote a tragedy 
+called The Siege of Numantia which ends with the town's 
+destruction, but also with a vision of Spain's future 
+greatness. Poets composed paeans to its erce defenders and 
+painters committed majestic depictions of the siege to 
+canvas. In 1882, its ruins were declared a national 
+monument' and became a pilgrimage site for Spanish 
+patriots. 
+
+In the 1950s and 1960s, the most popular comic books in 
+Spain weren't about Superman and Spiderman - they told of 
+the adventures of El Jabato, an imaginary ancient Iberian 
+hero who fought against the Roman oppressors. The ancient 
+
+Numantians are to this day Spain's paragons of heroism and 
+patriotism, cast as role models for the country's young 
+people. 
+
+Yet Spanish patriots extol the Numantians in Spanish - a 
+romance language that is a progeny of Scipio's Latin. The 
+Numantians spoke a now dead and lost Celtic language. 
+Cervantes wrote The Siege of Numantia in Latin script, and 
+the play follows Graeco-Roman artistic models. Numantia 
+had no theatres. Spanish patriots who admire Numantian 
+heroism tend also to be loyal followers of the Roman Catholic 
+Church - don't miss that rst word - a church whose leader 
+still sits in Rome and whose God prefers to be addressed in 
+Latin. Similarly, modern Spanish law derives from Roman 
+law; Spanish politics is built on Roman foundations; and 
+Spanish cuisine and architecture owe a far greater debt to 
+Roman legacies than to those of the Celts of Iberia. Nothing 
+is really left of Numantia save ruins. Even its story has 
+reached us thanks only to the writings of Roman historians. 
+
+It was tailored to the tastes of Roman audiences which 
+relished tales of freedom-loving barbarians. The victory of 
+
+
+
+Rome over Numantia was so complete that the victors co¬ 
+opted the very memory of the vanquished. 
+
+It's not our kind of story. We like to see underdogs win. But 
+there is no justice in history. Most past cultures have sooner 
+or later fallen prey to the armies of some ruthless empire, 
+which have consigned them to oblivion. Empires, too, 
+ultimately fall, but they tend to leave behind rich and 
+enduring legacies. Almost all people in the twenty-first 
+century are the offspring of one empire or another. 
+
+What is an Empire? 
+
+An empire is a political order with two important 
+characteristics. First, to qualify for that designation you have 
+to rule over a signi cant number of distinct peoples, each 
+possessing a di erent cultural identity and a separate 
+territory. How many peoples exactly? Two or three is not su 
+cient. Twenty or thirty is plenty. The imperial threshold 
+passes somewhere in between. 
+
+Second, empires are characterised by exible borders and a 
+potentially unlimited appetite. They can swallow and digest 
+more and more nations and territories without altering their 
+basic structure or identity. The British state of today has 
+fairly clear borders that cannot be exceeded without altering 
+the fundamental structure and identity of the state. A 
+century ago almost any place on earth could have become 
+part of the British Empire. 
+
+Cultural diversity and territorial exibility give empires not 
+only their unique character, but also their central role in 
+history. It's thanks to these two characteristics that empires 
+have managed to unite diverse ethnic groups and 
+
+ecological zones under a single political umbrella, thereby 
+fusing together larger and larger segments of the human 
+
+
+
+species and of planet Earth. 
+
+It should be stressed that an empire is de ned solely by its 
+cultural diversity and exible borders, rather than by its 
+origins, its form of government, its territorial extent, or the 
+size of its population. An empire need not emerge from 
+military conquest. The Athenian Empire began its life as a 
+voluntary league, and the Habsburg Empire was born in 
+wedlock, cobbled together by a string of shrewd marriage 
+alliances. Nor must an empire be ruled by an autocratic 
+emperor. The British Empire, the largest empire in history, 
+was ruled by a democracy. Other democratic (or at least 
+republican) empires have included the modern Dutch, 
+French, Belgian and American empires, as well as the 
+premodern empires of Novgorod, Rome, Carthage and 
+Athens. 
+
+Size, too, does not really matter. Empires can be puny. The 
+Athenian Empire at its zenith was much smaller in size and 
+population than today's Greece. The Aztec Empire was 
+smaller than today's Mexico. Both were nevertheless 
+empires, whereas modern Greece and modern Mexico are 
+not, because the former gradually subdued dozens and even 
+hundreds of di erent polities while the latter have not. 
+
+Athens lorded it over more than a hundred formerly 
+independent city states, whereas the Aztec Empire, if we can 
+trust its taxation records, ruled 371 di erent tribes and 
+peoples. 1 
+
+How was it possible to squeeze such a human potpourri into 
+the territory of a modest modern state? It was possible 
+because in the past there were many more distinct peoples 
+in the world, each of which had a smaller population and 
+occupied less territory than today's typical people. The land 
+between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, which 
+today struggles to satisfy the ambitions of just two peoples, 
+
+
+easily accommodated in biblical times dozens of nations, 
+tribes, petty kingdoms and city states. 
+
+
+Empires were one of the main reasons for the drastic 
+reduction in human diversity. The imperial steamroller 
+gradually obliterated the unique characteristics of numerous 
+peoples (such as the Numantians), forging out of them new 
+and much larger groups. 
+
+Evil Empires? 
+
+In our time, 'imperialist' ranks second only to 'fascist' in the 
+lexicon of political swear words. The contemporary critique 
+of empires commonly takes two forms: 1. Empires do not 
+work. In the long run, it is not possible to rule e ectively over 
+a large number of conquered peoples. 
+
+2. Even if it can be done, it should not be done, because 
+empires are evil engines of destruction and exploitation. 
+Every people has a right to self-determination, and should 
+never be subject to the rule of another. 
+
+From a historical perspective, the rst statement is plain 
+nonsense, and the second is deeply problematic. 
+
+The truth is that empire has been the world's most common 
+form of political organisation for the last 2,500 years. Most 
+humans during these two and a half millennia have lived in 
+empires. Empire is also a very stable form of government. 
+
+Most empires have found it alarmingly easy to put down 
+rebellions. In general, they have been toppled only by 
+external invasion or by a split within the ruling elite. 
+Conversely, conquered peoples don't have a very good 
+record of freeing themselves from their imperial overlords. 
+Most have remained subjugated for hundreds of years. 
+
+
+
+Typically, they have been slowly digested by the conquering 
+empire, until their distinct cultures fizzled out. 
+
+For example, when the Western Roman Empire nally fell to 
+invading Germanic tribes in 476 AD, the Numantians, 
+Arverni, Helvetians, Samnites, Lusitanians, Umbrians, 
+Etruscans and hundreds of other forgotten peoples whom 
+the Romans conquered centuries earlier did not emerge from 
+the empires eviscerated carcass like Jonah from the belly of 
+the great sh. None of them were left. The biological 
+descendants of the people who had identi ed themselves as 
+members of those nations, who had spoken their languages, 
+worshipped their gods and told their myths and legends, 
+now thought, spoke and worshipped as Romans. 
+
+In many cases, the destruction of one empire hardly meant 
+independence for subject peoples. Instead, a new empire 
+stepped into the vacuum created when the old one 
+collapsed or retreated. Nowhere has this been more obvious 
+than in the Middle East. The current political constellation in 
+that region - a balance of power between many independent 
+political entities with more or less stable borders - is almost 
+without parallel any time in the last several millennia. The 
+last time the Middle East experienced such a situation was 
+in the eighth century BC - 
+
+almost 3,000 years ago! From the rise of the Neo-Assyrian 
+Empire in the eighth century BC until the collapse of the 
+British and French empires in the mid-twentieth century AD, 
+the Middle East passed from the hands of one empire into 
+the hands of another, like a baton in a relay race. And by the 
+time the British and French nally dropped the baton, the 
+Aramaeans, the Ammonites, the Phoenicians, the Philistines, 
+the Moabites, the Edomites and the other peoples 
+conquered by the Assyrians had long disappeared. 
+
+
+
+True, today's Jews, Armenians and Georgians claim with 
+some measure of justice that they are the o spring of ancient 
+Middle Eastern peoples. Yet these are only exceptions that 
+prove the rule, and even these claims are somewhat 
+
+exaggerated. It goes without saying that the political, 
+economic and social practices of modern Jews, for example, 
+owe far more to the empires under which they lived during 
+the past two millennia than to the traditions of the ancient 
+kingdom of Judaea. If King David were to show up in an 
+ultra-Orthodox synagogue in present-day Jerusalem, he 
+would be utterly bewildered to nd people dressed in East 
+European clothes, speaking in a German dialect (Yiddish) 
+and having endless arguments about the meaning of a 
+Babylonian text (the Talmud). There were neither 
+synagogues, volumes of Talmud, nor even Torah scrolls in 
+ancient Judaea. 
+
+Building and maintaining an empire usually required the 
+vicious slaughter of large populations and the brutal 
+oppression of everyone who was left. The standard imperial 
+toolkit included wars, enslavement, deportation and 
+genocide. When the Romans invaded Scotland in AD 83, 
+they were met by erce resistance from local Caledonian 
+tribes, and reacted by laying waste to the country. In reply to 
+Roman peace o ers, the chieftain Calgacus called the 
+Romans 'the ru ans of the world', and said that 'to plunder, 
+slaughter and robbery they give the lying name of empire; 
+they make a desert and call it peace'. 2 
+
+This does not mean, however, that empires leave nothing of 
+value in their wake. To colour all empires black and to 
+disavow all imperial legacies is to reject most of human 
+culture. Imperial elites used the pro ts of conquest to nance 
+not only armies and forts but also philosophy, art, justice 
+and charity. A signi cant proportion of humanity's cultural 
+
+
+achievements owe their existence to the exploitation of 
+conquered populations. The pro ts and prosperity brought by 
+Roman imperialism provided Cicero, Seneca and St 
+Augustine with the leisure and wherewithal to think and 
+write; the Taj Mahal could not have been built without the 
+wealth accumulated by Mughal exploitation of their Indian 
+subjects; and the Habsburg Empire's pro ts from its rule over 
+its Slavic, Hungarian and Romanian-speaking provinces paid 
+Haydn's salaries and Mozart's commissions. No Caledonian 
+writer preserved Calgacus' speech for posterity. We know of 
+it thanks to the Roman historian Tacitus. In fact, Tacitus 
+probably made it up. Most scholars today agree that Tacitus 
+not only fabricated the speech but invented the character of 
+Calgacus, the Caledonian chieftain, to serve as a 
+mouthpiece for what he and other upper-class Romans 
+thought about their own country. 
+
+Even if we look beyond elite culture and high art, and focus 
+instead on the world of common people, we nd imperial 
+legacies in the majority of modern cultures. Today most of us 
+speak, think and dream in imperial languages that were 
+forced upon our ancestors by the sword. Most East Asians 
+speak and dream in the language of the Han Empire. No 
+matter what their origins, nearly all the inhabitants of the 
+two American continents, from Alaska's Barrow Peninsula to 
+
+the Straits of Magellan, communicate in one of four imperial 
+languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French or English. Present- 
+day Egyptians speak Arabic, think of themselves as Arabs, 
+and identify wholeheartedly with the Arab Empire that 
+conquered Egypt in the seventh century and crushed with 
+an iron st the repeated revolts that broke out against its rule. 
+About 10 million Zulus in South Africa hark back to the Zulu 
+age of glory in the nineteenth century, even though most of 
+them descend from tribes who fought against the Zulu 
+
+
+
+Empire, and were incorporated into it only through bloody 
+military campaigns. 
+
+It's for Your Own Good 
+
+The rst empire about which we have de nitive information 
+was the Akkadian Empire of Sargon the Great ( c.2250 BC). 
+Sargon began his career as the king of Kish, a small city 
+state in Mesopotamia. Within a few decades he managed to 
+conquer not only all other Mesopotamian city states, but 
+also large territories outside the Mesopotamian heartland. 
+Sargon boasted that he had conquered the entire world. In 
+reality, his dominion stretched from the Persian Gulf to the 
+Mediterranean, and included most of today's Iraq and Syria, 
+along with a few slices of modern Iran and Turkey. 
+
+The Akkadian Empire did not last long after its founder's 
+death, but Sargon left behind an imperial mantle that 
+seldom remained unclaimed. For the next 1,700 
+
+years, Assyrian, Babylonian and Hittite kings adopted 
+Sargon as a role model, boasting that they, too, had 
+conquered the entire world. Then, around 550 BC, Cyrus the 
+Great of Persia came along with an even more impressive 
+boast. 
+
+
+
+The Akkadian Empire c 2250 VC | 
+The Persian Empire <- 500 HC I 
+
+
+
+Map 4. The Akkadian Empire and the Persian Empire. 
+
+The kings of Assyria always remained the kings of Assyria. 
+Even when they claimed to rule the entire world, it was 
+obvious that they were doing it for the greater glory of 
+Assyria, and they were not apologetic about it. Cyrus, on the 
+other hand, claimed not merely to rule the whole world, but 
+to do so for the sake of all people. 'We are conquering you 
+for your own bene t,' said the Persians. 
+
+Cyrus wanted the peoples he subjected to love him and to 
+count themselves lucky to be Persian vassals. The most 
+famous example of Cyrus' innovative e orts to gain the 
+approbation of a nation living under the thumb of his empire 
+was his command that the Jewish exiles in Babylonia be 
+allowed to return to their Judaean homeland and rebuild 
+their temple. He even o ered them nancial assistance. Cyrus 
+did not see himself as a Persian king ruling over Jews - he 
+
+
+was also the king of the Jews, and thus responsible for their 
+welfare. 
+
+The presumption to rule the entire world for the bene t of all 
+its inhabitants was startling. Evolution has made Homo 
+sapiens , like other social mammals, a xenophobic creature. 
+Sapiens instinctively divide humanity into two parts, 'we' 
+
+and 'they'. We are people like you and me, who share our 
+language, religion and customs. We are all responsible for 
+each other, but not responsible for them. We were always 
+distinct from them, and owe them nothing. We don't want to 
+see any of them in our territory, and we don't care an iota 
+what happens in their territory. 
+
+They are barely even human. In the language of the Dinka 
+people of the Sudan, 
+
+'Dinka' simply means 'people'. People who are not Dinka are 
+not people. The 
+
+Dinka's bitter enemies are the Nuer. What does the word 
+Nuer mean in Nuer language? It means 'original people'. 
+Thousands of kilometres from the Sudan deserts, in the 
+frozen ice-lands of Alaska and north-eastern Siberia, live the 
+Yupiks. What does Yupik mean in Yupik language? It means 
+'real people'. 3 
+
+In contrast with this ethnic exclusiveness, imperial ideology 
+from Cyrus onward has tended to be inclusive and all- 
+encompassing. Even though it has often emphasised racial 
+and cultural di erences between rulers and ruled, it has still 
+recognised the basic unity of the entire world, the existence 
+of a single set of principles governing all places and times, 
+and the mutual responsibilities of all human beings. 
+Humankind is seen as a large family: the privileges of the 
+
+
+parents go hand in hand with responsibility for the welfare of 
+the children. 
+
+This new imperial vision passed from Cyrus and the Persians 
+to Alexander the Great, and from him to Hellenistic kings, 
+Roman emperors, Muslim caliphs, Indian dynasts, and 
+eventually even to Soviet premiers and American 
+presidents. This benevolent imperial vision has justi ed the 
+existence of empires, and negated not only attempts by 
+subject peoples to rebel, but also attempts by independent 
+peoples to resist imperial expansion. 
+
+Similar imperial visions were developed independently of 
+the Persian model in other parts of the world, most notably 
+in Central America, in the Andean region, and in China. 
+According to traditional Chinese political theory, Heaven ( 
+Tian) is the source of all legitimate authority on earth. 
+
+Heaven chooses the most worthy person or family and gives 
+them the Mandate of Heaven. This person or family then 
+rules over All Under Heaven ( Tianxia) for the bene t of all its 
+inhabitants. 
+
+Thus, a legitimate authority is - by de nition - universal. If a 
+ruler lacks the Mandate of Heaven, then he lacks legitimacy 
+to rule even a single city. If a ruler enjoys the mandate, he is 
+obliged to spread justice and harmony to the entire world. 
+The Mandate of Heaven could not be given to several 
+candidates simultaneously, and consequently one could not 
+legitimise the existence of more than one independent 
+state. 
+
+The rst emperor of the united Chinese empire, Qin ShT 
+Huangdi, boasted that 
+
+'throughout the six directions [of the universe] everything 
+belongs to the emperor... wherever there is a human 
+
+
+
+footprint, there is not one who did not become a subject [of 
+the emperor] ... his kindness reaches even oxen and horses. 
+
+There is not one who did not bene t. Every man is safe under 
+his own roof.'4_ln Chinese political thinking as well as 
+Chinese historical memory, imperial periods were henceforth 
+seen as golden ages of order and justice. In contradiction to 
+the modern Western view that a just world is composed of 
+separate nation states, in China periods of political 
+fragmentation were seen as dark ages of chaos and 
+injustice. This perception has had far-reaching implications 
+for Chinese history. 
+
+Every time an empire collapsed, the dominant political 
+theory goaded the powers 
+
+that be not to settle for paltry independent principalities, 
+but to attempt reunification. Sooner or later these attempts 
+always succeeded. 
+
+When They Become Us 
+
+Empires have played a decisive part in amalgamating many 
+small cultures into fewer big cultures. Ideas, people, goods 
+and technology spread more easily within the borders of an 
+empire than in a politically fragmented region. Often 
+enough, it was the empires themselves which deliberately 
+spread ideas, institutions, customs and norms. One reason 
+was to make life easier for themselves. It is di cult to rule an 
+empire in which every little district has its own set of laws, 
+its own form of writing, its own language and its own money. 
+Standardisation was a boon to emperors. 
+
+A second and equally important reason why empires actively 
+spread a common 
+
+
+culture was to gain legitimacy. At least since the days of 
+Cyrus and Qin ShT 
+
+Huangdl, empires have justi ed their actions - whether road¬ 
+building or bloodshed 
+
+- as necessary to spread a superior culture from which the 
+conquered bene t even more than the conquerors. 
+
+The bene ts were sometimes salient - law enforcement, 
+urban planning, standardisation of weights and measures - 
+and sometimes questionable - taxes, conscription, emperor 
+worship. But most imperial elites earnestly believed that 
+they were working for the general welfare of all the empires 
+inhabitants. China's ruling class treated their country's 
+neighbours and its foreign subjects as miserable barbarians 
+to whom the empire must bring the bene ts of culture. The 
+Mandate of Heaven was bestowed upon the emperor not in 
+order to exploit the world, but in order to educate humanity. 
+The Romans, too, justi ed their dominion by arguing that 
+they were endowing the barbarians with peace, justice and 
+re nement. The wild Germans and painted Gauls had lived in 
+squalor and ignorance until the Romans tamed them with 
+law, cleaned them up in public bathhouses, and improved 
+them with philosophy. The Mauryan Empire in the third 
+century BC took as its mission the dissemination of Buddha's 
+teachings to an ignorant world. The Muslim caliphs received 
+a divine mandate to spread the Prophet's revelation, 
+peacefully if possible but by the sword if necessary. The 
+Spanish and Portuguese empires proclaimed that it was not 
+riches they sought in the Indies and America, but converts 
+to the true faith. The sun never set on the British mission to 
+spread the twin gospels of liberalism and free trade. The 
+Soviets felt duty-bound to facilitate the inexorable historical 
+march from capitalism towards the utopian dictatorship of 
+
+
+
+the proletariat. Many Americans nowadays maintain that 
+their 
+
+government has a moral imperative to bring Third World 
+countries the bene ts of democracy and human rights, even 
+if these goods are delivered by cruise missiles and F-16s. 
+
+The cultural ideas spread by empire were seldom the 
+exclusive creation of the ruling elite. Since the imperial 
+vision tends to be universal and inclusive, it was relatively 
+easy for imperial elites to adopt ideas, norms and traditions 
+from wherever they found them, rather than to stick 
+fanatically to a single hidebound tradition. While some 
+emperors sought to purify their cultures and return to what 
+they viewed as their roots, for the most part empires have 
+begot hybrid civilisations that absorbed much from their 
+subject peoples. The imperial culture of Rome was Greek 
+almost as much as Roman. The imperial Abbasid culture was 
+part Persian, part Greek, part Arab. Imperial Mongol culture 
+was a Chinese copycat. In the imperial United States, an 
+American president of Kenyan blood can munch on Italian 
+pizza while watching his favourite Im, Lawrence of Arabia, a 
+British epic about the Arab rebellion against the Turks. 
+
+Not that this cultural melting pot made the process of 
+cultural assimilation any easier for the vanquished. The 
+imperial civilisation may well have absorbed numerous 
+contributions from various conquered peoples, but the 
+hybrid result was still alien to the vast majority. The process 
+of assimilation was often painful and traumatic. It is not easy 
+to give up a familiar and loved local tradition, just as it is di 
+cult and stressful to understand and adopt a new culture. 
+Worse still, even when subject peoples were successful in 
+adopting the imperial culture, it could take decades, if not 
+centuries, until the imperial elite accepted them as part of 
+
+
+
+The generations between conquest and acceptance were left 
+out in the cold. They had already lost their beloved local 
+culture, but they were not allowed to take an equal part in 
+the imperial world. On the contrary, their adopted culture 
+continued to view them as barbarians. 
+
+Imagine an Iberian of good stock living a century after the 
+fall of Numantia. He speaks his native Celtic dialect with his 
+parents, but has acquired impeccable Latin, with only a 
+slight accent, because he needs it to conduct his business 
+and deal with the authorities. He indulges his wife's 
+penchant for elaborately ornate baubles, but is a bit 
+embarrassed that she, like other local women, retains this 
+relic of Celtic taste - he'd rather have her adopt the clean 
+simplicity of the jewellery worn by the Roman governor's 
+wife. He himself wears Roman tunics and, thanks to his 
+success as a cattle merchant, due in no small part to his 
+expertise in the intricacies of Roman commercial law, he has 
+been able to build a Roman-style villa. Yet, even though he 
+can recite Book III of Virgil's Georgies by heart, the Romans 
+still treat him as though he's semi-barbarian. He realises 
+with frustration that he'll never get a government 
+appointment, or one of the really good seats in the 
+amphitheatre. 
+
+In the late nineteenth century, many educated Indians were 
+taught the same lesson by their British masters. One famous 
+anecdote tells of an ambitious Indian who mastered the 
+intricacies of the English language, took lessons in Western- 
+style dance, and even became accustomed to eating with a 
+knife and fork. 
+
+Equipped with his new manners, he travelled to England, 
+studied law at University College London, and became a 
+quali ed barrister. Yet this young man of law, bedecked in 
+suit and tie, was thrown o a train in the British colony of 
+
+
+
+South Africa for insisting on travelling rst class instead of 
+settling for third class, where 'coloured' men like him were 
+supposed to ride. His name was Mohandas Karamchand 
+Gandhi. 
+
+In some cases the processes of acculturation and 
+assimilation eventually broke down the barriers between the 
+newcomers and the old elite. The conquered no longer saw 
+the empire as an alien system of occupation, and the 
+conquerors came to view their subjects as equal to 
+themselves. Rulers and ruled alike came to see 
+
+'them' as 'us'. All the subjects of Rome eventually, after 
+centuries of imperial rule, were granted Roman citizenship. 
+Non-Romans rose to occupy the top ranks in the o cer corps 
+of the Roman legions and were appointed to the Senate. In 
+AD 48 the emperor Claudius admitted to the Senate several 
+Gallic notables, who, he noted in a speech, through 
+'customs, culture, and the ties of marriage have blended 
+with ourselves'. Snobbish senators protested introducing 
+these former enemies into the heart of the Roman political 
+system. Claudius reminded them of an inconvenient truth. 
+Most of their own senatorial families descended from Italian 
+tribes who once fought against Rome, and were later 
+granted Roman citizenship. Indeed, the emperor reminded 
+them, his own family was of Sabine ancestry J5 
+
+During the second century AD, Rome was ruled by a line of 
+emperors born in Iberia, in whose veins probably owed at 
+least a few drops of local Iberian blood. 
+
+The reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninius Pius and Marcus 
+Aurelius are generally thought to constitute the empire's 
+golden age. After that, all the ethnic dams were let down. 
+Emperor Septimius Severus (193-211) was the scion of a 
+Punic family from Libya. Elagabalus (218-22) was a Syrian. 
+
+
+Emperor Philip (244-9) was known colloquially as 'Philip the 
+Arab'. The empire's new citizens adopted Roman imperial 
+culture with such zest that, for centuries and even millennia 
+after the empire itself collapsed, they continued to speak 
+the empire's language, to believe in the Christian God that 
+the empire had adopted from one of its Levantine provinces, 
+and to live by the empire's laws. 
+
+A similar process occurred in the Arab Empire. When it was 
+established in the mid-seventh century AD, it was based on 
+a sharp division between the ruling Arab- 
+
+Muslim elite and the subjugated Egyptians, Syrians, Iranians 
+and Berbers, who were neither Arabs nor Muslim. Many of 
+the empire's subjects gradually adopted the Muslim faith, 
+the Arabic language and a hybrid imperial culture. The old 
+Arab 
+
+elite looked upon these parvenus with deep hostility, fearing 
+to lose its unique status and identity. The frustrated converts 
+clamoured for an equal share within the empire and in the 
+world of Islam. Eventually they got their way. Egyptians, 
+Syrians and Mesopotamians were increasingly seen as 
+'Arabs'. Arabs, in their turn 
+
+- whether authentic' Arabs from Arabia or newly minted 
+Arabs from Egypt and Syria - came to be increasingly 
+dominated by non-Arab Muslims, in particular by Iranians, 
+Turks and Berbers. The great success of the Arab imperial 
+project was that the imperial culture it created was 
+wholeheartedly adopted by numerous non-Arab people, who 
+continued to uphold it, develop it and spread it - even after 
+the original empire collapsed and the Arabs as an ethnic 
+group lost their dominion. 
+
+
+
+In China the success of the imperial project was even more 
+thorough. For more than 2,000 years, a welter of ethnic and 
+cultural groups rst termed barbarians were successfully 
+integrated into imperial Chinese culture and became Han 
+Chinese (so named after the Han Empire that ruled China 
+from 206 BC to AD 220). 
+
+The ultimate achievement of the Chinese Empire is that it is 
+still alive and kicking, yet it is hard to see it as an empire 
+except in outlying areas such as Tibet and Xinjiang. More 
+than 90 per cent of the population of China are seen by 
+themselves and by others as Han. 
+
+We can understand the decolonisation process of the last 
+few decades in a similar way. During the modern era 
+Europeans conquered much of the globe under the guise of 
+spreading a superior Western culture. They were so 
+successful that billions of people gradually adopted signi 
+cant parts of that culture. Indians, Africans, Arabs, Chinese 
+and Maoris learned French, English and Spanish. They began 
+to believe in human rights and the principle of self- 
+determination, and they adopted Western ideologies such as 
+liberalism, capitalism, Communism, feminism and 
+nationalism. 
+
+
+The Imperial Cycle 
+
+
+
+Rome 
+
+
+Islam 
+
+
+European 
+
+imperialism 
+
+
+Stage 
+
+
+A small group The Romans 
+establishes a big establish the 
+empire Roman Empire 
+
+An imperial 
+
+Graeco-Roman 
+
+culture is 
+forged 
+
+culture 
+
+The imperial 
+
+The subject 
+
+culture is 
+
+peoples adopt 
+
+adopted by the 
+
+Latin, Roman 
+
+subject peoples 
+
+law, Roman 
+political ideas, 
+etc. 
+
+
+The subject Illyrians, Gauls 
+
+
+peoples 
+
+and Punics 
+
+demand 
+
+demand equal 
+
+equal status 
+
+status with 
+
+in the name 
+
+the Romans 
+
+of common 
+
+in the name 
+
+imperial values 
+
+of common 
+Roman values 
+
+
+The Arabs 
+
+The Europeans 
+
+establish the 
+
+establish the 
+
+Arab caliphate 
+
+European 
+
+
+empires 
+
+Arab-Muslim 
+
+Western 
+
+culture 
+
+culture 
+
+
+The subject 
+peoples adopt 
+Arabic, Islam, 
+
+etc. 
+
+The subject 
+peoples adopt 
+English and 
+French, 
+socialism, 
+nationalism, 
+human rights, 
+etc. 
+
+Egyptians, 
+
+Indians, 
+
+Iranians 
+
+Chinese and 
+
+and Berbers 
+
+Africans 
+
+demand equal 
+
+demand equal 
+
+status with 
+
+status with 
+
+the Arabs 
+
+Europeans 
+
+in the name 
+
+in the name 
+
+of common 
+
+of common 
+
+Muslim values 
+
+Western 
+values such as 
+nationalism, 
+socialism and 
+human rights 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The empire’s 
+founders 
+lose their 
+dominance 
+
+Romans cease 
+
+to exist as a 
+unique ethnic 
+group. Control 
+of the empire 
+passes to a new 
+multi-ethnic 
+elite 
+
+Arabs lose 
+control of the 
+Muslim world, 
+in favour of a 
+multi-ethnic 
+Muslim elite 
+
+Europeans lose 
+control of the 
+global world, 
+in favour of a 
+multi-ethnic 
+elite largely 
+committed to 
+Western values 
+and ways of 
+thinking 
+
+'Ihc imperial 
+
+'Ihc Illyrians, 
+
+Ihc Egyptians, 
+
+The Indians, 
+
+culture 
+
+Gauls and 
+
+Iranians 
+
+Chinese, 
+
+continues to 
+
+Punics 
+
+and Berbers 
+
+and Africans 
+
+flourish and 
+
+continue 
+
+continue 
+
+continue 
+
+develop 
+
+to develop 
+their adopted 
+Roman culture 
+
+to develop 
+their adopted 
+Muslim culture 
+
+to develop 
+their adopted 
+Western 
+culture 
+
+
+During the twentieth century, local groups that had adopted 
+Western values claimed equality with their European 
+conquerors in the name of these very values. 
+
+Many anti-colonial struggles were waged under the banners 
+of self-determination, socialism and human rights, all of 
+which are Western legacies. Just as Egyptians, Iranians and 
+Turks adopted and adapted the imperial culture that they 
+inherited from the original Arab conquerors, so today's 
+Indians, Africans and Chinese have accepted much of the 
+imperial culture of their former Western overlords, while 
+seeking to mould it in accordance with their needs and 
+traditions. 
+
+Good Guys and Bad Guys in History 
+
+It is tempting to divide history neatly into good guys and 
+bad guys, with all empires among the bad guys. For the vast 
+majority of empires were founded on blood, and maintained 
+their power through oppression and war. Yet most of today's 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+cultures are based on imperial legacies. If empires are by de 
+nition bad, what does that say about us? 
+
+There are schools of thought and political movements that 
+seek to purge human culture of imperialism, leaving behind 
+what they claim is a pure, authentic civilisation, untainted 
+by sin. These ideologies are at best naive; at worst they 
+serve as disingenuous window-dressing for crude 
+nationalism and bigotry. Perhaps you could make a case that 
+some of the myriad cultures that emerged at the dawn of 
+recorded history were pure, untouched by sin and 
+unadulterated by other societies. But no culture since that 
+dawn can reasonably make that claim, 
+
+
+
+certainly no culture that exists now on earth. All human 
+cultures are at least in part the legacy of empires and 
+imperial civilisations, and no academic or political surgery 
+can cut out the imperial legacies without killing the patient. 
+
+
+
+
+Think, for example, about the love-hate relationship 
+between the independent Indian republic of today and the 
+British Raj. The British conquest and occupation of India cost 
+the lives of millions of Indians, and was responsible for the 
+continuous humiliation and exploitation of hundreds of 
+millions more. Yet many Indians adopted, with the zest of 
+converts, Western ideas such as self-determination and 
+human rights, and were dismayed when the British refused 
+to live up to their own declared values by granting native 
+Indians either equal rights as British subjects or 
+independence. 
+
+Nevertheless, the modern Indian state is a child of the 
+British Empire. The British killed, injured and persecuted the 
+inhabitants of the subcontinent, but they also united a 
+bewildering mosaic of warring kingdoms, principalities and 
+tribes, creating a shared national consciousness and a 
+country that functioned more or less as a single political 
+unit. They laid the foundations of the Indian judicial system, 
+created its administrative structure, and built the railroad 
+network that was critical for economic integration. 
+Independent India adopted Western democracy, in its British 
+incarnation, as its form of government. English is still the 
+subcontinent's lingua franca, a neutral tongue that native 
+speakers of Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam can use to 
+communicate. Indians are passionate cricket players and 
+chai (tea) drinkers, and both game and beverage are British 
+legacies. 
+
+Commercial tea farming did not exist in India until the mid¬ 
+nineteenth century, when it was introduced by the British 
+East India Company. It was the snobbish British sahibs who 
+spread the custom of tea drinking throughout the 
+subcontinent. 
+
+
+
+
+28. The Chhatrapati Shivaji train station in Mumbai. 
+It began its life as Victoria Station, Bombay. The 
+British built it in the Neo-Gothic style that was 
+popular in late nineteenth-century Britain. A Hindu 
+nationalist government changed the names of both 
+city and station, but showed no appetite for razing 
+such a magnificent building, even if it was built by 
+foreign oppressors. 
+
+How many Indians today would want to call a vote to divest 
+themselves of democracy, English, the railway network, the 
+legal system, cricket and tea on the grounds that they are 
+imperial legacies? And if they did, wouldn't the very act of 
+calling a vote to decide the issue demonstrate their debt to 
+their former overlords? 
+
+29. The Taj Mahal. An example of 'authentic' Indian 
+culture, or the alien creation of Muslim imperialism? 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Even if we were to completely disavow the legacy of a brutal 
+empire in the hope of reconstructing and safeguarding the 
+'authentic' cultures that preceded it, in all probability what 
+we will be defending is nothing but the legacy of an older 
+and no less brutal empire. Those who resent the mutilation 
+of Indian culture by the British Raj inadvertently sanctify the 
+legacies of the Mughal Empire and the conquering sultanate 
+of Delhi. And whoever attempts to rescue 'authentic Indian 
+culture' from the alien in uences of these Muslim empires 
+sancti es the legacies of the Gupta Empire, the Kushan 
+Empire and the Maurya Empire. If an extreme Hindu 
+nationalist were to destroy all the buildings left by the 
+British conquerors, such as Mumbai's main train station, 
+what about the structures left by India's 
+
+Muslim conquerors, such as the Taj Mahal? 
+
+Nobody really knows how to solve this thorny question of 
+cultural inheritance. 
+
+Whatever path we take, the rst step is to acknowledge the 
+complexity of the dilemma and to accept that simplistically 
+dividing the past into good guys and bad guys leads 
+nowhere. Unless, of course, we are willing to admit that we 
+usually follow the lead of the bad guys. 
+
+The New Global Empire 
+
+Since around 200 BC, most humans have lived in empires. It 
+seems likely that in the future, too, most humans will live in 
+one. But this time the empire will be truly global. The 
+imperial vision of dominion over the entire world could be 
+imminent. 
+
+As the twenty- rst century unfolds, nationalism is fast losing 
+ground. More and more people believe that all of humankind 
+is the legitimate source of political authority, rather than the 
+
+
+
+members of a particular nationality, and that safeguarding 
+human rights and protecting the interests of the entire 
+human species should be the guiding light of politics. If so, 
+having close to 200 
+
+independent states is a hindrance rather than a help. Since 
+Swedes, Indonesians and Nigerians deserve the same 
+human rights, wouldn't it be simpler for a single global 
+government to safeguard them? 
+
+The appearance of essentially global problems, such as 
+melting ice caps, nibbles away at whatever legitimacy 
+remains to the independent nation states. No sovereign 
+state will be able to overcome global warming on its own. 
+The Chinese Mandate of Heaven was given by Heaven to 
+solve the problems of humankind. 
+
+The modern Mandate of Heaven will be given by humankind 
+to solve the problems of heaven, such as the hole in the 
+ozone layer and the accumulation of greenhouse gases. The 
+colour of the global empire may well be green. 
+
+As of 2014, the world is still politically fragmented, but 
+states are fast losing their independence. Not one of them is 
+really able to execute independent economic policies, to 
+declare and wage wars as it pleases, or even to run its own 
+internal a airs as it sees t. States are increasingly open to 
+the machinations of global markets, to the interference of 
+global companies and NGOs, and to the supervision of 
+global public opinion and the international judicial system. 
+States are obliged to conform to global standards of nancial 
+behaviour, environmental policy and justice. Immensely 
+powerful currents of capital, labour and information turn and 
+shape the world, with a growing disregard for the borders 
+and opinions of states. 
+
+
+
+The global empire being forged before our eyes is not 
+governed by any 
+
+particular state or ethnic group. Much like the Late Roman 
+Empire, it is ruled by a multi-ethnic elite, and is held 
+together by a common culture and common interests. 
+Throughout the world, more and more entrepreneurs, 
+engineers, experts, scholars, lawyers and managers are 
+called to join the empire. They must ponder whether to 
+answer the imperial call or to remain loyal to their state and 
+their people. More and more choose the empire. 
+
+12 
+
+The Law of Religion 
+
+IN THE MEDIEVAL MARKET IN SAMARKAND, a city built on a 
+Central Asian oasis, Syrian merchants ran their hands over 
+ne Chinese silks, erce tribesmen from the steppes displayed 
+the latest batch of straw-haired slaves from the far west, and 
+shopkeepers pocketed shiny gold coins imprinted with 
+exotic scripts and the pro les of unfamiliar kings. Here, at 
+one of that era's major crossroads between east and west, 
+north and south, the uni cation of humankind was an 
+everyday fact. The same process could be observed at work 
+when Kublai Khan's army mustered to invadejapan in 1281. 
+Mongol cavalrymen in skins and furs rubbed shoulders with 
+Chinese foot soldiers in bamboo hats, drunken Korean 
+auxiliaries picked ghts with tattooed sailors from the South 
+China Sea, engineers from Central Asia listened with 
+dropping jaws to the tall tales of European adventurers, and 
+all obeyed the command of a single emperor. 
+
+
+Meanwhile, around the holy Ka'aba in Mecca, human uni 
+cation was 
+
+
+
+proceeding by other means. Had you been a pilgrim to 
+Mecca, circling Islam's holiest shrine in the year 1300, you 
+might have found yourself in the company of a party from 
+Mesopotamia, their robes oating in the wind, their eyes 
+blazing with ecstasy, and their mouths repeating one after 
+the other the ninety-nine names of God. Just ahead you 
+might have seen a weather-beaten Turkish patriarch from 
+the Asian steppes, hobbling on a stick and stroking his 
+beard thoughtfully. To one side, gold jewellery shining 
+against jet-black skin, might have been a group of Muslims 
+from the African kingdom of Mali. The aroma of clove, 
+turmeric, cardamom and sea salt would have signalled the 
+presence of brothers from India, or perhaps from the 
+mysterious spice islands further east. 
+
+Today religion is often considered a source of discrimination, 
+disagreement and disunion. Yet, in fact, religion has been 
+the third great uni er of humankind, alongside money and 
+empires. Since all social orders and hierarchies are 
+imagined, they are all fragile, and the larger the society, the 
+more fragile it is. The crucial historical role of religion has 
+been to give superhuman legitimacy to these fragile 
+structures. Religions assert that our laws are not the result of 
+human caprice, but are ordained by an absolute and 
+supreme authority. This helps place at least some 
+fundamental laws beyond challenge, thereby ensuring social 
+
+stability. 
+
+Religion can thus be de ned as a system of human norms 
+and values that is founded on a belief in a superhuman 
+order. This involves two distinct criteria: 1. Religions hold 
+that there is a superhuman order, which is not the product of 
+human whims or agreements. Professional football is not a 
+religion, because despite its many laws, rites and often 
+bizarre rituals, everyone knows that human beings invented 
+
+
+
+football themselves, and FIFA may at any moment enlarge 
+the size of the goal or cancel the offside rule. 
+
+2. Based on this superhuman order, religion establishes 
+norms and values that it considers binding. Many 
+Westerners today believe in ghosts, fairies and 
+reincarnation, but these beliefs are not a source of moral and 
+behavioural standards. As such, they do not constitute a 
+religion. 
+
+Despite their ability to legitimise widespread social and 
+political orders, not all religions have actuated this potential. 
+In order to unite under its aegis a large expanse of territory 
+inhabited by disparate groups of human beings, a religion 
+must possess two further qualities. First, it must espouse a 
+universal superhuman order that is true always and 
+everywhere. Second, it must insist on spreading this belief 
+to everyone. In other words, it must be universal and 
+missionary. 
+
+The best-known religions of history, such as Islam and 
+Buddhism, are universal and missionary. Consequently 
+people tend to believe that all religions are like them. In 
+fact, the majority of ancient religions were local and 
+exclusive. Their followers believed in local deities and 
+spirits, and had no interest in converting the entire human 
+race. As far as we know, universal and missionary religions 
+began to appear only in the rst millennium BC. Their 
+emergence was one of the most important revolutions in 
+history, and made a vital contribution to the uni cation of 
+humankind, much like the emergence of universal empires 
+and universal money. 
+
+
+Silencing the Lambs 
+
+
+
+When animism was the dominant belief system, human 
+norms and values had to 
+
+take into consideration the outlook and interests of a 
+multitude of other beings, such as animals, plants, fairies 
+and ghosts. For example, a forager band in the Ganges 
+Valley may have established a rule forbidding people to cut 
+down a particularly large g tree, lest the g-tree spirit become 
+angry and take revenge. 
+
+Another forager band living in the Indus Valley may have 
+forbidden people from hunting white-tailed foxes, because a 
+white-tailed fox once revealed to a wise old woman where 
+the band might find precious obsidian. 
+
+Such religions tended to be very local in outlook, and to 
+emphasise the unique features of speci c locations, climates 
+and phenomena. Most foragers spent their entire lives within 
+an area of no more than a thousand square kilometres. In 
+order to survive, the inhabitants of a particular valley 
+needed to understand the superhuman order that regulated 
+their valley, and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. 
+
+It was pointless to try to convince the inhabitants of some 
+distant valley to follow the same rules. The people of the 
+Indus did not bother to send missionaries to the Ganges to 
+convince locals not to hunt white-tailed foxes. 
+
+The Agricultural Revolution seems to have been 
+accompanied by a religious revolution. Hunter-gatherers 
+picked and pursued wild plants and animals, which could be 
+seen as equal in status to Homo sapiens. The fact that man 
+hunted sheep did not make sheep inferior to man, just as 
+the fact that tigers hunted man did not make man inferior to 
+tigers. Beings communicated with one another directly and 
+negotiated the rules governing their shared habitat. In 
+
+
+
+contrast, farmers owned and manipulated plants and 
+animals, and could hardly degrade themselves by 
+negotiating with their possessions. Hence the rst religious e 
+ect of the Agricultural Revolution was to turn plants and 
+animals from equal members of a spiritual round table into 
+property. 
+
+This, however, created a big problem. Farmers may have 
+desired absolute control of their sheep, but they knew 
+perfectly well that their control was limited. 
+
+They could lock the sheep in pens, castrate rams and 
+selectively breed ewes, yet they could not ensure that the 
+ewes conceived and gave birth to healthy lambs, nor could 
+they prevent the eruption of deadly epidemics. How then to 
+safeguard the fecundity of the flocks? 
+
+A leading theory about the origin of the gods argues that 
+gods gained importance because they o ered a solution to 
+this problem. Gods such as the fertility goddess, the sky god 
+and the god of medicine took centre stage when plants and 
+animals lost their ability to speak, and the gods' main role 
+was to mediate between humans and the mute plants and 
+animals. Much of ancient mythology is in fact a legal 
+contract in which humans promise everlasting devotion to 
+the gods in exchange for mastery over plants and animals - 
+the rst chapters of the book of Genesis are a prime example. 
+For thousands of years after the Agricultural Revolution, 
+religious liturgy consisted mainly of humans sacri cing 
+lambs, wine and cakes to divine powers, who in exchange 
+promised abundant harvests and fecund flocks. 
+
+The Agricultural Revolution initially had a far smaller impact 
+on the status of other members of the animist system, such 
+as rocks, springs, ghosts and demons. 
+
+
+
+However, these too gradually lost status in favour of the new 
+gods. As long as people lived their entire lives within limited 
+territories of a few hundred square kilometres, most of their 
+needs could be met by local spirits. But once kingdoms 
+
+and trade networks expanded, people needed to contact 
+entities whose power and authority encompassed a whole 
+kingdom or an entire trade basin. 
+
+The attempt to answer these needs led to the appearance of 
+polytheistic religions (from the Greek: poly = many, theos = 
+god). These religions understood the world to be controlled 
+by a group of powerful gods, such as the fertility goddess, 
+the rain god and the war god. Humans could appeal to these 
+gods and the gods might, if they received devotions and 
+sacri ces, deign to bring rain, victory and health. 
+
+Animism did not entirely disappear at the advent of 
+polytheism. Demons, fairies, ghosts, holy rocks, holy springs 
+and holy trees remained an integral part of almost all 
+polytheist religions. These spirits were far less important 
+than the great gods, but for the mundane needs of many 
+ordinary people, they were good enough. While the king in 
+his capital city sacri ced dozens of fat rams to the great war 
+god, praying for victory over the barbarians, the peasant in 
+his hut lit a candle to the fig-tree fairy, praying that she help 
+cure his sick son. 
+
+Yet the greatest impact of the rise of great gods was not on 
+sheep or demons, but upon the status of Homo sapiens. 
+Animists thought that humans were just one of many 
+creatures inhabiting the world. Polytheists, on the other 
+hand, increasingly saw the world as a re ection of the 
+relationship between gods and humans. Our prayers, our 
+sacri ces, our sins and our good deeds determined the fate 
+of the entire ecosystem. A terrible ood might wipe out 
+
+
+
+billions of ants, grasshoppers, turtles, antelopes, gira es and 
+elephants, just because a few stupid Sapiens made the gods 
+angry. Polytheism thereby exalted not only the status of the 
+gods, but also that of humankind. Less fortunate members of 
+the old animist system lost their stature and became either 
+extras or silent decor in the great drama of man's 
+relationship with the gods. 
+
+The Benefits of Idolatry 
+
+Two thousand years of monotheistic brainwashing have 
+caused most Westerners to see polytheism as ignorant and 
+childish idolatry. This is an unjust stereotype. In order to 
+understand the inner logic of polytheism, it is necessary to 
+grasp the central idea buttressing the belief in many gods. 
+
+Polytheism does not necessarily dispute the existence of a 
+single power or law governing the entire universe. In fact, 
+most polytheist and even animist religions recognised such 
+a supreme power that stands behind all the di erent gods, 
+demons and holy rocks. In classical Greek polytheism, Zeus, 
+Hera, Apollo and their colleagues were subject to an 
+omnipotent and all-encompassing power - Fate 
+
+(Moira, Ananke). Nordic gods, too, were in thrall to fate, 
+which doomed them to perish in the cataclysm of Ragnarok 
+(the Twilight of the Gods). In the polytheistic religion of the 
+Yoruba of West Africa, all gods were born of the supreme god 
+Olodumare, and remained subject to him. In Hindu 
+polytheism, a single principle, Atman, controls the myriad 
+gods and spirits, humankind, and the biological and physical 
+world. Atman is the eternal essence or soul of the entire 
+universe, as well as of every individual and every 
+phenomenon. 
+
+
+
+The fundamental insight of polytheism, which distinguishes 
+it from monotheism, is that the supreme power governing 
+the world is devoid of interests and biases, and therefore it is 
+unconcerned with the mundane desires, cares and worries of 
+humans. It's pointless to ask this power for victory in war, for 
+health or for rain, because from its all-encompassing 
+vantage point, it makes no di erence whether a particular 
+kingdom wins or loses, whether a particular city prospers or 
+withers, whether a particular person recuperates or dies. The 
+Greeks did not waste any sacrifices on Fate, and Hindus built 
+no temples to Atman. 
+
+The only reason to approach the supreme power of the 
+universe would be to renounce all desires and embrace the 
+bad along with the good - to embrace even defeat, poverty, 
+sickness and death. Thus some Hindus, known as Sadhus or 
+Sannyasis, devote their lives to uniting with Atman, thereby 
+achieving enlightenment. They strive to see the world from 
+the viewpoint of this fundamental principle, to realise that 
+from its eternal perspective all mundane desires and fears 
+are meaningless and ephemeral phenomena. 
+
+Most Hindus, however, are not Sadhus. They are sunk deep 
+in the morass of mundane concerns, where Atman is not 
+much help. For assistance in such matters, Hindus approach 
+the gods with their partial powers. Precisely because their 
+powers are partial rather than all-encompassing, gods such 
+as Ganesha, Lakshmi and Saraswati have interests and 
+biases. Humans can therefore make deals with these partial 
+powers and rely on their help in order to win wars and 
+recuperate from illness. There are necessarily many of these 
+smaller powers, since once you start dividing up the all- 
+encompassing power of a supreme principle, you'll 
+inevitably end up with more than one deity. Hence the 
+plurality of gods. 
+
+
+
+The insight of polytheism is conducive to far-reaching 
+religious tolerance. Since polytheists believe, on the one 
+hand, in one supreme and completely disinterested power, 
+and on the other hand in many partial and biased powers, 
+there is no di culty for the devotees of one god to accept the 
+existence and e cacy of other gods. Polytheism is inherently 
+open-minded, and rarely persecutes 'heretics' and 
+
+'infidels'. 
+
+Even when polytheists conquered huge empires, they did 
+not try to convert their subjects. The Egyptians, the Romans 
+and the Aztecs did not send missionaries to foreign lands to 
+spread the worship of Osiris, Jupiter or Huitzilopochtli (the 
+chief 
+
+Aztec god), and they certainly didn't dispatch armies for 
+that purpose. Subject peoples throughout the empire were 
+expected to respect the empire's gods and rituals, since 
+these gods and rituals protected and legitimised the empire. 
+Yet they were not required to give up their local gods and 
+rituals. In the Aztec Empire, subject peoples were obliged to 
+build temples for Huitzilopochtli, but these temples were 
+built alongside those of local gods, rather than in their 
+stead. In many cases the imperial elite itself adopted the 
+gods and rituals of subject people. 
+
+The Romans happily added the Asian goddess Cybele and 
+the Egyptian goddess Isis to their pantheon. 
+
+The only god that the Romans long refused to tolerate was 
+the monotheistic and evangelising god of the Christians. The 
+Roman Empire did not require the Christians to give up their 
+beliefs and rituals, but it did expect them to pay respect to 
+the empire's protector gods and to the divinity of the 
+emperor. This was seen as a declaration of political loyalty. 
+
+
+
+When the Christians vehemently refused to do so, and went 
+on to reject all attempts at compromise, the Romans reacted 
+by persecuting what they understood to be a politically 
+subversive faction. And even this was done half-heartedly. In 
+the 300 years from the cruci xion of Christ to the conversion 
+of Emperor Constantine, polytheistic Roman emperors 
+initiated no more than four general persecutions of 
+Christians. Local administrators and governors incited some 
+anti-Christian violence of their own. Still, if we combine all 
+the victims of all these persecutions, it turns out that in 
+these three centuries, the polytheistic Romans killed no 
+more than a few thousand Christians. l_\r\ contrast, over the 
+course of the next 1,500 years, Christians slaughtered 
+Christians by the millions to defend slightly di erent 
+interpretations of the religion of love and compassion. 
+
+The religious wars between Catholics and Protestants that 
+swept Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
+are particularly notorious. All those involved accepted 
+Christ's divinity and His gospel of compassion and love. 
+However, they disagreed about the nature of this love. 
+Protestants believed that the divine love is so great that God 
+was incarnated in esh and allowed Himself to be tortured 
+and cruci ed, thereby redeeming the original sin and 
+opening the gates of heaven to all those who professed faith 
+in Him. Catholics maintained that faith, while essential, was 
+not enough. To enter heaven, believers had to participate in 
+church rituals and do good deeds. Protestants refused to 
+accept this, arguing that this quid pro quo belittles God's 
+greatness and love. Whoever thinks that entry to heaven 
+depends upon his or her own good deeds magni es his own 
+importance, and implies that Christ's su ering on the cross 
+and God's love for humankind are not enough. 
+
+These theological disputes turned so violent that during the 
+sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Catholics and 
+
+
+Protestants killed each other by the hundreds 
+
+of thousands. On 23 August 1572, French Catholics who 
+stressed the importance of good deeds attacked 
+communities of French Protestants who highlighted God's 
+love for humankind. In this attack, the St Bartholomew's Day 
+Massacre, between 5,000 and 10,000 Protestants were 
+slaughtered in less than twenty-four hours. 
+
+When the pope in Rome heard the news from France, he was 
+so overcome by joy that he organised festive prayers to 
+celebrate the occasion and commissioned Giorgio Vasari to 
+decorate one of the Vatican's rooms with a fresco of the 
+massacre (the room is currently o -limits to visitors). 2 More 
+Christians were killed by fellow Christians in those twenty- 
+four hours than by the polytheistic Roman Empire 
+throughout its entire existence. 
+
+God is One 
+
+With time some followers of polytheist gods became so fond 
+of their particular patron that they drifted away from the 
+basic polytheist insight. They began to believe that their 
+god was the only god, and that He was in fact the supreme 
+power of the universe. Yet at the same time they continued 
+to view Him as possessing interests and biases, and believed 
+that they could strike deals with Him. 
+
+Thus were born monotheist religions, whose followers 
+beseech the supreme power of the universe to help them 
+recover from illness, win the lottery and gain victory in war. 
+
+The rst monotheist religion known to us appeared in Egypt, 
+c.350 BC, when Pharaoh Akhenaten declared that one of the 
+minor deities of the Egyptian pantheon, the god Aten, was, 
+in fact, the supreme power ruling the universe. 
+
+
+Akhenaten institutionalised the worship of Aten as the state 
+religion and tried to check the worship of all other gods. His 
+religious revolution, however, was unsuccessful. After his 
+death, the worship of Aten was abandoned in favour of the 
+old pantheon. 
+
+Polytheism continued to give birth here and there to other 
+monotheist religions, but they remained marginal, not least 
+because they failed to digest their own universal message. 
+Judaism, for example, argued that the supreme power of the 
+universe has interests and biases, yet His chief interest is in 
+the tiny Jewish nation and in the obscure land of Israel. 
+Judaism had little to o er other nations, and throughout most 
+of its existence it has not been a missionary religion. This 
+stage can be called the stage of 'local monotheism'. 
+
+The big breakthrough came with Christianity. This faith 
+began as an esoteric Jewish sect that sought to convince 
+Jews that Jesus of Nazareth was their long-awaited messiah. 
+However, one of the sect's rst leaders, Paul of Tarsus, 
+reasoned 
+
+that if the supreme power of the universe has interests and 
+biases, and if He had bothered to incarnate Himself in the 
+esh and to die on the cross for the salvation of humankind, 
+then this is something everyone should hear about, not just 
+Jews. It was thus necessary to spread the good word - the 
+gospel - about Jesus throughout the world. 
+
+Paul's arguments fell on fertile ground. Christians began 
+organising widespread missionary activities aimed at all 
+humans. In one of history's strangest twists, this esoteric 
+Jewish sect took over the mighty Roman Empire. 
+
+Christian success served as a model for another monotheist 
+religion that appeared in the Arabian peninsula in the 
+
+
+
+seventh century - Islam. Like Christianity, Islam, too, began 
+as a small sect in a remote corner of the world, but in an 
+even stranger and swifter historical surprise it managed to 
+break out of the deserts of Arabia and conquer an immense 
+empire stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to India. 
+Henceforth, the monotheist idea played a central role in 
+world history. 
+
+Monotheists have tended to be far more fanatical and 
+missionary than polytheists. A religion that recognises the 
+legitimacy of other faiths implies either that its god is not 
+the supreme power of the universe, or that it received from 
+God just part of the universal truth. Since monotheists have 
+usually believed that they are in possession of the entire 
+message of the one and only God, they have been 
+compelled to discredit all other religions. Over the last two 
+millennia, monotheists repeatedly tried to strengthen their 
+hand by violently exterminating all competition. 
+
+It worked. At the beginning of the rst century AD, there were 
+hardly any monotheists in the world. Around AD 500, one of 
+the world's largest empires - the Roman Empire - was a 
+Christian polity, and missionaries were busy spreading 
+Christianity to other parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. By the 
+end of the rst millennium AD, most people in Europe, West 
+Asia and North Africa were monotheists, and empires from 
+the Atlantic Ocean to the Himalayas claimed to be ordained 
+by the single great God. By the early sixteenth century, 
+monotheism dominated most of Afro-Asia, with the 
+exception of East Asia and the southern parts of Africa, and 
+it began extending long tentacles towards South Africa, 
+America and Oceania. Today most people outside East Asia 
+adhere to one monotheist religion or another, and the global 
+political order is built on monotheistic foundations. 
+
+
+
+Yet just as animism continued to survive within polytheism, 
+so polytheism continued to survive within monotheism. In 
+theory, once a person believes that the supreme power of 
+the universe has interests and biases, what's the point in 
+worshipping partial powers? Who would want to approach a 
+lowly bureaucrat when the president's o ce is open to you? 
+Indeed, monotheist theology tends to 
+
+
+
+deny the existence of all gods except the supreme God, and 
+to pour hell re and brimstone over anyone who dares 
+worship them. 
+
+Map 5. The Spread of Christianity and Islam. 
+
+Yet there has always been a chasm between theological 
+theories and historical realities. Most people have found it d 
+cult to digest the monotheist idea fully. 
+
+
+They have continued to divide the world into 'we' and 'they', 
+and to see the supreme power of the universe as too distant 
+and alien for their mundane needs. 
+
+The monotheist religions expelled the gods through the front 
+door with a lot of fanfare, only to take them back in through 
+the side window. Christianity, for example, developed its 
+own pantheon of saints, whose cults di ered little from those 
+of the polytheistic gods. 
+
+Just as the god Jupiter defended Rome and Huitzilopochtli 
+protected the Aztec Empire, so every Christian kingdom had 
+its own patron saint who helped it overcome di culties and 
+win wars. England was protected by St George, Scotland by 
+St Andrew, Hungary by St Stephen, and France had St 
+Martin. Cities and towns, professions, and even diseases - 
+each had their own saint. The city of Milan had St Ambrose, 
+while St Mark watched over Venice. St Florian protected 
+chimney cleaners, whereas St Mathew lent a hand to tax 
+collectors in distress. If you su ered from headaches you had 
+to pray to St Agathius, but if from toothaches, then St 
+Apollonia was a much better audience. 
+
+The Christian saints did not merely resemble the old 
+polytheistic gods. Often 
+
+they were these very same gods in disguise. For example, 
+the chief goddess of Celtic Ireland prior to the coming of 
+Christianity was Brigid. When Ireland was Christianised, 
+Brigid too was baptised. She became St Brigit, who to this 
+day is the most revered saint in Catholic Ireland. 
+
+The Battle of Good and Evil 
+
+Polytheism gave birth not merely to monotheist religions, 
+but also to dualistic ones. Dualistic religions espouse the 
+existence of two opposing powers: good and evil. Unlike 
+
+
+
+monotheism, dualism believes that evil is an independent 
+power, neither created by the good God, nor subordinate to 
+it. Dualism explains that the entire universe is a 
+battleground between these two forces, and that everything 
+that happens in the world is part of the struggle. 
+
+Dualism is a very attractive world view because it has a 
+short and simple answer to the famous Problem of Evil, one 
+of the fundamental concerns of human thought. 'Why is 
+there evil in the world? Why is there su ering? Why do bad 
+things happen to good people?' Monotheists have to 
+practise intellectual gymnastics to explain how an all¬ 
+knowing, all-powerful and perfectly good God allows so 
+much su ering in the world. One well-known explanation is 
+that this is God's way of allowing for human free will. Were 
+there no evil, humans could not choose between good and 
+evil, and hence there would be no free will. This, however, is 
+a non-intuitive answer that immediately raises a host of new 
+questions. Freedom of will allows humans to choose evil. 
+Many indeed choose evil and, according to the standard 
+monotheist account, this choice must bring divine 
+punishment in its wake. If God knew in advance that a 
+particular person would use her free will to choose evil, and 
+that as a result she would be punished for this by eternal 
+tortures in hell, why did God create her? Theologians have 
+written countless books to answer such questions. Some nd 
+the answers convincing. 
+
+Some don't. What's undeniable is that monotheists have a 
+hard time dealing with the Problem of Evil. 
+
+For dualists, it's easy to explain evil. Bad things happen 
+even to good people because the world is not governed 
+single-handedly by a good God. There is an independent evil 
+power loose in the world. The evil power does bad things. 
+
+
+
+Dualism has its own drawbacks. While solving the Problem of 
+Evil, it is unnerved by the Problem of Order. If the world was 
+created by a single God, it's clear why it is such an orderly 
+place, where everything obeys the same laws. But if Good 
+and Evil battle for control of the world, who enforces the 
+laws governing this cosmic war? Two rival states can ght one 
+another because both obey the 
+
+same laws of physics. A missile launched from Pakistan can 
+hit targets in India because gravity works the same way in 
+both countries. When Good and Evil ght, what common laws 
+do they obey, and who decreed these laws? 
+
+So, monotheism explains order, but is mysti ed by evil. 
+Dualism explains evil, but is puzzled by order. There is one 
+logical way of solving the riddle: to argue that there is a 
+single omnipotent God who created the entire universe - 
+and He's evil. But nobody in history has had the stomach for 
+such a belief. 
+
+Dualistic religions ourished for more than a thousand years. 
+Sometime between 1500 BC and 1000 BC a prophet named 
+Zoroaster (Zarathustra) was active somewhere in Central 
+Asia. His creed passed from generation to generation until it 
+became the most important of dualistic religions - 
+Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrians saw the world as a cosmic 
+battle between the good god Ahura Mazda and the evil god 
+Angra Mainyu. Humans had to help the good god in this 
+battle. 
+
+Zoroastrianism was an important religion during the 
+Achaemenid Persian Empire (550-330 BC) and later became 
+the o cial religion of the Sassanid Persian Empire (AD 224- 
+651). It exerted a major influence on almost all subsequent 
+Middle Eastern and Central Asian religions, and it inspired a 
+
+
+
+number of other dualist religions, such as Gnosticism and 
+Manichaeanism. 
+
+During the third and fourth centuries AD, the Manichaean 
+creed spread from China to North Africa, and for a moment it 
+appeared that it would beat Christianity to achieve 
+dominance in the Roman Empire. Yet the Manichaeans lost 
+the soul of Rome to the Christians, the Zoroastrian Sassanid 
+Empire was overrun by the monotheistic Muslims, and the 
+dualist wave subsided. Today only a handful of dualist 
+communities survive in India and the Middle East. 
+
+Nevertheless, the rising tide of monotheism did not really 
+wipe out dualism. 
+
+Jewish, Christian and Muslim monotheism absorbed 
+numerous dualist beliefs and practices, and some of the 
+most basic ideas of what we call 'monotheism' are, in fact, 
+dualist in origin and spirit. Countless Christians, Muslims 
+and Jews believe in a powerful evil force - like the one 
+Christians call the Devil or Satan - who can act 
+independently, ght against the good God, and wreak havoc 
+without God's permission. 
+
+How can a monotheist adhere to such a dualistic belief 
+(which, by the way, is nowhere to be found in the Old 
+Testament)? Logically, it is impossible. Either you believe in 
+a single omnipotent God or you believe in two opposing 
+powers, neither of which is omnipotent. Still, humans have a 
+wonderful capacity to believe in contradictions. So it should 
+not come as a surprise that millions of pious Christians, 
+Muslims and Jews manage to believe at one and the same 
+time in an omnipotent God and an independent Devil. 
+Countless Christians, Muslims and 
+
+
+
+Jews have gone so far as to imagine that the good God even 
+needs our help in its struggle against the Devil, which 
+inspired among other things the call for jihads and crusades. 
+
+Another key dualistic concept, particularly in Gnosticism 
+and Manichaeanism, was the sharp distinction between 
+body and soul, between matter and spirit. 
+
+Gnostics and Manichaeans argued that the good god 
+created the spirit and the soul, whereas matter and bodies 
+are the creation of the evil god. Man, according to this view, 
+serves as a battleground between the good soul and the evil 
+body. 
+
+From a monotheistic perspective, this is nonsense - why 
+distinguish so sharply between body and soul, or matter and 
+spirit? And why argue that body and matter are evil? After 
+all, everything was created by the same good God. But 
+monotheists could not help but be captivated by dualist 
+dichotomies, precisely because they helped them address 
+the problem of evil. So such oppositions eventually became 
+cornerstones of Christian and Muslim thought. Belief in 
+heaven (the realm of the good god) and hell (the realm of 
+the evil god) was also dualist in origin. There is no trace of 
+this belief in the Old Testament, which also never claims that 
+the souls of people continue to live after the death of the 
+body. 
+
+In fact, monotheism, as it has played out in history, is a 
+kaleidoscope of monotheist, dualist, polytheist and animist 
+legacies, jumbling together under a single divine umbrella. 
+The average Christian believes in the monotheist God, but 
+also in the dualist Devil, in polytheist saints, and in animist 
+ghosts. Scholars of religion have a name for this 
+simultaneous avowal of di erent and even contradictory 
+ideas and the combination of rituals and practices taken 
+
+
+
+from di erent sources. It's called syncretism. Syncretism 
+might, in fact, be the single great world religion. 
+
+The Law of Nature 
+
+All the religions we have discussed so far share one 
+important characteristic: they all focus on a belief in gods 
+and other supernatural entities. This seems obvious to 
+Westerners, who are familiar mainly with monotheistic and 
+polytheist creeds. In fact, however, the religious history of 
+the world does not boil down to the history of gods. During 
+the rst millennium BC, religions of an altogether new kind 
+began to spread through Afro-Asia. The newcomers, such as 
+Jainism and Buddhism in India, Daoism and Confucianism in 
+China, and Stoicism, Cynicism and Epicureanism in the 
+Mediterranean basin, were characterised by their disregard 
+of gods. 
+
+These creeds maintained that the superhuman order 
+governing the world is the 
+
+product of natural laws rather than of divine wills and 
+whims. Some of these natural-law religions continued to 
+espouse the existence of gods, but their gods were subject 
+to the laws of nature no less than humans, animals and 
+plants were. 
+
+Gods had their niche in the ecosystem, just as elephants 
+and porcupines had theirs, but could no more change the 
+laws of nature than elephants can. A prime example is 
+Buddhism, the most important of the ancient natural law 
+religions, which remains one of the major faiths. 
+
+The central gure of Buddhism is not a god but a human 
+being, Siddhartha Gautama. According to Buddhist tradition, 
+Gautama was heir to a small Himalayan kingdom, sometime 
+around 500 BC. The young prince was deeply a ected by the 
+
+
+
+su ering evident all around him. He saw that men and 
+women, 
+
+children and old people, all su er not just from occasional 
+calamities such as war and plague, but also from anxiety, 
+frustration and discontent, all of which seem to be an 
+inseparable part of the human condition. People pursue 
+wealth and power, acquire knowledge and possessions, 
+beget sons and daughters, and build houses and palaces. 
+
+Yet no matter what they achieve, they are never content. 
+Those who live in poverty dream of riches. Those who have a 
+million want two million. Those who have two million want 
+10 million. Even the rich and famous are rarely satis ed. 
+
+They too are haunted by ceaseless cares and worries, until 
+sickness, old age and death put a bitter end to them. 
+Everything that one has accumulated vanishes like smoke. 
+Life is a pointless rat race. But how to escape it? 
+
+At the age of twenty-nine Gautama slipped away from his 
+palace in the middle of the night, leaving behind his family 
+and possessions. He travelled as a homeless vagabond 
+throughout northern India, searching for a way out of su 
+ering. He visited ashrams and sat at the feet of gurus but 
+nothing liberated him entirely - 
+
+some dissatisfaction always remained. He did not despair. 
+
+He resolved to investigate su ering on his own until he found 
+a method for complete liberation. 
+
+He spent six years meditating on the essence, causes and 
+cures for human anguish. 
+
+In the end he came to the realisation that su ering is not 
+caused by ill fortune, by social injustice, or by divine whims. 
+Rather, su ering is caused by the behaviour patterns of one's 
+own mind. 
+
+
+
+Gautama's insight was that no matter what the mind 
+experiences, it usually reacts with craving, and craving 
+always involves dissatisfaction. When the mind experiences 
+something distasteful it craves to be rid of the irritation. 
+When the mind experiences something pleasant, it craves 
+that the pleasure will remain and will intensify. Therefore, 
+the mind is always dissatis ed and restless. This is very clear 
+when we experience unpleasant things, such as pain. As 
+long as the pain continues, we are dissatis ed and do all we 
+can to avoid it. Yet even when we experience pleasant 
+things we are never content. We either fear that the 
+pleasure might disappear, or we hope that it will intensify. 
+People dream for years about 
+
+
+
+A rtut where Buddha was actire 
+
+Area where Buddhism was a dominant religion in the past 
+Area where Buddhism is a dominant religion today 
+
+
+i 
+
+
+nding love but are rarely satis ed when they nd it. Some 
+become anxious that their partner will leave; others feel that 
+
+
+
+they have settled cheaply, and could have found someone 
+better. And we all know people who manage to do both. 
+
+Map 6. The Spread of Buddhism. 
+
+Great gods can send us rain, social institutions can provide 
+justice and good health care, and lucky coincidences can 
+turn us into millionaires, but none of them can change our 
+basic mental patterns. Hence even the greatest kings are 
+doomed to live in angst, constantly eeing grief and anguish, 
+forever chasing after greater pleasures. 
+
+Gautama found that there was a way to exit this vicious 
+circle. If, when the mind experiences something pleasant or 
+unpleasant, it simply understands things as they are, then 
+there is no su ering. If you experience sadness without 
+craving that the sadness go away, you continue to feel 
+sadness but you do not su er from it. There can actually be 
+richness in the sadness. If you experience joy without 
+craving that the joy linger and intensify, you continue to feel 
+joy without losing your peace of mind. 
+
+But how do you get the mind to accept things as they are, 
+without craving? To accept sadness as sadness, joy as joy, 
+pain as pain? Gautama developed a set of meditation 
+techniques that train the mind to experience reality as it is, 
+without craving. These practices train the mind to focus all 
+its attention on the question, 
+
+'What am I experiencing now?' rather than on 'What would I 
+rather be experiencing?' It is difficult to achieve this state of 
+mind, but not impossible. 
+
+Gautama grounded these meditation techniques in a set of 
+ethical rules meant to make it easier for people to focus on 
+actual experience and to avoid falling into cravings and 
+fantasies. He instructed his followers to avoid killing, 
+
+
+
+promiscuous sex and theft, since such acts necessarily stoke 
+the re of craving (for power, for sensual pleasure, or for 
+wealth). When the ames are completely extinguished, 
+craving is replaced by a state of perfect contentment and 
+serenity, known as nirvana (the literal meaning of which is 
+'extinguishing the re'). Those who have attained nirvana are 
+fully liberated from all su ering. They experience reality with 
+the utmost clarity, free of fantasies and delusions. While 
+they will most likely still encounter unpleasantness and 
+pain, such experiences cause them no misery. A person who 
+does not crave cannot suffer. 
+
+According to Buddhist tradition, Gautama himself attained 
+nirvana and was fully liberated from su ering. Henceforth he 
+was known as 'Buddha', which means 
+
+'The Enlightened One'. Buddha spent the rest of his life 
+explaining his discoveries to others so that everyone could 
+be freed from su ering. He encapsulated his teachings in a 
+single law: su ering arises from craving; the only way to be 
+fully liberated from su ering is to be fully liberated from 
+craving; and the only way to be liberated from craving is to 
+train the mind to experience reality as it is. 
+
+This law, known as dharma or dhamma, is seen by Buddhists 
+as a universal law of nature. That 'su ering arises from 
+craving' is always and everywhere true, just as in modern 
+physics E always equals mc2. Buddhists are people who 
+believe in this law and make it the fulcrum of all their 
+activities. Belief in gods, on the other hand, is of minor 
+importance to them. The rst principle of monotheist religions 
+is 
+
+'God exists. What does He want from me?' The rst principle 
+of Buddhism is 
+
+
+
+'Suffering exists. How do I escape it?' 
+
+
+Buddhism does not deny the existence of gods - they are 
+described as powerful beings who can bring rains and 
+victories - but they have no in uence on the law that su 
+ering arises from craving. If the mind of a person is free of all 
+craving, no god can make him miserable. Conversely, once 
+craving arises in a person's mind, all the gods in the 
+universe cannot save him from suffering. 
+
+Yet much like the monotheist religions, premodern natural- 
+law religions such as Buddhism never really rid themselves 
+of the worship of gods. Buddhism told people that they 
+should aim for the ultimate goal of complete liberation from 
+su ering, rather than for stops along the way such as 
+economic prosperity and political power. However, 99 per 
+cent of Buddhists did not attain nirvana, and even if they 
+hoped to do so in some future lifetime, they devoted most of 
+their present lives to the pursuit of mundane achievements. 
+So they continued to worship various gods, such as the 
+Hindu gods in India, the Bon gods in Tibet, and 
+
+the Shinto gods in Japan. 
+
+Moreover, as time went by several Buddhist sects developed 
+pantheons of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. These are human 
+and non-human beings with the capacity to achieve full 
+liberation from suffering but who forego this liberation out of 
+compassion, in order to help the countless beings still 
+trapped in the cycle of misery. Instead of worshipping gods, 
+many Buddhists began worshipping these enlightened 
+beings, asking them for help not only in attaining nirvana, 
+but also in dealing with mundane problems. Thus we nd 
+many Buddhas and bodhisattvas throughout East Asia who 
+spend theirtime bringing rain, stopping plagues, and even 
+
+
+
+winning bloody wars - in exchange for prayers, colourful 
+owers, fragrant incense and gifts of rice and candy. 
+
+The Worship of Man 
+
+The last 300 years are often depicted as an age of growing 
+secularism, in which religions have increasingly lost their 
+importance. If we are talking about theist religions, this is 
+largely correct. But if we take into consideration natural-law 
+religions, then modernity turns out to be an age of intense 
+religious fervour, unparalleled missionary e orts, and the 
+bloodiest wars of religion in history. The modern age has 
+witnessed the rise of a number of new natural-law religions, 
+such as liberalism, Communism, capitalism, nationalism and 
+Nazism. These creeds do not like to be called religions, and 
+refer to themselves as ideologies. But this is just a semantic 
+exercise. If a religion is a system of human norms and values 
+that is founded on belief in a superhuman order, then Soviet 
+Communism was no less a religion than Islam. 
+
+Islam is of course di erent from Communism, because Islam 
+sees the superhuman order governing the world as the edict 
+of an omnipotent creator god, whereas Soviet Communism 
+did not believe in gods. But Buddhism too gives short shrift 
+to gods, and yet we commonly classify it as a religion. Like 
+Buddhists, Communists believed in a superhuman order of 
+natural and immutable laws that should guide human 
+actions. Whereas Buddhists believe that the law of nature 
+was discovered by Siddhartha Gautama, Communists 
+believed that the law of nature was discovered by Karl Marx, 
+Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The similarity 
+does not end there. Like other religions, Communism too has 
+its holy scripts and prophetic books, such as Marx's Das 
+Kapital, which foretold that history would soon end with the 
+inevitable victory of the proletariat. Communism had its 
+holidays and festivals, such as the First of May and the 
+
+
+
+anniversary of the October Revolution. It had theologians 
+adept at Marxist dialectics, and every unit in the 
+
+
+Religion 
+
+
+
+o 
+
+
+
+
+o 
+
+
+Football 
+
+
+Islam 
+
+Buddhism 
+
+
+Theory of 
+relativity 
+
+
+o 
+
+n 
+
+
+Communism 
+
+
+Soviet army had a chaplain, called a commissar, who 
+monitored the piety of soldiers and o cers. Communism had 
+martyrs, holy wars and heresies, such as Trotskyism. Soviet 
+Communism was a fanatical and missionary religion. A 
+devout Communist could not be a Christian or a Buddhist, 
+and was expected to spread the gospel of Marx and Lenin 
+even at the price of his or her life. 
+
+Religion is a system of human norms and values that 
+is founded on belief in a superhuman order. The 
+theory of relativity is not a religion, because (at 
+least so far) there are no human norms and values 
+that are founded on it. Football is not a religion 
+because nobody argues that its rules reflect 
+superhuman edicts. Islam, Buddhism and 
+Communism are all religions, because all are 
+systems of human norms and values that are 
+founded on belief in a superhuman order. (Note the 
+difference between 'superhuman' and 
+
+
+'supernatural'. The Buddhist law of nature and the 
+Marxist laws of history are superhuman, since they 
+were not legislated by humans. Yet they are not 
+supernatural.) 
+
+Some readers may feel very uncomfortable with this line of 
+reasoning. If it makes you feel better, you are free to go on 
+calling Communism an ideology rather than a religion. It 
+makes no di erence. We can divide creeds into god-centred 
+religions and godless ideologies that claim to be based on 
+natural laws. 
+
+But then, to be consistent, we would need to catalogue at 
+least some Buddhist, Daoist and Stoic sects as ideologies 
+rather than religions. Conversely, we should note that belief 
+in gods persists within many modern ideologies, and that 
+some of them, most notably liberalism, make little sense 
+without this belief. 
+
+
+
+It would be impossible to survey here the history of all the 
+new modern creeds, 
+
+especially because there are no clear boundaries between 
+them. They are no less syncretic than monotheism and 
+popular Buddhism. Just as a Buddhist could worship Hindu 
+deities, and just as a monotheist could believe in the 
+existence of Satan, so the typical American nowadays is 
+simultaneously a nationalist (she believes in the existence of 
+an American nation with a special role to play in history), a 
+free-market capitalist (she believes that open competition 
+and the pursuit of self-interest are the best ways to create a 
+prosperous society), and a liberal humanist (she believes 
+that humans have been endowed by their creator with 
+certain inalienable rights). Nationalism will be discussed in 
+Chapter 18 . 
+
+Capitalism - the most successful of the modern religions - 
+gets a whole chapter, 
+
+Chapter 16 . which expounds its principal beliefs and rituals. 
+In the remaining pages of this chapter I will address the 
+humanist religions. 
+
+Theist religions focus on the worship of gods. Humanist 
+religions worship humanity, or more correctly, Homo 
+sapiens. Humanism is a belief that Homo sapiens has a 
+unique and sacred nature, which is fundamentally di erent 
+from the nature of all other animals and of all other 
+phenomena. Humanists believe that the unique nature of 
+Homo sapiens is the most important thing in the world, and 
+it determines the meaning of everything that happens in the 
+universe. The supreme good is the good of Homo sapiens. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The rest of the world and all other beings exist solely for the 
+benefit of this species. 
+
+All humanists worship humanity, but they do not agree on 
+its de nition. 
+
+Humanism has split into three rival sects that ght over the 
+exact de nition of 
+
+'humanity', just as rival Christian sects fought over the exact 
+de nition of God. 
+
+Today, the most important humanist sect is liberal 
+humanism, which believes that 
+
+'humanity' is a quality of individual humans, and that the 
+liberty of individuals is therefore sacrosanct. According to 
+liberals, the sacred nature of humanity resides within each 
+and every individual Homo sapiens. The inner core of 
+individual humans gives meaning to the world, and is the 
+source for all ethical and political authority. If we encounter 
+an ethical or political dilemma, we should look inside and 
+listen to our inner voice - the voice of humanity. The chief 
+commandments of liberal humanism are meant to protect 
+the liberty of this inner voice against intrusion or harm. 
+These commandments are collectively known as 'human 
+rights'. 
+
+This, for example, is why liberals object to torture and the 
+death penalty. In early modern Europe, murderers were 
+thought to violate and destabilise the cosmic order. To bring 
+the cosmos back to balance, it was necessary to torture and 
+publicly execute the criminal, so that everyone could see 
+the order re-established. 
+
+Attending gruesome executions was a favourite pastime for 
+Londoners and Parisians in the era of Shakespeare and 
+
+
+
+Moliere. In today's Europe, murder is seen as a violation of 
+the sacred nature of humanity. In order to restore order, 
+present-day Europeans do not torture and execute criminals. 
+Instead, they punish a 
+
+murderer in what they see as the most 'humane' way 
+possible, thus safeguarding and even rebuilding his human 
+sanctity. By honouring the human nature of the murderer, 
+everyone is reminded of the sanctity of humanity, and order 
+is restored. 
+
+By defending the murderer, we right what the murderer has 
+wronged. 
+
+Even though liberal humanism sancti es humans, it does not 
+deny the existence of God, and is, in fact, founded on 
+monotheist beliefs. The liberal belief in the free and sacred 
+nature of each individual is a direct legacy of the traditional 
+Christian belief in free and eternal individual souls. Without 
+recourse to eternal souls and a Creator God, it becomes 
+embarrassingly di cult for liberals to explain what is so 
+special about individual Sapiens. 
+
+Another important sect is socialist humanism. Socialists 
+believe that 'humanity' 
+
+is collective rather than individualistic. They hold as sacred 
+not the inner voice of each individual, but the species Homo 
+sapiens as a whole. Whereas liberal humanism seeks as 
+much freedom as possible for individual humans, socialist 
+humanism seeks equality between all humans. According to 
+socialists, inequality is the worst blasphemy against the 
+sanctity of humanity, because it privileges peripheral 
+qualities of humans over their universal essence. For 
+example, when the rich are privileged over the poor, it 
+means that we value money more than the universal 
+
+
+
+essence of all humans, which is the same for rich and poor 
+alike. 
+
+Like liberal humanism, socialist humanism is built on 
+monotheist foundations. 
+
+The idea that all humans are equal is a revamped version of 
+the monotheist conviction that all souls are equal before 
+God. The only humanist sect that has actually broken loose 
+from traditional monotheism is evolutionary humanism, 
+whose most famous representatives are the Nazis. What 
+distinguished the Nazis from other humanist sects was a di 
+erent de nition of 'humanity', one deeply in uenced by the 
+theory of evolution. In contrast to other humanists, the Nazis 
+believed that humankind is not something universal and 
+eternal, but rather a mutable species that can evolve or 
+degenerate. Man can evolve into superman, or degenerate 
+into a subhuman. 
+
+The main ambition of the Nazis was to protect humankind 
+from degeneration 
+
+and encourage its progressive evolution. This is why the 
+Nazis said that the Aryan race, the most advanced form of 
+humanity, had to be protected and fostered, while 
+degenerate kinds of Homo sapiens like Jews, Roma, 
+homosexuals and the mentally ill had to be quarantined and 
+even exterminated. The Nazis explained that Homo sapiens 
+itself appeared when one 'superior' population of ancient 
+humans evolved, whereas 'inferior' populations such as the 
+Neanderthals became extinct. These di erent populations 
+were at rst no more than di erent races, but developed 
+independently along their own evolutionary paths. This 
+might well happen again. According to the Nazis, Homo 
+sapiens had already divided into several distinct races, each 
+with its own unique qualities. One of these races, the 
+
+
+
+Aryan race, had the nest qualities - rationalism, beauty, 
+integrity, diligence. The Aryan race therefore had the 
+potential to turn man into superman. Other races, such as 
+Jews and blacks, were today's Neanderthals, possessing 
+inferior qualities. 
+
+If allowed to breed, and in particular to intermarry with 
+Aryans, they would adulterate all human populations and 
+doom Homo sapiens to extinction. 
+
+Biologists have since debunked Nazi racial theory. In 
+particular, genetic research conducted after 1945 has 
+demonstrated that the di erences between the various 
+human lineages are far smaller than the Nazis postulated. 
+But these conclusions are relatively new. Given the state of 
+scienti c knowledge in 1933, Nazi beliefs were hardly 
+outside the pale. The existence of di erent human races, the 
+superiority of the white race, and the need to protect and 
+cultivate this superior race were widely held beliefs among 
+most Western elites. Scholars in the most prestigious 
+Western universities, using the orthodox scienti c methods 
+of the day, published studies that allegedly proved that 
+members of the white race were more intelligent, more 
+ethical and more skilled than Africans or Indians. 
+
+Politicians in Washington, London and Canberra took it for 
+granted that it was their job to prevent the adulteration and 
+degeneration of the white race, by, for example, restricting 
+immigration from China or even Italy to 'Aryan' countries 
+such as the USA and Australia. 
+
+Humanist Religions - Religions that Worship Humanity 
+
+Socialist 
+
+
+Liberal humanism 
+
+
+
+Evolutionary humanism 
+humanism 
+
+Homo sapiens has a unique and sacred nature that is 
+fundamentally different from the nature of all other beings 
+and phenomena. The supreme good is the good of humanity. 
+
+'Humanity' is 
+
+'Humanity' is 
+
+'Humanity' is a mutable species. 
+
+collective and 
+
+individualistic and 
+
+Humans might degenerate into 
+
+resides within the 
+
+resides within each 
+
+subhumans or evolve into 
+
+species Homo 
+
+individual Homo sapiens. 
+
+superhumans. 
+
+sapiens as a whole. 
+
+The supreme 
+The supreme 
+
+The supreme commandment is to 
+
+
+
+
+commandment is to 
+
+commandment is to protect humankind from 
+protect the inner core 
+protect equality 
+
+degenerating into subhumans, and 
+
+and freedom of each 
+
+within the species 
+
+to encourage its evolution into 
+
+individual Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens. 
+
+superhumans. 
+
+These positions did not change simply because new scienti c 
+research was published. Sociological and political 
+
+
+
+developments were far more powerful engines of change. In 
+this sense, Hitler dug not just his own grave but that of 
+racism in general. When he launched World War Two, he 
+compelled his enemies to make clear distinctions between 
+'us' and 'them'. Afterwards, precisely because Nazi ideology 
+was so racist, racism became discredited in the West. But 
+the change took time. White supremacy remained a 
+mainstream ideology in American politics at least until the 
+1960s. The White Australia policy which restricted 
+immigration of non-white people to Australia remained in 
+force until 1973. Aboriginal Australians did not receive equal 
+political rights until the 1960s, and most were prevented 
+from voting in elections because they were deemed unfit to 
+function as citizens. 
+
+30. A Nazi propaganda poster showing on the right a 
+'racially pure Aryan' and on the left a 'cross-breed'. 
+
+Nazi admiration for the human body is evident, as is 
+their fear that the lower races might pollute 
+humanity and cause its degeneration. 
+
+The Nazis did not loathe humanity. They fought liberal 
+humanism, human rights and Communism precisely because 
+they admired humanity and believed in the great potential 
+of the human species. But following the logic of Darwinian 
+
+
+
+
+evolution, they argued that natural selection must be 
+allowed to weed out un t individuals and leave only the ttest 
+to survive and reproduce. By succouring the weak, 
+liberalism and Communism not only allowed un t individuals 
+to survive, they actually gave them the opportunity to 
+reproduce, thereby undermining natural selection. In such a 
+world, the ttest humans would inevitably drown in a sea of 
+un t degenerates. Humankind would become less and less t 
+with each passing generation - which could lead to its 
+extinction. 
+
+31. A Nazi cartoon of 1933. Hitler is presented as a 
+sculptor who creates the superman. A bespectacled 
+liberal intellectual is appalled by the violence 
+needed to create the superman. (Note also the 
+erotic glorification of the human body.) 
+
+
+
+
+
+A 1942 German biology textbook explains in the chapter 
+The Laws of Nature 
+
+and Mankind' that the supreme law of nature is that all 
+beings are locked in a remorseless struggle for survival. After 
+describing how plants struggle for territory, how beetles 
+struggle to nd mates and so forth, the textbook concludes 
+that: 
+
+The battle for existence is hard and unforgiving, but is the 
+only way to maintain life. This struggle eliminates 
+everything that is un t for life, and selects everything that is 
+able to survive ... These natural laws are incontrovertible; 
+living creatures demonstrate them by their very survival. 
+They are unforgiving. Those who resist 
+
+them wil be wiped out. Biology not only tel s us about 
+animals and plants, but also shows us the laws we must fol 
+ow in our lives, and steels our wil s to live and ght according 
+to these laws. The meaning of life is struggle. 
+
+Woe to him who sins against these laws. 
+
+Then follows a quotation from Mein Kampf. The person who 
+attempts to ght the iron logic of nature thereby ghts the 
+principles he must thank for his life as a human being. To 
+fight against nature is to bring about one's own destruction. 
+'3 
+
+
+At the dawn of the third millennium, the future of 
+evolutionary humanism is unclear. For sixty years after the 
+end of the war against Hitler it was taboo to link humanism 
+with evolution and to advocate using biological methods to 
+upgrade' 
+
+Homo sapiens. But today such projects are back in vogue. 
+No one speaks about exterminating lower races or inferior 
+
+
+people, but many contemplate using our increasing 
+knowledge of human biology to create superhumans. 
+
+At the same time, a huge gulf is opening between the tenets 
+of liberal humanism and the latest ndings of the life 
+sciences, a gulf we cannot ignore much longer. 
+
+Our liberal political and judicial systems are founded on the 
+belief that every individual has a sacred inner nature, 
+indivisible and immutable, which gives meaning to the 
+world, and which is the source of all ethical and political 
+authority. This is a reincarnation of the traditional Christian 
+belief in a free and eternal soul that resides within each 
+individual. Yet over the last 200 years, the life sciences have 
+thoroughly undermined this belief. Scientists studying the 
+inner workings of the human organism have found no soul 
+there. They increasingly argue that human behaviour is 
+determined by hormones, genes and synapses, rather than 
+by free will - the same forces that determine the behaviour 
+of chimpanzees, wolves, and ants. Our judicial and political 
+systems largely try to sweep such inconvenient discoveries 
+under the carpet. But in all frankness, how long can we 
+maintain the wall separating the department of biology from 
+the departments of law and political science? 
+
+13 
+
+The Secret of Success 
+
+COMMERCE, EMPIRES AND UNIVERSAL religions eventually 
+brought virtually every Sapiens on every continent into the 
+global world we live in today. Not that this process of 
+expansion and uni cation was linear or without interruptions. 
+
+Looking at the bigger picture, though, the transition from 
+many small cultures to a few large cultures and finally to a 
+
+
+
+single global society was probably an inevitable result of the 
+dynamics of human history. 
+
+But saying that a global society is inevitable is not the same 
+as saying that the end result had to be the particular kind of 
+global society we now have. We can certainly imagine other 
+outcomes. Why is English so widespread today, and not 
+Danish? Why are there about 2 billion Christians and 1.25 
+billion Muslims, but only 150,000 Zoroastrians and no 
+Manichaeans? If we could go back in time to 10,000 years 
+ago and set the process going again, time after time, would 
+we always see the rise of monotheism and the decline of 
+dualism? 
+
+We can't do such an experiment, so we don't really know. 
+
+But an examination of two crucial characteristics of history 
+can provide us with some clues. 
+
+1. The Hindsight Fal acy 
+
+Every point in history is a crossroads. A single travelled road 
+leads from the past to the present, but myriad paths fork o 
+into the future. Some of those paths are wider, smoother and 
+better marked, and are thus more likely to be taken, but 
+sometimes history - or the people who make history - takes 
+unexpected turns. 
+
+At the beginning of the fourth century AD, the Roman 
+Empire faced a wide horizon of religious possibilities. It 
+could have stuck to its traditional and variegated 
+polytheism. But its emperor, Constantine, looking back on a 
+fractious century of civil war, seems to have thought that a 
+single religion with a clear doctrine could help unify his 
+ethnically diverse realm. He could have chosen any of a 
+number of contemporary cults to be his national faith - 
+
+
+
+Manichaeism, Mithraism, the cults of Isis or Cybele, 
+Zoroastrianism, Judaism and even Buddhism 
+
+were all available options. Why did he opt for Jesus? Was 
+there something in Christian theology that attracted him 
+personally, or perhaps an aspect of the faith that made him 
+think it would be easier to use for his purposes? Did he have 
+a religious experience, or did some of his advisers suggest 
+that the Christians were quickly gaining adherents and that 
+it would be best to jump on that wagon? 
+
+Historians can speculate, but not provide any de nitive 
+answer. They can describe how Christianity took over the 
+Roman Empire, but they cannot explain why this particular 
+possibility was realised. 
+
+What is the di erence between describing 'how' and 
+explaining 'why'? To describe 'how' means to reconstruct the 
+series of speci c events that led from one point to another. To 
+explain 'why means to nd causal connections that account 
+for the occurrence of this particular series of events to the 
+exclusion of all others. 
+
+Some scholars do indeed provide deterministic explanations 
+of events such as the rise of Christianity. They attempt to 
+reduce human history to the workings of biological, 
+ecological or economic forces. They argue that there was 
+something about the geography, genetics or economy of the 
+Roman Mediterranean that made the rise of a monotheist 
+religion inevitable. Yet most historians tend to be sceptical 
+of such deterministic theories. This is one of the 
+distinguishing marks of history as an academic discipline - 
+the better you know a particular historical period, the harder 
+it becomes to explain why things happened one way and not 
+another. Those who have only a super cial knowledge of a 
+certain period tend to focus only on the possibility that was 
+
+
+
+eventually realised. They offer a just-so story to explain with 
+hindsight why that outcome was inevitable. Those more 
+deeply informed about the period are much more cognisant 
+of the roads not taken. 
+
+In fact, the people who knew the period best - those alive at 
+the time - were the most clueless of all. For the average 
+Roman in Constantine's time, the future was a fog. It is an 
+iron rule of history that what looks inevitable in hindsight 
+was far from obvious at the time. Today is no di erent. Are we 
+out of the global economic crisis, or is the worst still to 
+come? Will China continue growing until it becomes the 
+leading superpower? Will the United States lose its 
+hegemony? Is the upsurge of monotheistic fundamentalism 
+the wave of the future or a local whirlpool of little long-term 
+signi cance? Are we heading towards ecological disaster or 
+technological paradise? There are good arguments to be 
+made for all of these outcomes, but no way of knowing for 
+sure. In a few decades, people will look back and think that 
+the answers to all of these questions were obvious. 
+
+It is particularly important to stress that possibilities which 
+seem very unlikely to contemporaries often get realised. 
+When Constantine assumed the throne in 306, Christianity 
+was little more than an esoteric Eastern sect. If you were to 
+suggest then that it was about to become the Roman state 
+religion, you'd have been laughed out of the room just as 
+you would be today if you were to suggest 
+
+that by the year 2050 Hare Krishna would be the state 
+religion of the USA. In October 1913, the Bolsheviks were a 
+small radical Russian faction. No reasonable person would 
+have predicted that within a mere four years they would 
+take over the country. In AD 600, the notion that a band of 
+desert-dwelling Arabs would soon conquer an expanse 
+stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to India was even more 
+
+
+
+preposterous. Indeed, had the Byzantine army been able to 
+repel the initial onslaught, Islam would probably have 
+remained an obscure cult of which only a handful of 
+cognoscenti were aware. Scholars would then have a very 
+easy job explaining why a faith based on a revelation to a 
+middle-aged Meccan merchant could never have caught on. 
+
+Not that everything is possible. Geographical, biological and 
+economic forces create constraints. Yet these constraints 
+leave ample room for surprising developments, which do not 
+seem bound by any deterministic laws. 
+
+This conclusion disappoints many people, who prefer history 
+to be 
+
+deterministic. Determinism is appealing because it implies 
+that our world and our beliefs are a natural and inevitable 
+product of history. It is natural and inevitable that we live in 
+nation states, organise our economy along capitalist 
+principles, and fervently believe in human rights. To 
+acknowledge that history is not deterministic is to 
+acknowledge that it is just a coincidence that most people 
+today believe in nationalism, capitalism and human rights. 
+
+History cannot be explained deterministically and it cannot 
+be predicted because it is chaotic. So many forces are at 
+work and their interactions are so complex that extremely 
+small variations in the strength of the forces and the way 
+they interact produce huge di erences in outcomes. Not only 
+that, but history is what is called a 'level two' chaotic 
+system. Chaotic systems come in two shapes. 
+
+Level one chaos is chaos that does not react to predictions 
+about it. The weather, for example, is a level one chaotic 
+system. Though it is in uenced by myriad factors, we can 
+build computer models that take more and more of them 
+
+
+
+into consideration, and produce better and better weather 
+forecasts. 
+
+
+Level two chaos is chaos that reacts to predictions about it, 
+and therefore can never be predicted accurately. Markets, for 
+example, are a level two chaotic system. What will happen if 
+we develop a computer program that forecasts with 100 per 
+cent accuracy the price of oil tomorrow? The price of oil will 
+immediately react to the forecast, which would consequently 
+fail to materialise. If the current price of oil is $90 a barrel, 
+and the infallible computer program predicts that tomorrow 
+it will be $100, traders will rush to buy oil so that they can 
+pro t from the predicted price rise. As a result, the price will 
+shoot up to $100 a barrel today rather than tomorrow. Then 
+what will happen tomorrow? Nobody knows. 
+
+Politics, too, is a second-order chaotic system. Many people 
+criticise Sovietologists for failing to predict the 1989 
+revolutions and castigate Middle East 
+
+experts for not anticipating the Arab Spring revolutions of 
+2011. This is unfair. 
+
+Revolutions are, by de nition, unpredictable. A predictable 
+revolution never erupts. 
+
+Why not? Imagine that it's 2010 and some genius political 
+scientists in cahoots with a computer wizard have developed 
+an infallible algorithm that, incorporated into an attractive 
+interface, can be marketed as a revolution predictor. They o 
+er their services to President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and, in 
+return for a generous down payment, tell Mubarak that 
+according to their forecasts a revolution would certainly 
+break out in Egypt during the course of the following year. 
+How would Mubarak react? Most likely, he would 
+immediately lower taxes, distribute billions of dollars in 
+
+
+
+handouts to the citizenry - and also beef up his secret police 
+force, just in case. The pre-emptive measures work. The year 
+comes and goes and, surprise, there is no revolution. 
+Mubarak demands his money back. 'Your algorithm is 
+worthless!' he shouts at the scientists. 'In the end I could 
+have built another palace instead of giving all that money 
+away!' 'But the reason the revolution didn't happen is 
+because we predicted it,' the scientists say in their defence. 
+'Prophets who predict things that don't happen?' Mubarak 
+remarks as he motions his guards to grab them. 'I could 
+have picked up a dozen of those for next to nothing in the 
+Cairo marketplace.' 
+
+So why study history? Unlike physics or economics, history 
+is not a means for making accurate predictions. We study 
+history not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to 
+understand that our present situation is neither natural nor 
+inevitable, and that we consequently have many more 
+possibilities before us than we imagine. For example, 
+studying how Europeans came to dominate Africans enables 
+us to realise that there is nothing natural or inevitable about 
+the racial hierarchy, and that the world might well be 
+arranged differently. 
+
+2. Blind Clio 
+
+We cannot explain the choices that history makes, but we 
+can say something very important about them: history's 
+choices are not made for the bene t of humans. 
+
+There is absolutely no proof that human well-being 
+inevitably improves as history rolls along. There is no proof 
+that cultures that are bene cial to humans must inexorably 
+succeed and spread, while less bene cial cultures disappear. 
+There is no proof that Christianity was a better choice than 
+
+
+
+Manichaeism, or that the Arab Empire was more beneficial 
+than that of the Sassanid Persians. 
+
+There is no proof that history is working for the bene t of 
+humans because we lack an objective scale on which to 
+measure such bene t. Di erent cultures de ne 
+
+the good di erently, and we have no objective yardstick by 
+which to judge between them. The victors, of course, always 
+believe that their de nition is correct. But why should we 
+believe the victors? Christians believe that the victory of 
+Christianity over Manichaeism was bene cial to humankind, 
+but if we do not accept the Christian world view then there is 
+no reason to agree with them. 
+
+Muslims believe that the fall of the Sassanid Empire into 
+Muslim hands was bene cial to humankind. But these bene 
+ts are evident only if we accept the Muslim world view. It 
+may well be that we'd all be better o if Christianity and Islam 
+had been forgotten or defeated. 
+
+Ever more scholars see cultures as a kind of mental infection 
+or parasite, with humans as its unwitting host. Organic 
+parasites, such as viruses, live inside the body of their hosts. 
+They multiply and spread from one host to the other, 
+feeding o their hosts, weakening them, and sometimes even 
+killing them. As long as the hosts live long enough to pass 
+along the parasite, it cares little about the condition of its 
+host. In just this fashion, cultural ideas live inside the minds 
+of humans. They multiply and spread from one host to 
+another, occasionally weakening the hosts and sometimes 
+even killing them. A cultural idea - such as belief in 
+Christian heaven above the clouds or Communist paradise 
+here on earth - can compel a human to dedicate his or her 
+life to spreading that idea, even at the price of death. 
+
+
+
+The human dies, but the idea spreads. According to this 
+approach, cultures are not conspiracies concocted by some 
+people in order to take advantage of others (as Marxists tend 
+to think). Rather, cultures are mental parasites that emerge 
+accidentally, and thereafter take advantage of all people 
+infected by them. 
+
+This approach is sometimes called memetics. It assumes 
+that, just as organic evolution is based on the replication of 
+organic information units called 'genes', so cultural 
+evolution is based on the replication of cultural information 
+units called 
+
+'merries'. ^Successful cultures are those that excel in 
+reproducing their memes, irrespective of the costs and 
+benefits to their human hosts. 
+
+Most scholars in the humanities disdain memetics, seeing it 
+as an amateurish attempt to explain cultural processes with 
+crude biological analogies. But many of these same scholars 
+adhere to memetics' twin sister - postmodernism. 
+
+Postmodernist thinkers speak about discourses rather than 
+memes as the building blocks of culture. Yet they too see 
+cultures as propagating themselves with little regard for the 
+bene t of humankind. For example, postmodernist thinkers 
+describe nationalism as a deadly plague that spread 
+throughout the world in the nineteenth and twentieth 
+centuries, causing wars, oppression, hate and genocide. The 
+moment people in one country were infected with it, those in 
+neighbouring countries were also likely to catch the virus. 
+The nationalist virus presented itself as being beneficial for 
+humans, yet it has been beneficial mainly to itself. 
+
+Similar arguments are common in the social sciences, under 
+the aegis of game 
+
+
+theory. Game theory explains how in multi-player systems, 
+views and behaviour patterns that harm al players 
+nevertheless manage to take root and spread. Arms races 
+are a famous example. Many arms races bankrupt all those 
+who take part in them, without really changing the military 
+balance of power. When Pakistan buys advanced aeroplanes, 
+India responds in kind. When India develops nuclear bombs, 
+Pakistan follows suit. When Pakistan enlarges its navy, India 
+counters. At the end of the process, the balance of power 
+may remain much as it was, but meanwhile billions of dollars 
+that could have been invested in education or health are 
+spent on weapons. Yet the arms race dynamic is hard to 
+resist. 'Arms racing' is a pattern of behaviour that spreads 
+itself like a virus from one country to another, harming 
+everyone, but bene ting itself, under the evolutionary 
+criteria of survival and reproduction. (Keep in mind that an 
+arms race, like a gene, has no awareness 
+
+- it does not consciously seek to survive and reproduce. Its 
+spread is the unintended result of a powerful dynamic.) 
+
+No matter what you call it - game theory, postmodernism or 
+memetics - the dynamics of history are not directed towards 
+enhancing human well-being. There is no basis for thinking 
+that the most successful cultures in history are necessarily 
+the best ones for Homo sapiens . Like evolution, history 
+disregards the happiness of individual organisms. And 
+individual humans, for their part, are usually far too ignorant 
+and weak to influence the course of history to their own 
+advantage. 
+
+History proceeds from one junction to the next, choosing for 
+some mysterious reason to follow rst this path, then another. 
+Around AD 1500, history made its most momentous choice, 
+changing not only the fate of humankind, but arguably the 
+fate of all life on earth. We call it the Scienti c Revolution. It 
+
+
+
+began in western Europe, a large peninsula on the western 
+tip of Afro-Asia, which up till then played no important role 
+in history. Why did the Scienti c Revolution begin there of all 
+places, and not in China or India? Why did it begin at the 
+midpoint of the second millennium AD rather than two 
+centuries before or three centuries later? 
+
+We don't know. Scholars have proposed dozens of theories, 
+but none of them is particularly convincing. 
+
+History has a very wide horizon of possibilities, and many 
+possibilities are never realised. It is conceivable to imagine 
+history going on for generations upon generations while 
+bypassing the Scienti c Revolution, just as it is conceivable 
+to imagine history without Christianity, without a Roman 
+Empire, and without gold coins. 
+
+
+
+Part Four 
+
+
+The Scientific Revolution 
+
+
+
+
+32. Alamogordo. 16 July 1945, 05:29:53. Eight 
+seconds after the first atomic bomb was detonated. 
+The nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer, upon 
+seeing the explosion, quoted from the Bhagavadgita: 
+‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' 
+
+14 
+
+The Discovery of Ignorance 
+
+WERE, SAY, A SPANISH PEASANT TO HAVE fallen asleep in 
+AD 1000 and woken 
+
+up 500 years later, to the din of Columbus' sailors boarding 
+the Nina , Pinta and Santa Maria , the world would have 
+seemed to him quite familiar. Despite many changes in 
+technology, manners and political boundaries, this medieval 
+Rip Van Winkle would have felt at home. But had one of 
+Columbus' sailors fallen into a similar slumber and woken up 
+to the ringtone of a twenty- rst-century iPhone, he would 
+have found himself in a world strange beyond 
+comprehension. 'Is this heaven?' he might well have asked 
+himself. 'Or perhaps - hell?' 
+
+The last 500 years have witnessed a phenomenal and 
+unprecedented growth in 
+
+human power. In the year 1500, there were about 500 
+million Homo sapiens in the entire world. Today, there are 7 
+billion. l_The total value of goods and services produced by 
+humankind in the year 1500 is estimated at $250 billion, in 
+today's dollars. 2_Nowadays the value of a year of human 
+production is close to $60 
+
+trillion. 3 In 1500, humanity consumed about 13 trillion 
+calories of energy per day. 
+
+
+
+Today, we consume 1,500 trillion calories a day. 4 (Take a 
+second look at those gures - human population has 
+increased fourteen-fold, production 240-fold, and energy 
+consumption 115-fold.) 
+
+Suppose a single modern battleship got transported back to 
+Columbus' time. In a matter of seconds it could make 
+driftwood out of the Nina , Pinta and Santa Maria and then 
+sink the navies of every great world power of the time 
+without sustaining a scratch. Five modern freighters could 
+have taken onboard all the cargo borne by the whole world's 
+merchant eets. 5 A modern computer could easily store 
+every word and number in all the codex books and scrolls in 
+every single medieval library with room to spare. Any large 
+bank today holds more money than all the world's 
+premodern kingdoms put together. 6 
+
+In 1500, few cities had more than 100,000 inhabitants. Most 
+buildings were constructed of mud, wood and straw; a three- 
+storey building was a skyscraper. 
+
+The streets were rutted dirt tracks, dusty in summer and 
+muddy in winter, plied by pedestrians, horses, goats, 
+chickens and a few carts. The most common urban noises 
+were human and animal voices, along with the occasional 
+hammer and saw. At sunset, the cityscape went black, with 
+only an occasional candle or torch 
+
+ickering in the gloom. If an inhabitant of such a city could 
+see modern Tokyo, New York or Mumbai, what would she 
+think? 
+
+Prior to the sixteenth century, no human had 
+circumnavigated the earth. This changed in 1522, when 
+Magellan's expedition returned to Spain after a journey of 
+72,000 kilometres. It took three years and cost the lives of 
+
+
+almost all the crew members, Magellan included. In 1873, 
+Jules Verne could imagine that Phileas Fogg, a wealthy 
+British adventurer, might just be able to make it around the 
+world in eighty days. Today anyone with a middle-class 
+income can safely and easily circumnavigate the globe in 
+just forty-eight hours. 
+
+In 1500, humans were con ned to the earth's surface. They 
+could build towers and climb mountains, but the sky was 
+reserved for birds, angels and deities. On 20 
+
+July 1969 humans landed on the moon. This was not merely 
+a historical achievement, but an evolutionary and even 
+cosmic feat. During the previous 4 
+
+billion years of evolution, no organism managed even to 
+leave the earth's atmosphere, and certainly none left a foot 
+or tentacle print on the moon. 
+
+For most of history, humans knew nothing about 99.99 per 
+cent of the organisms on the planet - namely, the 
+microorganisms. This was not because they were of no 
+concern to us. Each of us bears billions of one-celled 
+creatures within us, and not just as free-riders. They are our 
+best friends, and deadliest enemies. 
+
+Some of them digest our food and clean our guts, while 
+others cause illnesses and epidemics. Yet it was only in 1674 
+that a human eye rst saw a microorganism, when Anton van 
+Leeuwenhoek took a peek through his home-made 
+microscope and was startled to see an entire world of tiny 
+creatures milling about in a drop of water. During the 
+subsequent 300 years, humans have made the 
+acquaintance of a huge number of microscopic species. 
+We've managed to defeat most of the deadliest contagious 
+diseases they cause, and have harnessed microorganisms in 
+
+
+
+the service of medicine and industry. Today we engineer 
+bacteria to produce medications, manufacture biofuel and 
+kill parasites. 
+
+But the single most remarkable and de ning moment of the 
+past 500 years came at 05:29:45 on 16 July 1945. At that 
+precise second, American scientists detonated the rst atomic 
+bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico. From that point onward, 
+humankind had the capability not only to change the course 
+of history, but to end it. 
+
+The historical process that led to Alamogordo and to the 
+moon is known as the Scienti c Revolution. During this 
+revolution humankind has obtained enormous new powers 
+by investing resources in scienti c research. It is a revolution 
+because, until about AD 1500, humans the world over 
+doubted their ability to obtain new medical, military and 
+economic powers. While government and wealthy patrons 
+allocated funds to education and scholarship, the aim was, 
+in 
+
+
+
+general, to preserve existing capabilities rather than acquire 
+new ones. The typical premodern ruler gave money to 
+priests, philosophers and poets in the hope that they would 
+legitimise his rule and maintain the social order. He did not 
+
+
+expect them to discover new medications, invent new 
+weapons or stimulate economic growth. 
+
+During the last ve centuries, humans increasingly came to 
+believe that they could increase their capabilities by 
+investing in scienti c research. This wasn't just blind faith - it 
+was repeatedly proven empirically. The more proofs there 
+were, the more resources wealthy people and governments 
+were willing to put into science. We would never have been 
+able to walk on the moon, engineer microorganisms and 
+split the atom without such investments. The US 
+government, for example, has in recent decades allocated 
+billions of dollars to the study of nuclear physics. The 
+knowledge produced by this research has made possible the 
+construction of nuclear power stations, which provide cheap 
+electricity for American industries, which pay taxes to the 
+US government, which uses some of these taxes to finance 
+further research in nuclear physics. 
+
+The Scientific Revolution's feedback loop. Science 
+needs more than just research to make progress. It 
+depends on the mutual reinforcement of science, 
+politics and economics. Political and economic 
+institutions provide the resources without which 
+scientific research is almost impossible. In return, 
+scientific research provides new powers that are 
+used, among other things, to obtain new resources, 
+some of which are reinvested in research. 
+
+Why did modern humans develop a growing belief in their 
+ability to obtain new powers through research? What forged 
+the bond between science, politics and economics? This 
+chapter looks at the unique nature of modern science in 
+order to provide part of the answer. The next two chapters 
+examine the formation of the alliance between science, the 
+European empires and the economics of capitalism. 
+
+
+
+Ignoramus 
+
+
+Humans have sought to understand the universe at least 
+since the Cognitive Revolution. Our ancestors put a great 
+deal of time and e ort into trying to discover the rules that 
+govern the natural world. But modern science di ers from all 
+previous traditions of knowledge in three critical ways: 
+
+a. The willingness to admit ignorance. Modern science 
+is based on the Latin injunction ignoramus - 'we do not 
+know'. It assumes that we don't know everything. Even more 
+critically, it accepts that the things that we think we know 
+could be proven wrong as we gain more knowledge. No 
+concept, idea or 
+
+theory is sacred and beyond challenge. 
+
+b. The centrality of observation and mathematics. 
+
+Having admitted ignorance, modern science aims to obtain 
+new knowledge. It does so by gathering observations and 
+then using mathematical tools to connect these 
+observations into comprehensive theories. 
+
+c. The acquisition of new powers. Modern science is not 
+content with creating theories. It uses these theories in order 
+to acquire new powers, and in particular to develop new 
+technologies. 
+
+The Scienti c Revolution has not been a revolution of 
+knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance. 
+The great discovery that launched the Scienti c Revolution 
+was the discovery that humans do not know the answers to 
+their most important questions. 
+
+Premodern traditions of knowledge such as Islam, 
+Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism asserted that 
+everything that is important to know about the world was 
+
+
+
+already known. The great gods, or the one almighty God, or 
+the wise people of the past possessed all-encompassing 
+wisdom, which they revealed to us in scriptures and oral 
+traditions. Ordinary mortals gained knowledge by delving 
+into these ancient texts and traditions and understanding 
+them properly. It was inconceivable that the Bible, the 
+Qur'an or the Vedas were missing out on a crucial secret of 
+the universe - a secret that might yet be discovered by esh- 
+and-blood creatures. 
+
+Ancient traditions of knowledge admitted only two kinds of 
+ignorance. First, an individual might be ignorant of 
+something important. To obtain the necessary knowledge, all 
+he needed to do was ask somebody wiser. There was no 
+need to discover something that nobody yet knew. For 
+example, if a peasant in some thirteenth-century Yorkshire 
+village wanted to know how the human race originated, he 
+assumed that Christian tradition held the de nitive answer. 
+
+All he 
+
+had to do was ask the local priest. 
+
+Second, an entire tradition might be ignorant of unimportant 
+things. By de nition, whatever the great gods or the wise 
+people of the past did not bother to tell us was unimportant. 
+For example, if our Yorkshire peasant wanted to know how 
+spiders weave their webs, it was pointless to ask the priest, 
+because there was no answer to this question in any of the 
+Christian Scriptures. That did not mean, however, that 
+Christianity was de cient. Rather, it meant that 
+understanding how spiders weave their webs was 
+unimportant. After all, God knew perfectly well how spiders 
+do it. If this were a vital piece of information, necessary for 
+human prosperity and salvation, God would have included a 
+comprehensive explanation in the Bible. 
+
+
+
+Christianity did not forbid people to study spiders. But 
+spider scholars - if there were any in medieval Europe - had 
+to accept their peripheral role in society and the irrelevance 
+of their ndings to the eternal truths of Christianity. No matter 
+what a scholar might discover about spiders or butter ies or 
+Galapagos nches, that knowledge was little more than trivia, 
+with no bearing on the fundamental truths of society, 
+politics and economics. 
+
+In fact, things were never quite that simple. In every age, 
+even the most pious and conservative, there were people 
+who argued that there were important things of which their 
+entire tradition was ignorant. Yet such people were usually 
+marginalised or persecuted - or else they founded a new 
+tradition and began arguing that they knew everything 
+there is to know. For example, the prophet Muhammad 
+began his religious career by condemning his fellow Arabs 
+for living in ignorance of the divine truth. Yet Muhammad 
+himself very quickly began to argue that he knew the full 
+truth, and his followers began calling him The Seal of the 
+Prophets'. Henceforth, there was no need of revelations 
+beyond those given to Muhammad. 
+
+Modern-day science is a unique tradition of knowledge, 
+inasmuch as it openly admits col ective ignorance regarding 
+the most important questions. Darwin never argued that he 
+was The Seal of the Biologists', and that he had solved the 
+riddle of life once and for all. After centuries of extensive 
+scienti c research, biologists admit that they still don't have 
+any good explanation for how brains produce consciousness. 
+Physicists admit that they don't know what caused the Big 
+Bang, or how to reconcile quantum mechanics with the 
+theory of general relativity. 
+
+In other cases, competing scienti c theories are vociferously 
+debated on the basis of constantly emerging new evidence. 
+
+
+
+A prime example is the debates about how best to run the 
+economy. Though individual economists may claim that their 
+method is the best, orthodoxy changes with every nancial 
+crisis and stock-exchange bubble, and it is generally 
+accepted that the nal word on economics is yet to be said. 
+
+In still other cases, particular theories are supported so 
+consistently by the available evidence, that all alternatives 
+have long since fallen by the wayside. 
+
+Such theories are accepted as true - yet everyone agrees 
+that were new evidence to emerge that contradicts the 
+theory, it would have to be revised or discarded. 
+
+Good examples of these are the plate tectonics theory and 
+the theory of evolution. 
+
+The willingness to admit ignorance has made modern 
+science more dynamic, supple and inquisitive than any 
+previous tradition of knowledge. This has hugely expanded 
+our capacity to understand how the world works and our 
+ability to invent new technologies. But it presents us with a 
+serious problem that most of our ancestors did not have to 
+cope with. Our current assumption that we do not know 
+everything, and that even the knowledge we possess is 
+tentative, extends to the shared myths that enable millions 
+of strangers to cooperate e ectively. If the evidence shows 
+that many of those myths are doubtful, how can we hold 
+society together? How can our communities, countries and 
+international system function? 
+
+All modern attempts to stabilise the sociopolitical order have 
+had no choice but to rely on either of two unscientific 
+methods: 
+
+a. Take a scienti c theory, and in opposition to common 
+scienti c practices, declare that it is a nal and absolute truth. 
+
+
+
+This was the method used by Nazis (who claimed that their 
+racial policies were the corollaries of biological facts) and 
+Communists (who claimed that Marx and Lenin had divined 
+absolute economic truths that could never be refuted). 
+
+b. Leave science out of it and live in accordance with a non- 
+scienti c absolute truth. 
+
+This has been the strategy of liberal humanism, which is 
+built on a dogmatic belief in the unique worth and rights of 
+human beings - a doctrine which has embarrassingly little in 
+common with the scientific study of Homo sapiens. 
+
+But that shouldn't surprise us. Even science itself has to rely 
+on religious and ideological beliefs to justify and finance its 
+research. 
+
+Modern culture has nevertheless been willing to embrace 
+ignorance to a much greater degree than has any previous 
+culture. One of the things that has made it possible for 
+modern social orders to hold together is the spread of an 
+almost religious belief in technology and in the methods of 
+scienti c research, which have replaced to some extent the 
+belief in absolute truths. 
+
+The Scientific Dogma 
+
+Modern science has no dogma. Yet it has a common core of 
+research methods, 
+
+which are all based on collecting empirical observations - 
+those we can observe with at least one of our senses - and 
+putting them together with the help of mathematical tools. 
+
+People throughout history collected empirical observations, 
+but the importance of these observations was usually 
+limited. Why waste precious resources obtaining new 
+
+
+
+observations when we already have all the answers we 
+need? But as modern people came to admit that they did 
+not know the answers to some very important questions, 
+they found it necessary to look for completely new 
+knowledge. 
+
+Consequently, the dominant modern research method takes 
+for granted the insu ciency of old knowledge. Instead of 
+studying old traditions, emphasis is now placed on new 
+observations and experiments. When present observation 
+collides with past tradition, we give precedence to the 
+observation. Of course, physicists analysing the spectra of 
+distant galaxies, archaeologists analysing the nds from a 
+Bronze Age city, and political scientists studying the 
+emergence of capitalism do not disregard tradition. They 
+start by studying what the wise people of the past have said 
+and written. But from their rst year in college, aspiring 
+physicists, archaeologists and political scientists are taught 
+that it is their mission to go beyond what Einstein, Heinrich 
+Schliemann and Max Weber ever knew. 
+
+Mere observations, however, are not knowledge. In order to 
+understand the universe, we need to connect observations 
+into comprehensive theories. Earlier traditions usually 
+formulated their theories in terms of stories. Modern science 
+uses mathematics. 
+
+There are very few equations, graphs and calculations in the 
+Bible, the Qur'an, the Vedas or the Confucian classics. When 
+traditional mythologies and scriptures laid down general 
+laws, these were presented in narrative rather than 
+mathematical form. Thus a fundamental principle of 
+Manichaean religion asserted that the world is a 
+battleground between good and evil. An evil force created 
+matter, while a good force created spirit. Humans are caught 
+between these two forces, and should choose good over evil. 
+
+
+
+Yet the prophet Mani made no attempt to o er a 
+mathematical formula that could be used to predict human 
+choices by quantifying the respective strength of these two 
+forces. He never calculated that 
+
+'the force acting on a man is equal to the acceleration of his 
+spirit divided by the mass of his body'. 
+
+This is exactly what scientists seek to accomplish. In 1687, 
+Isaac Newton published The Mathematical Principles of 
+Natural Philosophy, arguably the most important book in 
+modern history. Newton presented a general theory of 
+movement and change. The greatness of Newton's theory 
+was its ability to explain and predict the movements of all 
+bodies in the universe, from falling apples to shooting stars, 
+using three very simple mathematical laws: 
+
+i.yv-o 
+
+
+
+Henceforth, anyone who wished to understand and predict 
+the movement of a 
+
+cannonball or a planet simply had to make measurements of 
+the object's mass, direction and acceleration, and the forces 
+acting on it. By inserting these numbers into Newton's 
+equations, the future position of the object could be 
+predicted. It worked like magic. Only around the end of the 
+nineteenth century did scientists come across a few 
+observations that did not t well with Newton's laws, and 
+
+
+these led to the next revolutions in physics - the theory of 
+relativity and quantum mechanics. 
+
+Newton showed that the book of nature is written in the 
+language of mathematics. 
+
+Some chapters (for example) boil down to a clear-cut 
+equation; but scholars who attempted to reduce biology, 
+economics and psychology to neat Newtonian equations 
+have discovered that these elds have a level of complexity 
+that makes such an aspiration futile. This did not mean, 
+however, that they gave up on mathematics. A new branch 
+of mathematics was developed over the last 200 years to 
+deal with the more complex aspects of reality: statistics. 
+
+In 1744, two Presbyterian clergymen in Scotland, Alexander 
+Webster and Robert Wallace, decided to set up a life- 
+insurance fund that would provide pensions for the widows 
+and orphans of dead clergymen. They proposed that each of 
+their church's ministers would pay a small portion of his 
+income into the fund, which would invest the money. If a 
+minister died, his widow would receive dividends on the 
+fund's pro ts. This would allow her to live comfortably for the 
+rest of her life. But to determine how much the ministers had 
+to pay in so that the fund would have enough money to live 
+up to its obligations, Webster and Wallace had to be able to 
+predict how many ministers would die each year, how many 
+widows and orphans they would leave behind, and by how 
+many years the widows would outlive their husbands. 
+
+Take note of what the two churchmen did not do. They did 
+not pray to God to reveal the answer. Nor did they search for 
+an answer in the Holy Scriptures or among the works of 
+ancient theologians. Nor did they enter into an abstract 
+philosophical disputation. Being Scots, they were practical 
+
+
+
+types. So they contacted a professor of mathematics from 
+the University of Edinburgh, Colin 
+
+Maclaurin. The three of them collected data on the ages at 
+which people died and used these to calculate how many 
+ministers were likely to pass away in any given year. 
+
+Their work was founded on several recent breakthroughs in 
+the elds of statistics and probability. One of these was Jacob 
+Bernoulli's Law of Large Numbers. Bernoulli had codi ed the 
+principle that while it might be di cult to predict with 
+certainty a single event, such as the death of a particular 
+person, it was possible to predict with great accuracy the 
+average outcome of many similar events. That is, while 
+Maclaurin could not use maths to predict whether Webster 
+and Wallace would die next year, he could, given enough 
+data, tell Webster and Wallace how many Presbyterian 
+ministers in Scotland would almost certainly die next year. 
+Fortunately, they had ready-made data that they could use. 
+Actuary tables published fty years previously by Edmond 
+Halley proved particularly useful. Halley had analysed 
+records of 1,238 births and 1,174 deaths that he obtained 
+from the city of Breslau, Germany. Halley's tables made it 
+possible to see that, for example, a twenty-year-old person 
+has a 1:100 chance of dying in a given year, but a fifty-year- 
+old person has a 1:39 chance. 
+
+Processing these numbers, Webster and Wallace concluded 
+that, on average, there would be 930 living Scottish 
+Presbyterian ministers at any given moment, and an 
+average of twenty-seven ministers would die each year, 
+eighteen of whom would be survived by widows. Five of 
+those who did not leave widows would leave orphaned 
+children, and two of those survived by widows would also be 
+outlived by children from previous marriages who had not 
+yet reached the age of sixteen. They further computed how 
+
+
+
+much time was likely to go by before the widows' death or 
+remarriage (in both these eventualities, payment of the 
+pension would cease). These gures enabled Webster and 
+Wallace to determine how much money the ministers who 
+joined their fund had to pay in order to provide for their 
+loved ones. By contributing £2 12 s. 2 d. a year, a minister 
+could guarantee that his widowed wife would receive at 
+least £10 a year - a hefty sum in those days. If he thought 
+that was not enough he could choose to pay in more, up to a 
+level of £6 
+
+11 s. 3 d. a year - which would guarantee his widow the 
+even more handsome sum of £25 a year. 
+
+According to their calculations, by the year 1765 the Fund 
+for a Provision for the Widows and Children of the Ministers 
+of the Church of Scotland would have capital totalling 
+£58,348. Their calculations proved amazingly accurate. 
+When that year arrived, the fund's capital stood at £58,347 
+- just £1 less than the prediction! This was even better than 
+the prophecies of Habakkuk, Jeremiah or St John. Today, 
+Webster and Wallace's fund, known simply as Scottish 
+Widows, is one of the largest pension and insurance 
+companies in the world. With assets worth £100 billion, it 
+insures not only Scottish widows, but anyone willing to buy 
+
+its policies. 7 
+
+Probability calculations such as those used by the two 
+Scottish ministers became the foundation not merely of 
+actuarial science, which is central to the pension and 
+insurance business, but also of the science of demography 
+(founded by another clergyman, the Anglican Robert 
+Malthus). Demography in its turn was the cornerstone on 
+which Charles Darwin (who almost became an Anglican 
+pastor) built his theory of evolution. While there are no 
+
+
+equations that predict what kind of organism will evolve 
+under a sped c set of conditions, geneticists use probability 
+calculations to compute the likelihood that a particular 
+mutation will spread in a given population. Similar 
+probabilistic models have become central to economics, 
+sociology, psychology, political science and the other social 
+and natural sciences. Even physics eventually 
+supplemented Newton's classical equations with the 
+probability clouds of quantum mechanics. 
+
+We need merely look at the history of education to realise 
+how far this process has taken us. Throughout most of 
+history, mathematics was an esoteric eld that even educated 
+people rarely studied seriously. In medieval Europe, logic, 
+grammar and rhetoric formed the educational core, while 
+the teaching of mathematics seldom went beyond simple 
+arithmetic and geometry. Nobody studied statistics. The 
+undisputed monarch of all sciences was theology. 
+
+Today few students study rhetoric; logic is restricted to 
+philosophy departments, and theology to seminaries. But 
+more and more students are motivated - or forced 
+
+- to study mathematics. There is an irresistible drift towards 
+the exact sciences - 
+
+defined as 'exact' by their use of mathematical tools. Even 
+fields of study that were traditionally part of the humanities, 
+such as the study of human language (linguistics) and the 
+human psyche (psychology), rely increasingly on 
+mathematics and seek to present themselves as exact 
+sciences. Statistics courses are now part of the basic 
+requirements not just in physics and biology, but also in 
+psychology, sociology, economics and political science. 
+
+
+
+In the course catalogue of the psychology department at my 
+own university, the rst required course in the curriculum is 
+'Introduction to Statistics and Methodology in Psychological 
+Research'. Second-year psychology students must take 
+'Statistical Methods in Psychological Research'. Confucius, 
+Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad would have been bewildered 
+if you told them that in order to understand the human mind 
+and cure its illnesses you must first study statistics. 
+
+Knowledge is Power 
+
+Most people have a hard time digesting modern science 
+because its mathematical language is di cult for our minds 
+to grasp, and its ndings often contradict common sense. Out 
+of the 7 billion people in the world, how many really 
+understand quantum mechanics, cell biology or 
+macroeconomics? Science nevertheless enjoys immense 
+prestige because of the new powers it gives us. 
+
+Presidents and generals may not understand nuclear 
+physics, but they have a good grasp of what nuclear bombs 
+can do. 
+
+In 1620 Francis Bacon published a scientific manifesto tided 
+The New Instrument. 
+
+In it he argued that 'knowledge is power'. The real test of 
+'knowledge' is not whether it is true, but whether it 
+empowers us. Scientists usually assume that no theory is 
+100 per cent correct. Consequently, truth is a poor test for 
+knowledge. 
+
+The real test is utility. A theory that enables us to do new 
+things constitutes knowledge. 
+
+Over the centuries, science has o ered us many new tools. 
+Some are mental tools, such as those used to predict death 
+
+
+
+rates and economic growth. Even more important are 
+technological tools. The connection forged between science 
+and technology is so strong that today people tend to 
+confuse the two. We often think that it is impossible to 
+develop new technologies without scienti c research, and 
+that there is little point in research if it does not result in 
+new technologies. 
+
+In fact, the relationship between science and technology is a 
+very recent phenomenon. Prior to 1500, science and 
+technology were totally separate elds. 
+
+When Bacon connected the two in the early seventeenth 
+century, it was a revolutionary idea. During the seventeenth 
+and eighteenth centuries this relationship tightened, but the 
+knot was tied only in the nineteenth century. Even in 1800, 
+most rulers who wanted a strong army, and most business 
+magnates who wanted a successful business, did not bother 
+to finance research in physics, biology or economics. 
+
+I don't mean to claim that there is no exception to this rule. 
+
+A good historian can nd precedent for everything. But an 
+even better historian knows when these precedents are but 
+curiosities that cloud the big picture. Generally speaking, 
+most premodern rulers and business people did not nance 
+research about the nature of the universe in order to 
+develop new technologies, and most thinkers did not try to 
+translate their ndings into technological gadgets. Rulers 
+nanced educational institutions whose mandate was to 
+spread traditional knowledge for the purpose of buttressing 
+the existing order. 
+
+Here and there people did develop new technologies, but 
+these were usually created by uneducated craftsmen using 
+trial and error, not by scholars pursuing systematic scienti c 
+research. Cart manufacturers built the same carts from the 
+
+
+
+same materials year in year out. They did not set aside a 
+percentage of their annual pro ts in order to research and 
+develop new cart models. Cart design 
+
+
+
+occasionally improved, but it was usually thanks to the 
+ingenuity of some local carpenter who never set foot in a 
+university and did not even know how to read. 
+
+This was true of the public as well as the private sector. 
+Whereas modern states call in their scientists to provide 
+solutions in almost every area of national policy, from 
+energy to health to waste disposal, ancient kingdoms 
+seldom did so. The contrast between then and now is most 
+pronounced in weaponry. When outgoing President Dwight 
+Eisenhower warned in 1961 of the growing power of the 
+military-industrial complex, he left out a part of the 
+equation. He should have alerted his country to the military- 
+industrial-scienti c complex, because today's wars are 
+scienti c productions. The world's military forces initiate, 
+
+
+
+
+
+fund and steer a large part of humanity's scientific research 
+and technological development. 
+
+When World War One bogged down into interminable trench 
+warfare, both sides called in the scientists to break the 
+deadlock and save the nation. The men in white answered 
+the call, and out of the laboratories rolled a constant stream 
+of new wonder-weapons: combat aircraft, poison gas, tanks, 
+submarines and ever more efficient machine guns, artillery 
+pieces, rifles and bombs. 
+
+33. German V-2 rocket ready to launch. It didn't 
+defeat the Allies, but it kept the Germans hoping for 
+a technological miracle until the very last days of the 
+war. 
+
+Science played an even larger role in World War Two. By late 
+1944 Germany 
+
+was losing the war and defeat was imminent. A year earlier, 
+the Germans' allies, the Italians, had toppled Mussolini and 
+surrendered to the Allies. But Germany kept ghting on, even 
+though the British, American and Soviet armies were 
+
+closing in. One reason German soldiers and civilians thought 
+not all was lost was that they believed German scientists 
+were about to turn the tide with so-called miracle weapons 
+such as the V-2 rocket and jet-powered aircraft. 
+
+While the Germans were working on rockets and jets, the 
+American Manhattan 
+
+Project successfully developed atomic bombs. By the time 
+the bomb was ready, in early August 1945, Germany had 
+already surrendered, but Japan was ghting on. 
+
+
+
+American forces were poised to invade its home islands. The 
+Japanese vowed to resist the invasion and ght to the death, 
+and there was every reason to believe that it was no idle 
+threat. American generals told President Harry S. Truman 
+that an invasion of Japan would cost the lives of a million 
+American soldiers and would extend the war well into 1946. 
+Truman decided to use the new bomb. Two weeks and two 
+atom bombs later, Japan surrendered unconditionally and 
+the war was over. 
+
+But science is not just about o ensive weapons. It plays a 
+major role in our defences as well. Today many Americans 
+believe that the solution to terrorism is technological rather 
+than political. Just give millions more to the nanotechnology 
+industry, they believe, and the United States could send 
+bionic spy- ies into every Afghan cave, Yemenite redoubt 
+and North African encampment. Once that's done, Osama 
+Bin Laden's heirs will not be able to make a cup of co ee 
+without a CIA spy- y passing this vital information back to 
+headquarters in Langley. Allocate millions more to brain 
+research, and every airport could be equipped with ultra- 
+sophisticated FMRI scanners that could immediately 
+recognise angry and hateful thoughts in people's brains. Will 
+it really work? Who knows. Is it wise to develop bionic ies 
+and thought-reading scanners? Not necessarily. Be that as it 
+may, as you read these lines, the US Department of Defense 
+is transferring millions of dollars to nanotechnology and 
+brain laboratories for work on these and other such ideas. 
+
+This obsession with military technology - from tanks to atom 
+bombs to spy- ies 
+
+- is a surprisingly recent phenomenon. Up until the 
+nineteenth century, the vast majority of military revolutions 
+were the product of organisational rather than technological 
+changes. When alien civilisations met for the rsttime, 
+
+
+
+technological gaps sometimes played an important role. But 
+even in such cases, few thought of deliberately creating or 
+enlarging such gaps. Most empires did not rise thanks to 
+technological wizardry, and their rulers did not give much 
+thought to technological improvement. The Arabs did not 
+defeat the Sassanid Empire thanks to superior bows or 
+swords, the Seljuks had no technological advantage over the 
+Byzantines, and the Mongols did not conquer China with the 
+help of some ingenious new weapon. In fact, in all these 
+cases the vanquished enjoyed superior military and civilian 
+technology. 
+
+The Roman army is a particularly good example. It was the 
+best army of its day, 
+
+yet technologically speaking, Rome had no edge over 
+Carthage, Macedonia or the Seleucid Empire. Its advantage 
+rested on efficient organisation, iron discipline and huge 
+manpower reserves. The Roman army never set up a 
+research and development department, and its weapons 
+remained more or less the same for centuries on end. If the 
+legions of Scipio Aemilianus - the general who levelled 
+Carthage and defeated the Numantians in the second 
+century BC - had suddenly popped up 500 years later in the 
+age of Constantine the Great, Scipio would have had a fair 
+chance of beating Constantine. Now imagine what would 
+happen to a general from a few centuries back - say 
+Napoleon - if he led his troops against a modern armoured 
+brigade. Napoleon was a brilliant tactician, and his men 
+were crack professionals, but their skills would be useless in 
+the face of modern weaponry. 
+
+As in Rome, so also in ancient China: most generals and 
+philosophers did not think it their duty to develop new 
+weapons. The most important military invention in the 
+history of China was gunpowder. Yet to the best of our 
+
+
+
+knowledge, gunpowder was invented accidentally, by Daoist 
+alchemists searching for the elixir of life. Gunpowder's 
+subsequent career is even more telling. One might have 
+thought that the Daoist alchemists would have made China 
+master of the world. In fact, the Chinese used the new 
+compound mainly for recrackers. 
+
+Even as the Song Empire collapsed in the face of a Mongol 
+invasion, no emperor set up a medieval Manhattan Project to 
+save the empire by inventing a doomsday weapon. Only in 
+the fteenth century - about 600 years after the invention of 
+gunpowder - did cannons become a decisive factor on Afro- 
+Asian battlefields. Why did it take so long for the deadly 
+potential of this substance to be put to military use? 
+
+Because it appeared at a time when neither kings, scholars, 
+nor merchants thought that new military technology could 
+save them or make them rich. 
+
+The situation began to change in the fteenth and sixteenth 
+centuries, but another 200 years went by before most rulers 
+evinced any interest in nancing the research and 
+development of new weapons. Logistics and strategy 
+continued to have far greater impact on the outcome of wars 
+than technology. The Napoleonic military machine that 
+crushed the armies of the European powers at Austerlitz 
+(1805) was armed with more or less the same weaponry that 
+the army of Louis XVI had used. Napoleon himself, despite 
+being an artilleryman, had little interest in new weapons, 
+even though scientists and inventors tried to persuade him 
+to fund the development of flying machines, submarines 
+and rockets. 
+
+Science, industry and military technology intertwined only 
+with the advent of the capitalist system and the Industrial 
+Revolution. Once this relationship was established, however, 
+it quickly transformed the world. 
+
+
+
+The Ideal of Progress 
+
+Until the Scienti c Revolution most human cultures did not 
+believe in progress. 
+
+They thought the golden age was in the past, and that the 
+world was stagnant, if not deteriorating. Strict adherence to 
+the wisdom of the ages might perhaps bring back the good 
+old times, and human ingenuity might conceivably improve 
+this or that facet of daily life. However, it was considered 
+impossible for human know-how to overcome the world's 
+fundamental problems. If even Muhammad, Jesus, 
+
+Buddha and Confucius - who knew everything there is to 
+know - were unable to abolish famine, disease, poverty and 
+war from the world, how could we expect to do so? 
+
+Many faiths believed that some day a messiah would appear 
+and end all wars, famines and even death itself. But the 
+notion that humankind could do so by discovering new 
+knowledge and inventing new tools was worse than 
+ludicrous - it was hubris. The story of the Tower of Babel, the 
+story of Icarus, the story of the Golem and countless other 
+myths taught people that any attempt to go beyond human 
+limitations would inevitably lead to disappointment and 
+disaster. 
+
+When modern culture admitted that there were many 
+important things that it 
+
+still did not know, and when that admission of ignorance 
+was married to the idea that scienti c discoveries could give 
+us new powers, people began suspecting that real progress 
+might be possible after all. As science began to solve one 
+unsolvable problem after another, many became convinced 
+that humankind could overcome 
+
+
+
+any and every problem by acquiring and applying new 
+knowledge. Poverty, sickness, wars, famines, old age and 
+death itself were not the inevitable fate of humankind. They 
+were simply the fruits of our ignorance. 
+
+
+
+34. Beniamin Franklin disarming the gods. 
+
+A famous example is lightning. Many cultures believed that 
+lightning was the hammer of an angry god, used to punish 
+sinners. In the middle of the eighteenth century, in one of 
+the most celebrated experiments in scienti c history, 
+Benjamin Franklin ew a kite during a lightning storm to test 
+the hypothesis that lightning is simply an electric current. 
+Franklins empirical observations, coupled with his 
+knowledge about the qualities of electrical energy, enabled 
+him to invent the lightning rod and disarm the gods. 
+
+Poverty is another case in point. Many cultures have viewed 
+poverty as an inescapable part of this imperfect world. 
+According to the New Testament, shortly before the cruci 
+xion a woman anointed Christ with precious oil worth 300 
+
+
+
+
+denarii. Jesus' disciples scolded the woman for wasting such 
+a huge sum of money instead of giving it to the poor, but 
+Jesus defended her, saying that The poor you will always 
+have with you, and you can help them any time you want. 
+But you will not always have me' (Mark 14:7). Today, fewer 
+and fewer people, including fewer and fewer Christians, 
+agree with Jesus on this matter. Poverty is increasingly seen 
+as a technical problem amenable to intervention. It's 
+common wisdom that policies based on the latest ndings in 
+agronomy, economics, medicine and sociology can eliminate 
+poverty. 
+
+And indeed, many parts of the world have already been 
+freed from the worst 
+
+forms of deprivation. Throughout history, societies have su 
+ered from two kinds of poverty: social poverty, which 
+withholds from some people the opportunities available to 
+others; and biological poverty, which puts the very lives of 
+individuals at risk due to lack of food and shelter. Perhaps 
+social poverty can never be 
+
+eradicated, but in many countries around the world 
+biological poverty is a thing of the past. 
+
+Until recently, most people hovered very close to the 
+biological poverty line, below which a person lacks enough 
+calories to sustain life for long. Even small miscalculations or 
+misfortunes could easily push people below that line, into 
+starvation. Natural disasters and man-made calamities often 
+plunged entire populations over the abyss, causing the 
+death of millions. Today most of the world's people have a 
+safety net stretched below them. Individuals are protected 
+from personal misfortune by insurance, state-sponsored 
+social security and a plethora of local and international 
+NGOs. When calamity strikes an entire region, worldwide 
+
+
+
+relief e orts are usually successful in preventing the worst. 
+People still su erfrom numerous degradations, humiliations 
+and poverty-related illnesses, but in most countries nobody 
+is starving to death. In fact, in many societies more people 
+are in danger of dying from obesity than from starvation. 
+
+The Gilgamesh Project 
+
+Of all mankind's ostensibly insoluble problems, one has 
+remained the most vexing, interesting and important: the 
+problem of death itself. Before the late modern era, most 
+religions and ideologies took it for granted that death was 
+our inevitable fate. Moreover, most faiths turned death into 
+the main source of meaning in life. 
+
+Try to imagine Islam, Christianity or the ancient Egyptian 
+religion in a world without death. These creeds taught 
+people that they must come to terms with death and pin 
+their hopes on the afterlife, rather than seek to overcome 
+death and live for ever here on earth. The best minds were 
+busy giving meaning to death, not trying to escape it. 
+
+That is the theme of the most ancient myth to come down to 
+us - the Gilgamesh myth of ancient Sumer. Its hero is the 
+strongest and most capable man in the world, King 
+Gilgamesh of Uruk, who could defeat anyone in battle. One 
+day, Gilgamesh's best friend, Enkidu, died. Gilgamesh sat by 
+the body and observed it for many days, until he saw a worm 
+dropping out of his friend's nostril. At that moment 
+Gilgamesh was gripped by a terrible horror, and he resolved 
+that he himself would never die. He would somehow nd a 
+way to defeat death. 
+
+Gilgamesh then undertook a journey to the end of the 
+universe, killing lions, battling scorpion-men and nding his 
+way into the underworld. There he shattered the stone 
+
+
+
+giants of Urshanabi and the ferryman of the river of the 
+dead, and found Utnapishtim, the last survivor of the 
+primordial ood. Yet Gilgamesh failed in his quest. He 
+returned home empty-handed, as mortal as ever, but with 
+
+one new piece of wisdom. When the gods created man, 
+Gilgamesh had learned, they set death as man's inevitable 
+destiny, and man must learn to live with it. 
+
+Disciples of progress do not share this defeatist attitude. For 
+men of science, death is not an inevitable destiny, but 
+merely a technical problem. People die not because the gods 
+decreed it, but due to various technical failures - a heart 
+attack, cancer, an infection. And every technical problem 
+has a technical solution. If the heart utters, it can be 
+stimulated by a pacemaker or replaced by a new heart. If 
+cancer rampages, it can be killed with drugs or radiation. If 
+bacteria proliferate, they can be subdued with antibiotics. 
+True, at present we cannot solve all technical problems. But 
+we are working on them. Our best minds are not wasting 
+their time trying to give meaning to death. Instead, they are 
+busy investigating the physiological, hormonal and genetic 
+systems responsible for disease and old age. They are 
+developing new medicines, revolutionary treatments and 
+arti cial organs that will lengthen our lives and might one 
+day vanquish the Grim Reaper himself. 
+
+Until recently, you would not have heard scientists, or 
+anyone else, speak so bluntly. 'Defeat death?! What 
+nonsense! We are only trying to cure cancer, tuberculosis 
+and Alzheimer's disease,' they insisted. People avoided the 
+issue of death because the goal seemed too elusive. Why 
+create unreasonable expectations? We're now at a point, 
+however, where we can be frank about it. 
+
+
+
+The leading project of the Scienti c Revolution is to give 
+humankind eternal life. 
+
+Even if killing death seems a distant goal, we have already 
+achieved things that were inconceivable a few centuries 
+ago. In 1199, King Richard the Lionheart was struck by an 
+arrow in his left shoulder. Today we'd say he incurred a minor 
+i n j u ry. 
+
+But in 1199, in the absence of antibiotics and e ective 
+sterilisation methods, this minor esh wound turned infected 
+and gangrene set in. The only way to stop the spread of 
+gangrene in twelfth-century Europe was to cut o the infected 
+limb, impossible when the infection was in a shoulder. The 
+gangrene spread through the Lionheart's body and no one 
+could help the king. He died in great agony two weeks later. 
+
+As recently as the nineteenth century, the best doctors still 
+did not know how to prevent infection and stop the 
+putrefaction of tissues. In eld hospitals doctors routinely cut 
+o the hands and legs of soldiers who received even minor 
+limb injuries, fearing gangrene. These amputations, as well 
+as all other medical procedures (such as tooth extraction), 
+were done without any anaesthetics. The rst anaesthetics - 
+ether, chloroform and morphine - entered regular usage in 
+Western medicine only in the middle of the nineteenth 
+century. Before the advent of chloroform, four soldiers had to 
+hold down a wounded comrade while the doctor sawed o the 
+injured limb. On the morning after the battle of Waterloo 
+(1815), heaps of sawn-o hands and legs could be seen 
+adjacent to the eld 
+
+hospitals. In those days, carpenters and butchers who 
+enlisted to the army were often sent to serve in the medical 
+corps, because surgery required little more than knowing 
+your way with knives and saws. 
+
+
+
+In the two centuries since Waterloo, things have changed 
+beyond recognition. 
+
+Pills, injections and sophisticated operations save us from a 
+spate of illnesses and injuries that once dealt an inescapable 
+death sentence. They also protect us against countless daily 
+aches and ailments, which premodern people simply 
+accepted as part of life. The average life expectancy jumped 
+from around twenty-five to forty years, to around sixty-seven 
+in the entire world, and to around eighty years in the 
+developed world. 8 
+
+Death su ered its worst setbacks in the arena of child 
+mortality. Until the twentieth century, between a quarter 
+and a third of the children of agricultural societies never 
+reached adulthood. Most succumbed to childhood diseases 
+such as diphtheria, measles and smallpox. In seventeenth- 
+century England, 150 out of every 1,000 newborns died 
+during their rst year, and a third of all children were dead 
+before they reached fteen. 9 Today, only ve out of 1,000 
+English babies die during their first year, and only seven out 
+of 1,000 die before age fifteen. 10 
+
+We can better grasp the full impact of these gures by setting 
+aside statistics and telling some stories. A good example is 
+the family of King Edward I of England (1237-1307) and his 
+wife, Queen Eleanor (1241-90). Their children enjoyed the 
+best conditions and the most nurturing surroundings that 
+could be provided in medieval Europe. They lived in palaces, 
+ate as much food as they liked, had plenty of warm clothing, 
+well-stocked replaces, the cleanest water available, an army 
+of servants and the best doctors. The sources mention 
+sixteen children that Queen Eleanor bore between 1255 and 
+1284: 
+
+1. An anonymous daughter, born in 1255, died at birth. 
+
+
+2 . A daughter, Catherine, died either at age one or age 
+three. 
+
+3 . A daughter, Joan, died at six months. 
+
+4 . A son, John, died at age five. 
+
+5 . A son, Henry, died at age six. 
+
+6 . A daughter, Eleanor, died at age twenty-nine. 
+
+7 . An anonymous daughter died at five months. 
+
+8 . A daughter, Joan, died at age thirty-five. 
+
+9 . A son, Alphonso, died at age ten. 
+
+10 . A daughter, Margaret, died at age fifty-eight. 
+
+11 . A daughter, Berengeria, died at age two. 
+
+12 . An anonymous daughter died shortly after birth. 
+
+13 . A daughter, Mary, died at age fifty-three. 
+
+14 . An anonymous son died shortly after birth. 
+
+15 . A daughter, Elizabeth, died at age thirty-four. 
+
+16 . A son, Edward. 
+
+The youngest, Edward, was the rst of the boys to survive the 
+dangerous years of childhood, and at his fathers death he 
+ascended the English throne as King Edward II. In other 
+words, it took Eleanor sixteen tries to carry out the most 
+fundamental mission of an English queen - to provide her 
+husband with a male heir. Edward M's mother must have 
+been a woman of exceptional patience and fortitude. Not so 
+
+
+
+the woman Edward chose for his wife, Isabella of France. She 
+had him murdered when he was forty-three. 11 
+
+To the best of our knowledge, Eleanor and Edward I were a 
+healthy couple and passed no fatal hereditary illnesses on to 
+their children. Nevertheless, ten out of the sixteen - 62 per 
+cent - died during childhood. Only six managed to live 
+beyond the age of eleven, and only three - just 18 per cent - 
+lived beyond the age of forty. In addition to these births, 
+Eleanor most likely had a number of pregnancies that ended 
+in miscarriage. On average, Edward and Eleanor lost a child 
+every three years, ten children one after another. It's nearly 
+impossible for a parent today to imagine such loss. 
+
+How long will the Gilgamesh Project - the quest for 
+immortality - take to complete? A hundred years? Five 
+hundred years? A thousand years? When we recall how little 
+we knew about the human body in 1900, and how much 
+knowledge we have gained in a single century, there is 
+cause for optimism. 
+
+Genetic engineers have recently managed to double the 
+average life expectancy of Caenorhabditis elegans worms. 
+
+12 Could they do the same for Homo sapiens ? 
+
+Nanotechnology experts are developing a bionic immune 
+system composed of millions of nano-robots, who would 
+inhabit our bodies, open blocked blood vessels, ght viruses 
+and bacteria, eliminate cancerous cells and even reverse 
+ageing processes. 13 A few serious scholars suggest that by 
+2050, some humans will become a-mortal (not immortal, 
+because they could still die of some accident, but a-mortal, 
+meaning that in the absence of fatal trauma their lives could 
+be extended indefinitely). 
+
+
+Whether or not Project Gilgamesh succeeds, from a historical 
+perspective it is 
+
+fascinating to see that most late-modern religions and 
+ideologies have already taken death and the afterlife out of 
+the equation. Until the eighteenth century, religions 
+considered death and its aftermath central to the meaning 
+of life. 
+
+Beginning in the eighteenth century, religions and 
+ideologies such as liberalism, socialism and feminism lost all 
+interest in the afterlife. What, exactly, happens to a 
+Communist after he or she dies? What happens to a 
+capitalist? What happens to a feminist? It is pointless to look 
+for the answer in the writings of Marx, Adam Smith or 
+Simone de Beauvoir. The only modern ideology that still 
+awards death a central role is nationalism. In its more poetic 
+and desperate moments, nationalism promises that whoever 
+dies for the nation will forever live in its collective memory. 
+Yet this promise is so fuzzy that even most nationalists do 
+not really know what to make of it. 
+
+The Sugar Daddy of Science 
+
+We are living in a technical age. Many are convinced that 
+science and technology hold the answers to all our 
+problems. We should just let the scientists and technicians 
+go on with their work, and they will create heaven here on 
+earth. But science is not an enterprise that takes place on 
+some superior moral or spiritual plane above the rest of 
+human activity. Like all other parts of our culture, it is 
+shaped by economic, political and religious interests. 
+
+Science is a very expensive a air. A biologist seeking to 
+understand the human immune system requires 
+laboratories, test tubes, chemicals and electron microscopes, 
+
+
+
+not to mention lab assistants, electricians, plumbers and 
+cleaners. An economist seeking to model credit markets 
+must buy computers, set up giant databanks and develop 
+complicated data-processing programs. An archaeologist 
+who wishes to understand the behaviour of archaic hunter- 
+gatherers must travel to distant lands, excavate ancient 
+ruins and date fossilised bones and artefacts. All of this costs 
+money. 
+
+During the past 500 years modern science has achieved 
+wonders thanks largely to the willingness of governments, 
+businesses, foundations and private donors to channel 
+billions of dollars into scienti c research. These billions have 
+done much more to chart the universe, map the planet and 
+catalogue the animal kingdom than did Galileo Galilei, 
+Christopher Columbus and Charles Darwin. If these 
+particular geniuses had never been born, their insights 
+would probably have occurred to others. But if the proper 
+funding were unavailable, no intellectual brilliance could 
+have compensated for that. If Darwin had never been born, 
+for example, we'd today attribute the theory of evolution to 
+Alfred Russel Wallace, 
+
+who came up with the idea of evolution via natural selection 
+independently of Darwin and just a few years later. But if the 
+European powers had not nanced geographical, zoological 
+and botanical research around the world, neither Darwin nor 
+Wallace would have had the necessary empirical data to 
+develop the theory of evolution. It is likely that they would 
+not even have tried. 
+
+Why did the billions start owing from government and 
+business co ers into labs and universities? In academic 
+circles, many are naive enough to believe in pure science. 
+They believe that government and business altruistically 
+give them money to pursue whatever research projects 
+
+
+
+strike their fancy. But this hardly describes the realities of 
+science funding. 
+
+Most scienti c studies are funded because somebody 
+believes they can help attain some political, economic or 
+religious goal. For example, in the sixteenth century, kings 
+and bankers channelled enormous resources to nance 
+
+geographical expeditions around the world but not a penny 
+for studying child psychology. This is because kings and 
+bankers surmised that the discovery of new geographical 
+knowledge would enable them to conquer new lands and set 
+up trade empires, whereas they couldn't see any pro t in 
+understanding child psychology. 
+
+In the 1940s the governments of America and the Soviet 
+Union channelled enormous resources to the study of 
+nuclear physics rather than underwater archaeology. They 
+surmised that studying nuclear physics would enable them 
+to develop nuclear weapons, whereas underwater 
+archaeology was unlikely to help win wars. Scientists 
+themselves are not always aware of the political, economic 
+and religious interests that control the ow of money; many 
+scientists do, in fact, act out of pure intellectual curiosity. 
+However, only rarely do scientists dictate the scientific 
+agenda. 
+
+Even if we wanted to nance pure science una ected by 
+political, economic or religious interests, it would probably 
+be impossible. Our resources are limited, after all. Ask a 
+congressman to allocate an additional million dollars to the 
+National Science Foundation for basic research, and he'll 
+justi ably ask whether that money wouldn't be better used 
+to fund teacher training or to give a needed tax break to a 
+troubled factory in his district. To channel limited resources 
+we must answer questions such as 'What is more important?' 
+
+
+
+and 'What is good?' And these are not scienti c questions. 
+Science can explain what exists in the world, how things 
+work, and what might be in the future. By de nition, it has no 
+pretensions to knowing what should be in the future. Only 
+religions and ideologies seek to answer such questions. 
+
+Consider the following quandary: two biologists from the 
+same department, possessing the same professional skills, 
+have both applied for a million-dollar grant to nance their 
+current research projects. Professor Slughorn wants to study 
+
+a disease that infects the udders of cows, causing a 10 per 
+cent decrease in their milk production. Professor Sprout 
+wants to study whether cows su er mentally when they are 
+separated from their calves. Assuming that the amount of 
+money is limited, and that it is impossible to nance both 
+research projects, which one should be funded? 
+
+There is no scienti c answer to this question. There are only 
+political, economic and religious answers. In today's world, it 
+is obvious that Slughorn has a better chance of getting the 
+money. Not because udder diseases are scienti cally more 
+interesting than bovine mentality, but because the dairy 
+industry, which stands to bene t from the research, has more 
+political and economic clout than the animal-rights lobby. 
+
+Perhaps in a strict Hindu society, where cows are sacred, or 
+in a society committed to animal rights, Professor Sprout 
+would have a better shot. But as long as she lives in a 
+society that values the commercial potential of milk and the 
+health of its human citizens over the feelings of cows, she'd 
+best write up her research proposal so as to appeal to those 
+assumptions. For example, she might write that 'Depression 
+leads to a decrease in milk production. If we understand the 
+mental world of dairy cows, we could develop psychiatric 
+medication that will improve their mood, thus raising milk 
+
+
+
+production by up to 10 per cent. I estimate that there is a 
+global annual market of $250 million for bovine psychiatric 
+medications.' 
+
+Science is unable to set its own priorities. It is also incapable 
+of determining what to do with its discoveries. For example, 
+from a purely scienti c viewpoint it is unclear what we 
+should do with our increasing understanding of genetics. 
+
+Should we use this knowledge to cure cancer, to create a 
+race of genetically engineered supermen, or to engineer 
+dairy cows with super-sized udders? It is obvious that a 
+liberal government, a Communist government, a Nazi 
+government and a capitalist business corporation would use 
+the very same scienti c discovery for completely di erent 
+purposes, and there is no scientific reason to prefer one 
+usage over others. 
+
+In short, scienti c research can ourish only in alliance with 
+some religion or ideology. The ideology justi es the costs of 
+the research. In exchange, the ideology in uences the scienti 
+c agenda and determines what to do with the discoveries. 
+
+Hence in order to comprehend how humankind has reached 
+Alamogordo and the 
+
+moon - rather than any number of alternative destinations - 
+it is not enough to survey the achievements of physicists, 
+biologists and sociologists. We have to take into account the 
+ideological, political and economic forces that shaped 
+physics, biology and sociology, pushing them in certain 
+directions while neglecting others. 
+
+Two forces in particular deserve our attention: imperialism 
+and capitalism. The feedback loop between science, empire 
+and capital has arguably been history's 
+
+
+
+chief engine for the past 500 years. The following chapters 
+analyse its workings. 
+
+First we'll look at how the twin turbines of science and 
+empire were latched to one another, and then learn how 
+both were hitched up to the money pump of capitalism. 
+
+15 
+
+The Marriage of Science and Empire 
+
+HOW FAR IS THE SUN FROM THE EARTH? It's a question that 
+intrigued many early modern astronomers, particularly after 
+Copernicus argued that the sun, rather than the earth, is 
+located at the centre of the universe. A number of 
+astronomers and mathematicians tried to calculate the 
+distance, but their methods provided widely varying results. 
+A reliable means of making the measurement was nally 
+proposed in the middle of the eighteenth century. Every few 
+years, the planet Venus passes directly between the sun and 
+the earth. The duration of the transit di ers when seen from 
+distant points on the earths surface because of the tiny di 
+erence in the angle at which the observer sees it. If several 
+observations of the same transit were made from different 
+continents, simple trigonometry was all it would take to 
+calculate our exact distance from the sun. 
+
+Astronomers predicted that the next Venus transits would 
+occur in 1761 and 1769. So expeditions were sent from 
+Europe to the four corners of the world in order to observe 
+the transits from as many distant points as possible. In 1761 
+
+scientists observed the transit from Siberia, North America, 
+Madagascar and South Africa. As the 1769 transit 
+approached, the European scienti c community mounted a 
+supreme e ort, and scientists were dispatched as far as 
+northern Canada and California (which was then a 
+
+
+
+wilderness). The Royal Society of London for the 
+Improvement of Natural Knowledge concluded that this was 
+not enough. To obtain the most accurate results it was 
+imperative to send an astronomer all the way to the south¬ 
+western Pacific Ocean. 
+
+The Royal Society resolved to send an eminent astronomer, 
+Charles Green, to Tahiti, and spared neither e ort nor money. 
+But, since it was funding such an expensive expedition, it 
+hardly made sense to use it to make just a single 
+astronomical observation. Green was therefore accompanied 
+by a team of eight other scientists from several disciplines, 
+headed by botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander. The 
+team also included artists assigned to produce drawings of 
+the new lands, plants, animals and peoples that the 
+scientists would no doubt encounter. Equipped with the 
+most advanced scienti c instruments that Banks and the 
+Royal Society could buy, the expedition was placed under 
+the command of Captain James Cook, an experienced 
+seaman as well as an accomplished 
+
+geographer and ethnographer. 
+
+The expedition left England in 1768, observed the Venus 
+transit from Tahiti in 1769, reconnoitred several Pad c 
+islands, visited Australia and New Zealand, and returned to 
+England in 1771. It brought back enormous quantities of 
+astronomical, geographical, meteorological, botanical, 
+zoological and anthropological data. Its ndings made major 
+contributions to a number of disciplines, sparked the 
+imagination of Europeans with astonishing tales of the South 
+Pad c, and inspired future generations of naturalists and 
+astronomers. 
+
+One of the elds that bene ted from the Cook expedition was 
+medicine. At the time, ships that set sail to distant shores 
+
+
+
+knew that more than half their crew members would die on 
+the journey. The nemesis was not angry natives, enemy 
+warships or homesickness. It was a mysterious ailment 
+called scurvy. Men who came down with the disease grew 
+lethargic and depressed, and their gums and other soft 
+tissues bled. As the disease progressed, their teeth fell out, 
+open sores appeared and they grew feverish, jaundiced, and 
+lost control of their limbs. 
+
+Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, scurvy is 
+estimated to have claimed the lives of about 2 million 
+sailors. No one knew what caused it, and no matter what 
+remedy was tried, sailors continued to die in droves. The 
+turning point came in 1747, when a British physician, James 
+Lind, conducted a controlled experiment on sailors who su 
+ered from the disease. He separated them into several 
+groups and gave each group a di erent treatment. One of the 
+test groups was instructed to eat citrus fruits, a common folk 
+remedy for scurvy. The patients in this group promptly 
+recovered. Lind did not know what the citrus fruits had that 
+the sailors' bodies lacked, but we now know that it is vitamin 
+C. A typical shipboard diet at that time was notably lacking 
+in foods that are rich in this essential nutrient. On long- 
+range voyages sailors usually subsisted on biscuits and beef 
+jerky, and ate almost no fruits or vegetables. 
+
+The Royal Navy was not convinced by Lind's experiments, 
+but James Cook was. 
+
+He resolved to prove the doctor right. He loaded his boat 
+with a large quantity of sauerkraut and ordered his sailors to 
+eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables whenever the 
+expedition made landfall. Cook did not lose a single sailor to 
+scurvy. 
+
+
+
+In the following decades, all the world's navies adopted 
+Cook's nautical diet, and the lives of countless sailors and 
+passengers were saved. 1 
+
+However, the Cook expedition had another, far less benign 
+result. Cook was not only an experienced seaman and 
+geographer, but also a naval o cer. The Royal Society nanced 
+a large part of the expedition's expenses, but the ship itself 
+was provided by the Royal Navy. The navy also seconded 
+eighty- ve well-armed sailors and marines, and equipped the 
+ship with artillery, muskets, gunpowder and other weaponry. 
+Much of the information collected by the expedition 
+particularly the astronomical, geographical, meteorological 
+and anthropological 
+
+data - was of obvious political and military value. The 
+discovery of an e ective treatment for scurvy greatly 
+contributed to British control of the world's oceans and its 
+ability to send armies to the other side of the world. Cook 
+claimed for Britain many of the islands and lands he 
+'discovered', most notably Australia. The Cook expedition 
+laid the foundation for the British occupation of the south¬ 
+western Paci c Ocean; for the conquest of Australia, 
+
+Tasmania and New Zealand; for the settlement of millions of 
+Europeans in the new colonies; and for the extermination of 
+their native cultures and most of their native populations. 2 
+
+In the century following the Cook expedition, the most fertile 
+lands of Australia and New Zealand were taken from their 
+previous inhabitants by European settlers. The native 
+population dropped by up to 90 percent and the survivors 
+were subjected to a harsh regime of racial oppression. For 
+the Aborigines of Australia and the Maoris of New Zealand, 
+the Cook expedition was the beginning of a catastrophe 
+from which they have never recovered. 
+
+
+An even worse fate befell the natives of Tasmania. Having 
+survived for 10,000 
+
+years in splendid isolation, they were completely wiped out, 
+to the last man, woman and child, within a century of Cook's 
+arrival. European settlers rst drove them o the richest parts 
+of the island, and then, coveting even the remaining 
+wilderness, hunted them down and killed them 
+systematically. The few survivors were hounded into an 
+evangelical concentration camp, where well-meaning but 
+not particularly open-minded missionaries tried to 
+indoctrinate them in the ways of the modern world. The 
+Tasmanians were instructed in reading and writing, 
+Christianity and various 'productive skills' such as sewing 
+clothes and farming. But they refused to learn. They became 
+ever more melancholic, stopped having children, lost all 
+interest in life, and nally chose the only escape route from 
+the modern world of science and progress - death. 
+
+Alas, science and progress pursued them even to the 
+afterlife. The corpses of the last Tasmanians were seized in 
+the name of science by anthropologists and curators. They 
+were dissected, weighed and measured, and analysed in 
+learned articles. The skulls and skeletons were then put on 
+display in museums and anthropological collections. Only in 
+1976 did the Tasmanian Museum give up for burial the 
+skeleton of Truganini, the last native Tasmanian, who had 
+died a hundred years earlier. The English Royal College of 
+Surgeons held on to samples of her skin and hair until 2002. 
+
+Was Cook's ship a scienti c expedition protected by a 
+military force or a military expedition with a few scientists 
+tagging along? That's like asking whether your petrol tank is 
+half empty or half full. It was both. The Scienti c Revolution 
+and modern imperialism were inseparable. People such as 
+Captain James Cook and the botanist Joseph Banks could 
+
+
+
+hardly distinguish science from empire. Nor could luckless 
+Truganini. 
+
+
+
+Why Europe? 
+
+The fact that people from a large island in the northern 
+Atlantic conquered a large island south of Australia is one of 
+history's more bizarre occurrences. Not long before Cook's 
+expedition, the British Isles and western Europe in general 
+were but distant backwaters of the Mediterranean world. 
+Little of importance ever happened there. Even the Roman 
+Empire - the only important premodern European empire - 
+derived most of its wealth from its North African, Balkan and 
+Middle Eastern provinces. Rome's western European 
+
+
+
+provinces were a poor Wild West, which contributed little 
+aside from minerals and slaves. Northern Europe was so 
+desolate and barbarous that it wasn't even worth 
+conquering. 
+
+35. Truaanini. the last native Tasmanian. 
+
+Only at the end of the fteenth century did Europe become a 
+hothouse of important military, political, economic and 
+cultural developments. Between 1500 
+
+and 1750, western Europe gained momentum and became 
+master of the 'Outer World', meaning the two American 
+continents and the oceans. Yet even then 
+
+Europe was no match for the great powers of Asia. 
+
+Europeans managed to conquer America and gain 
+supremacy at sea mainly because the Asiatic powers showed 
+little interest in them. The early modern era was a golden 
+age for the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean, the 
+Safavid Empire in Persia, the Mughal Empire in India, and 
+the Chinese Ming and Qing dynasties. They expanded their 
+territories signi cantly and enjoyed unprecedented 
+demographic and economic growth. In 1775 Asia accounted 
+for 80 per cent of the world economy. The combined 
+economies of India and China alone represented two-thirds 
+of global production. In comparison, Europe was an 
+economic dwarf. 3 
+
+The global centre of power shifted to Europe only between 
+1750 and 1850, when Europeans humiliated the Asian 
+powers in a series of wars and conquered large parts of Asia. 
+By 1900 Europeans rmly controlled the worlds economy and 
+most of its territory. In 1950 western Europe and the United 
+States together accounted for more than half of global 
+production, whereas Chinas portion had been reduced to 5 
+
+
+
+per cent. 4 Under the European aegis a new global order and 
+global culture emerged. Today all humans are, to a much 
+greater extent than they usually want to admit, European in 
+dress, thought and taste. They may be ercely anti-European 
+in their rhetoric, but almost everyone on the planet views 
+politics, medicine, war and economics through European 
+eyes, and listens to music written in European modes with 
+words in European languages. Even today's burgeoning 
+Chinese economy, which may soon regain its global primacy, 
+is built on a European model of production and finance. 
+
+How did the people of this frigid nger of Eurasia manage to 
+break out of their remote corner of the globe and conquer 
+the entire world? Europe's scientists are often given much of 
+the credit. It's unquestionable that from 1850 onward 
+European domination rested to a large extent on the 
+military-industrial-scienti c complex and technological 
+wizardry. All successful late modern empires cultivated 
+scienti c research in the hope of harvesting technological 
+innovations, and many scientists spent most of their time 
+working on arms, medicines and machines for their imperial 
+masters. A common saying among European soldiers facing 
+African enemies was, 'Come what may, we have machine 
+guns, and they don't.' Civilian technologies were no less 
+important. Canned food fed soldiers, railroads and 
+steamships transported soldiers and their provisions, while a 
+new arsenal of medicines cured soldiers, sailors and 
+locomotive engineers. These logistical advances played a 
+more signi cant role in the European conquest of Africa than 
+did the machine gun. 
+
+But that wasn't the case before 1850. The military- 
+industrial-scienti c complex was still in its infancy; the 
+technological fruits of the Scienti c Revolution were unripe; 
+and the technological gap between European, Asiatic and 
+
+
+African powers was small. In 1770, James Cook certainly had 
+far better technology than the 
+
+Australian Aborigines, but so did the Chinese and the 
+Ottomans. Why then was Australia explored and colonised 
+by Captain James Cook and not by Captain Wan Zhengse or 
+Captain Hussein Pasha? More importantly, if in 1770 
+Europeans had no signi cant technological advantage over 
+Muslims, Indians and Chinese, how did they manage in the 
+following century to open such a gap between themselves 
+and the rest of the world? 
+
+Why did the military-industrial-scienti c complex blossom in 
+Europe rather than India? When Britain leaped forward, why 
+were France, Germany and the United States quick to follow, 
+whereas China lagged behind? When the gap between 
+industrial and non-industrial nations became an obvious 
+economic and political factor, why did Russia, Italy and 
+Austria succeed in closing it, whereas Persia, Egypt and the 
+Ottoman Empire failed? After all, the technology of the rst 
+industrial wave was relatively simple. Was it so hard for 
+Chinese or Ottomans to engineer steam engines, 
+manufacture machine guns and lay down railroads? 
+
+The world's rst commercial railroad opened for business in 
+1830, in Britain. By 1850, Western nations were criss¬ 
+crossed by almost 40,000 kilometres of railroads 
+
+- but in the whole of Asia, Africa and Latin America there 
+were only 4,000 
+
+kilometres of tracks. In 1880, the West boasted more than 
+350,000 kilometres of railroads, whereas in the rest of the 
+world there were but 35,000 kilometres of train lines (and 
+most of these were laid by the British in India). 5 The rst 
+railroad in China opened only in 1876. It was twenty- ve 
+
+
+kilometres long and built by Europeans - the Chinese 
+government destroyed it the following year. In 1880 the 
+Chinese Empire did not operate a single railroad. The rst 
+railroad in Persia was built only in 1888, and it connected 
+Tehran with a Muslim holy site about ten kilometres south of 
+the capital. It was constructed and operated by a Belgian 
+company. In 1950, the total railway network of Persia still 
+amounted to a meagre 2,500 kilometres, in a country seven 
+times the size of Britain. 6 
+
+The Chinese and Persians did not lack technological 
+inventions such as steam engines (which could be freely 
+copied or bought). They lacked the values, myths, judicial 
+apparatus and sociopolitical structures that took centuries to 
+form and mature in the West and which could not be copied 
+and internalised rapidly. 
+
+France and the United States quickly followed in Britain's 
+footsteps because the French and Americans already shared 
+the most important British myths and social structures. The 
+Chinese and Persians could not catch up as quickly because 
+they thought and organised their societies differently. 
+
+This explanation sheds new light on the period from 1500 to 
+1850. During this era Europe did not enjoy any obvious 
+technological, political, military or economic advantage over 
+the Asian powers, yet the continent built up a unique 
+potential, whose importance suddenly became obvious 
+around 1850. The apparent equality between Europe, China 
+and the Muslim world in 1750 was a mirage. 
+
+Imagine two builders, each busy constructing very tall 
+towers. One builder uses wood and mud bricks, whereas the 
+other uses steel and concrete. At rst it seems that there is 
+not much of a di erence between the two methods, since 
+both towers grow at a similar pace and reach a similar 
+
+
+height. However, once a critical threshold is crossed, the 
+wood and mud tower cannot stand the strain and collapses, 
+whereas the steel and concrete tower grows storey by 
+storey, as far as the eye can see. 
+
+What potential did Europe develop in the early modern 
+period that enabled it to dominate the late modern world? 
+There are two complementary answers to this question: 
+modern science and capitalism. Europeans were used to 
+thinking and behaving in a scienti c and capitalist way even 
+before they enjoyed any signi cant technological 
+advantages. When the technological bonanza began, 
+Europeans could harness it far better than anybody else. So 
+it is hardly coincidental that science and capitalism form the 
+most important legacy that European imperialism has 
+bequeathed the post-European world of the twenty- rst 
+century. Europe and Europeans no longer rule the world, but 
+science and capital are growing ever stronger. The victories 
+of capitalism are examined in the following chapter. This 
+chapter is dedicated to the love story between European 
+imperialism and modern science. 
+
+The Mentality of Conquest 
+
+Modern science ourished in and thanks to European 
+empires. The discipline obviously owes a huge debt to 
+ancient scienti c traditions, such as those of classical 
+Greece, China, India and Islam, yet its unique character 
+began to take shape only in the early modern period, hand 
+in hand with the imperial expansion of Spain, Portugal, 
+Britain, France, Russia and the Netherlands. During the early 
+modern period, Chinese, Indians, Muslims, Native Americans 
+and Polynesians continued to make important contributions 
+to the Scienti c Revolution. The insights of Muslim 
+economists were studied by Adam Smith and Karl Marx, 
+treatments pioneered by Native American doctors found 
+
+
+
+their way into English medical texts and data extracted from 
+Polynesian informants revolutionised Western anthropology. 
+But until the mid-twentieth century, the people who collated 
+these myriad scienti c discoveries, creating scienti c 
+disciplines in the process, were the ruling and intellectual 
+elites of the global European empires. 
+
+The Far East and the Islamic world produced minds as 
+intelligent and curious as those of Europe. However, 
+between 1500 and 1950 they did not produce anything that 
+comes even close to Newtonian physics or Darwinian 
+biology. 
+
+This does not mean that Europeans have a unique gene for 
+science, or that they will forever dominate the study of 
+physics and biology. Just as Islam began as an Arab 
+monopoly but was subsequently taken over by Turks and 
+Persians, so modern science began as a European speciality, 
+but is today becoming a multi-ethnic enterprise. 
+
+What forged the historical bond between modern science 
+and European imperialism? Technology was an important 
+factor in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but in the 
+early modern era it was of limited importance. The key factor 
+was that the plant-seeking botanist and the colony-seeking 
+naval o cer shared a similar mindset. Both scientist and 
+conqueror began by admitting ignorance - they both said, 'I 
+don't know what's out there.' They both felt compelled to go 
+out and make new discoveries. And they both hoped the 
+new knowledge thus acquired would make them masters of 
+the world. 
+
+European imperialism was entirely unlike all other imperial 
+projects in history. 
+
+
+
+Previous seekers of empire tended to assume that they 
+already understood the world. Conquest merely utilised and 
+spread theirv\e\N of the world. The Arabs, to name one 
+example, did not conquer Egypt, Spain or India in order to 
+discover something they did not know. The Romans, Mongols 
+and Aztecs voraciously conquered new lands in search of 
+power and wealth - not of knowledge. In contrast, European 
+imperialists set out to distant shores in the hope of obtaining 
+new knowledge along with new territories. 
+
+
+
+James Cook was not the rst explorer to think this way. The 
+Portuguese and Spanish voyagers of the fteenth and 
+sixteenth centuries already did. Prince Henry the Navigator 
+and Vasco da Gama explored the coasts of Africa and, while 
+doing so, seized control of islands and harbours. Christopher 
+Columbus 
+
+'discovered' America and immediately claimed sovereignty 
+over the new lands for the kings of Spain. Ferdinand 
+Magellan found a way around the world, and simultaneously 
+laid the foundation for the Spanish conquest of the 
+Philippines. 
+
+As time went by, the conquest of knowledge and the 
+conquest of territory became ever more tightly intertwined. 
+
+In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, almost every 
+important military expedition that left Europe for distant 
+lands had on board scientists who set out not to ght but to 
+make scienti c discoveries. 
+
+When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, he took 165 
+scholars with him. Among other things, they founded an 
+entirely new discipline, Egyptology, and made important 
+contributions to the study of religion, linguistics and botany. 
+
+In 1831, the Royal Navy sent the ship HMS Beagle to map 
+the coasts of South America, the Falklands Islands and the 
+Galapagos Islands. The navy needed this knowledge in order 
+to be better prepared in the event of war. The ship's captain, 
+who was an amateur scientist, decided to add a geologist to 
+the expedition to 
+
+study geological formations they might encounter on the 
+way. After several professional geologists refused his 
+invitation, the captain o ered the job to a twenty-two-year- 
+old Cambridge graduate, Charles Darwin. Darwin had 
+
+
+
+studied to become an Anglican parson but was far more 
+interested in geology and natural sciences than in the Bible. 
+He jumped at the opportunity, and the rest is history. 
+
+The captain spent his time on the voyage drawing military 
+maps while Darwin collected the empirical data and 
+formulated the insights that would eventually become the 
+theory of evolution. 
+
+On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on 
+the surface of the moon. In the months leading up to their 
+expedition, the Apol o 11 astronauts trained in a remote 
+moon-like desert in the western United States. The area is 
+home to several Native American communities, and there is 
+a story - or legend - 
+
+describing an encounter between the astronauts and one of 
+the locals. 
+
+One day as they were training, the astronauts came across 
+an old Native American. The man asked them what they 
+were doing there. They replied that they were part of a 
+research expedition that would shortly travel to explore the 
+moon. When the old man heard that, he fell silent for a few 
+moments, and then asked the astronauts if they could do 
+him a favour. 
+
+'What do you want?' they asked. 
+
+'Well,' said the old man, 'the people of my tribe believe that 
+holy spirits live on the moon. I was wondering if you could 
+pass an important message to them from my people.' 
+
+'What's the message?' asked the astronauts. 
+
+The man uttered something in his tribal language, and then 
+asked the astronauts to repeat it again and again until they 
+
+
+
+had memorised it correctly. 
+
+'What does it mean?' asked the astronauts. 
+
+'Oh, I cannot tell you. It's a secret that only our tribe and the 
+moon spirits are allowed to know.' 
+
+When they returned to their base, the astronauts searched 
+and searched until they found someone who could speak the 
+tribal language, and asked him to translate the secret 
+message. When they repeated what they had memorised, 
+the translator started to laugh uproariously. When he calmed 
+down, the astronauts asked him what it meant. The man 
+explained that the sentence they had memorised so 
+carefully said, 'Don't believe a single word these people are 
+telling you. They have come to steal your lands.' 
+
+Empty Maps 
+
+The modern 'explore and conquer' mentality is nicely 
+illustrated by the development of world maps. Many cultures 
+drew world maps long before the modern age. Obviously, 
+none of them really knew the whole of the world. No Afro- 
+Asian culture knew about America, and no American culture 
+knew about Afro-Asia. But unfamiliar areas were simply left 
+out, or lied with imaginary monsters and wonders. These 
+maps had no empty spaces. They gave the impression of a 
+familiarity with the entire world. 
+
+During the fteenth and sixteenth centuries, Europeans 
+began to draw world maps with lots of empty spaces - one 
+indication of the development of the scienti c mindset, as 
+well as of the European imperial drive. The empty maps 
+were a psychological and ideological breakthrough, a clear 
+admission that Europeans were ignorant of large parts of the 
+world. 
+
+
+
+The crucial turning point came in 1492, when Christopher 
+Columbus sailed westward from Spain, seeking a new route 
+to East Asia. Columbus still believed in the old 'complete' 
+world maps. Using them, Columbus calculated that Japan 
+should have been located about 7,000 kilometres west of 
+Spain. In fact, more than 20,000 kilometres and an entire 
+unknown continent separate East Asia from Spain. On 12 
+October 1492, at about 2:00 a.m., Columbus' expedition 
+collided with the unknown continent. Juan Rodriguez 
+Bermejo, watching from the mast of the ship Pinta, spotted 
+an island in what we now call the Bahamas, and shouted 
+
+'Land! Land!' 
+
+Columbus believed he had reached a small island o the East 
+Asian coast. He called the people he found there 'Indians' 
+because he thought he had landed in the Indies - what we 
+now call the East Indies or the Indonesian archipelago. 
+
+Columbus stuck to this error for the rest of his life. The idea 
+that he had discovered a completely unknown continent was 
+inconceivable for him and for many of his generation. For 
+thousands of years, not only the greatest thinkers and 
+scholars but also the infallible Scriptures had known only 
+Europe, Africa and Asia. Could they all have been wrong? 
+Could the Bible have missed half the world? It would be as if 
+in 1969, on its way to the moon, Apol o 11 had crashed into 
+a hitherto unknown moon circling the earth, which all 
+previous observations had somehow failed to spot. In his 
+refusal to admit ignorance, Columbus was still a medieval 
+man. He was convinced he knew the whole world, and even 
+his momentous discovery failed to convince him otherwise. 
+
+
+
+
+36. A European world map from 1459 (Europe is in 
+the top left corner). The map is filled with details, 
+even when depicting areas that were completely 
+unfamiliar to Europeans, such as southern Africa. 
+
+The rst modern man was Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian sailor 
+who took part in several expeditions to America in the years 
+1499-1504. Between 1502 and 1504, two texts describing 
+these expeditions were published in Europe. They were 
+attributed to Vespucci. These texts argued that the new 
+lands discovered by Columbus were not islands o the East 
+Asian coast, but rather an entire continent unknown to the 
+Scriptures, classical geographers and contemporary 
+Europeans. In 1507, convinced by these arguments, a 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+respected mapmaker named Martin Waldseemuller 
+published an updated world map, the rst to show the place 
+where Europe's westward-sailing eets had landed as a 
+separate continent. Having drawn it, Waldseemuller had to 
+give it a name. Erroneously believing that Amerigo Vespucci 
+had been the person who discovered it, Waldseemuller 
+named the continent in his honour - America. The 
+Waldseemuller map became very popular and was copied by 
+many other cartographers, spreading the name he had given 
+the new land. There is poetic justice in the fact that a 
+quarter of the world, and two of its seven continents, are 
+named after a little-known Italian whose sole 
+
+
+
+claim to fame is that he had the courage to say, 'We don't 
+know.' 
+
+The discovery of America was the foundational event of the 
+Scienti c Revolution. It not only taught Europeans to favour 
+present observations over past traditions, but the desire to 
+conquer America also obliged Europeans to search for new 
+knowledge at breakneck speed. If they really wanted to 
+control the vast new territories, they had to gather 
+enormous amounts of new data about the geography, 
+climate, ora, fauna, languages, cultures and history of the 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+new continent. Christian Scriptures, old geography books 
+and ancient oral traditions were of little help. 
+
+Henceforth not only European geographers, but European 
+scholars in almost all other elds of knowledge began to draw 
+maps with spaces left to II in. They began to admit that their 
+theories were not perfect and that there were important 
+things that they did not know. 
+
+The Europeans were drawn to the blank spots on the map as 
+if they were magnets, and promptly started Ming them in. 
+During the fteenth and sixteenth centuries, European 
+expeditions circumnavigated Africa, explored America, 
+crossed the Paci c and Indian Oceans, and created a network 
+of bases and colonies all over the world. They established 
+the rst truly global empires and knitted together the rst 
+global trade network. The European imperial expeditions 
+transformed the history of the world: from being a series of 
+histories of isolated peoples and cultures, it became the 
+history of a single integrated human society. 
+
+37. The Salviati World Map, 1525. While the 1459 
+world map is full of continents, islands and detailed 
+explanations, the Salviati map is mostly empty. The 
+eye wanders south along the American coastline, 
+until it peters into emptiness. Anyone looking at the 
+map and possessing even minimal curiosity is 
+tempted to ask, 'What's beyond this point?' The map 
+gives no answers. It invites the observer to set sail 
+and find out. 
+
+These European explore-and-conquer expeditions are so 
+familiar to us that we tend to overlook just how 
+extraordinary they were. Nothing like them had ever 
+happened before. Long-distance campaigns of conquest are 
+not a natural undertaking. Throughout history most human 
+
+
+
+societies were so busy with local con icts and neighbourhood 
+quarrels that they never considered exploring and 
+conquering distant lands. Most great empires extended their 
+control only over their immediate neighbourhood - they 
+reached far- ung lands simply because their neighbourhood 
+kept expanding. Thus the Romans conquered Etruria in 
+order to defend Rome ( c.350-300 BC). They then conquered 
+the Po Valley in order to defend Etruria ( c.200 BC). They 
+subsequently conquered Provence to defend the Po Valley ( 
+c.120 BC), Gaul to defend Provence ( c.50 BC), and Britain in 
+order to defend Gaul ( c. AD 50). It took them 400 years to 
+get from Rome to London. In 350 BC, no Roman would have 
+conceived of sailing directly to Britain and conquering it. 
+
+Occasionally an ambitious ruler or adventurer would embark 
+on a long-range 
+
+campaign of conquest, but such campaigns usually followed 
+well-beaten imperial or commercial paths. The campaigns of 
+Alexander the Great, for example, did not result in the 
+establishment of a new empire, but rather in the usurpation 
+of an existing empire - that of the Persians. The closest 
+precedents to the modern European empires were the 
+ancient naval empires of Athens and Carthage, and the 
+medieval naval empire of Majapahit, which held sway over 
+much of Indonesia in the fourteenth century. Yet even these 
+empires rarely ventured into unknown seas - their naval 
+exploits were local undertakings when compared to the 
+global ventures of the modern Europeans. 
+
+Many scholars argue that the voyages of Admiral Zheng He 
+of the Chinese Ming dynasty heralded and eclipsed the 
+European voyages of discovery. Between 1405 
+
+and 1433, Zheng led seven huge armadas from China to the 
+far reaches of the Indian Ocean. The largest of these 
+
+
+
+comprised almost 300 ships and carried close to 30,000 
+people. 7_They visited Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, the 
+Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and East Africa. Chinese ships 
+anchored in Jedda, the main harbour of the Hejaz, and in 
+Malindi, on the Kenyan coast. Columbus' eet of 1492 - which 
+consisted of three small ships manned by 120 sailors - was 
+like a trio of mosquitoes compared to Zheng He's drove of 
+dragons. 8 
+
+Yet there was a crucial di erence. Zheng He explored the 
+oceans, and assisted pro-Chinese rulers, but he did not try to 
+conquer or colonise the countries he visited. Moreover, the 
+expeditions of Zheng He were not deeply rooted in Chinese 
+politics and culture. When the ruling faction in Beijing 
+changed during the 1430s, the new overlords abruptly 
+terminated the operation. The great eet was dismantled, 
+crucial technical and geographical knowledge was lost, and 
+no explorer of such stature and means ever set out again 
+from a Chinese port. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chinese rulers in the coming centuries, like most Chinese 
+rulers in previous centuries, restricted their interests and 
+ambitions to the Middle Kingdom's immediate environs. 
+
+The Zheng He expeditions prove that Europe did not enjoy 
+an outstanding technological edge. What made Europeans 
+exceptional was their unparalleled and insatiable ambition 
+to explore and conquer. Although they might have had the 
+ability, the Romans never attempted to conquer India or 
+Scandinavia, the Persians never attempted to conquer 
+Madagascar or Spain, and the Chinese never attempted to 
+conquer Indonesia or Africa. Most Chinese rulers left even 
+nearby Japan to its own devices. There was nothing peculiar 
+about that. The oddity is that early modern Europeans 
+caught a fever that drove them to sail to distant and 
+completely unknown lands full of alien cultures, take one 
+step on to their beaches, and immediately declare, 'I claim 
+all these territories for my king!' 
+
+38. Zhena He's flagship next to that of Columbus. 
+
+Invasion from Outer Space 
+
+Around 1517, Spanish colonists in the Caribbean islands 
+began to hear vague rumours about a powerful empire 
+somewhere in the centre of the Mexican mainland. A mere 
+four years later, the Aztec capital was a smouldering ruin, 
+the Aztec Empire was a thing of the past, and Hernan Cortes 
+lorded over a vast new 
+
+Spanish Empire in Mexico. 
+
+The Spaniards did not stop to congratulate themselves or 
+even to catch their breath. They immediately commenced 
+explore-and-conquer operations in all directions. The 
+previous rulers of Central America - the Aztecs, the Toltecs, 
+the Maya - barely knew South America existed, and never 
+
+
+
+made any attempt to subjugate it, over the course of 2,000 
+years. Yet within little more than ten years of the Spanish 
+conquest of Mexico, Francisco Pizarro had discovered the 
+Inca Empire in South America, vanquishing it in 1532. 
+
+Had the Aztecs and Incas shown a bit more interest in the 
+world surrounding them - and had they known what the 
+Spaniards had done to their neighbours - 
+
+they might have resisted the Spanish conquest more keenly 
+and successfully. In the years separating Columbus' rst 
+journey to America (1492) from the landing of Cortes in 
+Mexico (1519), the Spaniards conquered most of the 
+Caribbean islands, setting up a chain of new colonies. For 
+the subjugated natives, these colonies were hell on earth. 
+They were ruled with an iron st by greedy and unscrupulous 
+colonists who enslaved them and set them to work in mines 
+and plantations, killing anyone who o ered the slightest 
+resistance. Most of the native population soon died, either 
+because of the harsh working conditions or the virulence of 
+the diseases that hitch-hiked to America on the conquerors' 
+sailing ships. Within twenty years, almost the entire native 
+Caribbean population was wiped out. The Spanish colonists 
+began importing African slaves to fill the vacuum. 
+
+This genocide took place on the very doorstep of the Aztec 
+Empire, yet when Cortes landed on the empire's eastern 
+coast, the Aztecs knew nothing about it. The coming of the 
+Spaniards was the equivalent of an alien invasion from outer 
+space. 
+
+The Aztecs were convinced that they knew the entire world 
+and that they ruled most of it. To them it was unimaginable 
+that outside their domain could exist anything like these 
+Spaniards. When Cortes and his men landed on the sunny 
+
+
+
+beaches of today's Vera Cruz, it was the rst time the Aztecs 
+encountered a completely unknown people. 
+
+The Aztecs did not know how to react. They had trouble 
+deciding what these strangers were. Unlike all known 
+humans, the aliens had white skins. They also had lots of 
+facial hair. Some had hair the colour of the sun. They stank 
+horribly. 
+
+(Native hygiene was far better than Spanish hygiene. When 
+the Spaniards rst arrived in Mexico, natives bearing incense 
+burners were assigned to accompany them wherever they 
+went. The Spaniards thought it was a mark of divine honour. 
+
+We know from native sources that they found the 
+newcomers' smell unbearable.) 
+
+
+
+Map 7. The Aztec and Inca empires at the time of the 
+Spanish conquest. 
+
+
+The aliens' material culture was even more bewildering. 
+
+They came in giant ships, the like of which the Aztecs had 
+never imagined, let alone seen. They rode on the back of 
+huge and terrifying animals, swift as the wind. They could 
+produce lightning and thunder out of shiny metal sticks. 
+They had ashing long swords and impenetrable armour, 
+against which the natives' wooden swords and int spears 
+were useless. 
+
+Some Aztecs thought these must be gods. Others argued 
+that they were demons, or the ghosts of the dead, or 
+powerful sorcerers. Instead of concentrating all available 
+forces and wiping out the Spaniards, the Aztecs deliberated, 
+dawdled and negotiated. They saw no reason to rush. After 
+all, Cortes had no more than 550 Spaniards with him. What 
+could 550 men do to an empire of millions? 
+
+Cortes was equally ignorant about the Aztecs, but he and his 
+men held signi cant advantages over their adversaries. 
+
+While the Aztecs had no experience to prepare them for the 
+arrival of these strange-looking and foul-smelling aliens, the 
+Spaniards knew that the earth was full of unknown human 
+realms, and no one had greater expertise in invading alien 
+lands and dealing with situations about which they were 
+utterly ignorant. For the modern European conqueror, like 
+the modern European scientist, plunging into the unknown 
+was exhilarating. 
+
+So when Cortes anchored o that sunny beach in July 1519, 
+he did not hesitate 
+
+to act. Like a science- ction alien emerging from his 
+spaceship, he declared to the awestruck locals: 'We come in 
+
+
+
+peace. Take us to your leader.' Cortes explained that he was 
+a peaceful emissary from the great king of Spain, and asked 
+for a diplomatic interview with the Aztec ruler, Montezuma 
+II. (This was a shameless lie. Cortes led an independent 
+expedition of greedy adventurers. The king of Spain had 
+never heard of Cortes, nor of the Aztecs.) Cortes was given 
+guides, food and some military assistance by local enemies 
+of the Aztecs. He then marched towards the Aztec capital, 
+the great metropolis of Tenochtitlan. 
+
+The Aztecs allowed the aliens to march all the way to the 
+capital, then respectfully led the aliens' leader to meet 
+Emperor Montezuma. In the middle of the interview, Cortes 
+gave a signal, and steel-armed Spaniards butchered 
+Montezuma's bodyguards (who were armed only with 
+wooden clubs, and stone blades). The honoured guest took 
+his host prisoner. 
+
+Cortes was now in a very delicate situation. He had captured 
+the emperor, but was surrounded by tens of thousands of 
+furious enemy warriors, millions of hostile civilians, and an 
+entire continent about which he knew practically nothing. 
+
+He had at his disposal only a few hundred Spaniards, and 
+the closest Spanish reinforcements were in Cuba, more than 
+1,500 kilometres away. 
+
+Cortes kept Montezuma captive in the palace, making it look 
+as if the king remained free and in charge and as if the 
+'Spanish ambassador' were no more than a guest. The Aztec 
+Empire was an extremely centralised polity, and this 
+unprecedented situation paralysed it. Montezuma continued 
+to behave as if he ruled the empire, and the Aztec elite 
+continued to obey him, which meant they obeyed Cortes. 
+This situation lasted for several months, during which time 
+Cortes interrogated Montezuma and his attendants, trained 
+translators in a variety of local languages, and sent small 
+
+
+
+Spanish expeditions in all directions to become familiar with 
+the Aztec Empire and the various tribes, peoples and cities 
+that it ruled. 
+
+The Aztec elite eventually revolted against Cortes and 
+Montezuma, elected a new emperor, and drove the 
+Spaniards from Tenochtitlan. However, by now numerous 
+cracks had appeared in the imperial edi ce. Cortes used the 
+knowledge he had gained to prise the cracks open wider and 
+split the empire from within. He convinced many of the 
+empire's subject peoples to join him against the ruling Aztec 
+elite. The subject peoples miscalculated badly. They hated 
+the Aztecs, but knew nothing of Spain or the Caribbean 
+genocide. They assumed that with Spanish help they could 
+shake o the Aztec yoke. The idea that the Spanish would 
+take over never occurred to them. They were sure that if 
+Cortes and his few hundred henchmen caused any trouble, 
+they could easily be overwhelmed. The rebellious peoples 
+provided Cortes with an army of tens of thousands of local 
+troops, and with its help Cortes besieged Tenochtitlan and 
+conquered the city. 
+
+At this stage more and more Spanish soldiers and settlers 
+began arriving in Mexico, some from Cuba, others all the 
+way from Spain. When the local peoples realised what was 
+happening, it was too late. Within a century of the landing at 
+Vera Cruz, the native population of the Americas had shrunk 
+by about 90 per cent, due mainly to unfamiliar diseases that 
+reached America with the invaders. The survivors found 
+themselves under the thumb of a greedy and racist regime 
+that was far worse than that of the Aztecs. 
+
+Ten years after Cortes landed in Mexico, Pizarro arrived on 
+the shore of the Inca Empire. He had far fewer soldiers than 
+Cortes - his expedition numbered just 168 
+
+
+
+men! Yet Pizarro bene ted from all the knowledge and 
+experience gained in previous invasions. The Inca, in 
+contrast, knew nothing about the fate of the Aztecs. Pizarro 
+plagiarised Cortes. He declared himself a peaceful emissary 
+from the king of Spain, invited the Inca ruler, Atahualpa, to a 
+diplomatic interview, and then kidnapped him. Pizarro 
+proceeded to conquer the paralysed empire with the help of 
+local allies. If the subject peoples of the Inca Empire had 
+known the fate of the inhabitants of Mexico, they would not 
+have thrown in their lot with the invaders. But they did not 
+know. 
+
+The native peoples of America were not the only ones to pay 
+a heavy price for their parochial outlook. The great empires 
+of Asia - the Ottoman, the Safavid, the Mughal and the 
+Chinese - very quickly heard that the Europeans had 
+discovered something big. Yet they displayed little interest 
+in these discoveries. They continued to believe that the 
+world revolved around Asia, and made no attempt to 
+compete with the Europeans for control of America or of the 
+new ocean lanes in the Atlantic and the Paci c. Even puny 
+European kingdoms such as Scotland and Denmark sent a 
+few explore-and-conquer expeditions to America, but not 
+one expedition of either exploration or conquest was ever 
+sent to America from the Islamic world, India or China. The 
+rst non-European power that tried to send a military 
+expedition to America was Japan. That happened in June 
+1942, when a Japanese expedition conquered Kiska and 
+Attu, two small islands o the Alaskan coast, capturing in the 
+process ten US soldiers and a dog. The Japanese never got 
+any closer to the mainland. 
+
+It is hard to argue that the Ottomans or Chinese were too far 
+away, or that they lacked the technological, economic or 
+military wherewithal. The resources that sent Zheng He from 
+China to East Africa in the 1420S should have been enough 
+
+
+
+to reach America. The Chinese just weren't interested. The 
+rst Chinese world map to show America was not issued until 
+1602 - and then by a European missionary! 
+
+For 300 years, Europeans enjoyed undisputed mastery in 
+America and Oceania, in the Atlantic and the Pad c. The 
+only signi cant struggles in those regions were between di 
+erent European powers. The wealth and resources 
+accumulated by the 
+
+Europeans eventually enabled them to invade Asia too, 
+defeat its empires, and divide it among themselves. When 
+the Ottomans, Persians, Indians and Chinese woke up and 
+began paying attention, it was too late. 
+
+Only in the twentieth century did non-European cultures 
+adopt a truly global vision. This was one of the crucial 
+factors that led to the collapse of European hegemony. Thus 
+in the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62), Algerian 
+guerrillas defeated a French army with an overwhelming 
+numerical, technological and economic advantage. The 
+Algerians prevailed because they were supported by a 
+global anti-colonial network, and because they worked out 
+how to harness the world's media to their cause - as well as 
+public opinion in France itself. The defeat that little North 
+Vietnam in icted on the American colossus was based on a 
+similar strategy. These guerrilla forces showed that even 
+superpowers could be defeated if a local struggle became a 
+global cause. It is interesting to contemplate what might 
+have happened had Montezuma been able to manipulate 
+public opinion in Spain and gain assistance from one of 
+Spain's rivals - Portugal, France or the Ottoman Empire. 
+
+Rare Spiders and Forgotten Scripts 
+
+
+
+Modern science and modern empires were motivated by the 
+restless feeling that perhaps something important awaited 
+beyond the horizon - something they had better explore and 
+master. Yet the connection between science and empire 
+went much deeper. Not just the motivation, but also the 
+practices of empire-builders were entangled with those of 
+scientists. For modern Europeans, building an empire was a 
+scienti c project, while setting up a scienti c discipline was 
+an imperial project. 
+
+When the Muslims conquered India, they did not bring along 
+archaeologists to systematically study Indian history, 
+anthropologists to study Indian cultures, geologists to study 
+Indian soils, or zoologists to study Indian fauna. When the 
+British conquered India, they did all of these things. On 10 
+April 1802 the Great Survey of India was launched. It lasted 
+sixty years. With the help of tens of thousands of native 
+labourers, scholars and guides, the British carefully mapped 
+the whole of India, marking borders, measuring distances, 
+and even calculating for the rst time the exact height of 
+Mount Everest and the other Himalayan peaks. The British 
+explored the military resources of Indian provinces and the 
+location of their gold mines, but they also took the trouble to 
+collect information about rare Indian spiders, to catalogue 
+colourful butter ies, to trace the ancient 
+
+origins of extinct Indian languages, and to dig up forgotten 
+ruins. 
+
+Mohenjo-daro was one of the chief cities of the Indus Valley 
+civilisation, which ourished in the third millennium BC and 
+was destroyed around 1900 BC. None of India's pre-British 
+rulers - neither the Mauryas, nor the Guptas, nor the Delhi 
+sultans, nor the great Mughals - had given the ruins a 
+second glance. But a British archaeological survey took 
+notice of the site in 1922. A British team then excavated it, 
+
+
+
+and discovered the rst great civilisation of India, which no 
+Indian had been aware of. 
+
+Another telling example of British scienti c curiosity was the 
+deciphering of cuneiform script. This was the main script 
+used throughout the Middle East for close to 3,000 years, 
+but the last person able to read it probably died sometime in 
+the early rst millennium AD. Since then, inhabitants of the 
+region frequently encountered cuneiform inscriptions on 
+monuments, steles, ancient ruins and broken pots. But they 
+had no idea how to read the weird, angular scratches and, as 
+far as we know, they never tried. Cuneiform came to the 
+attention of Europeans in 1618, when the Spanish 
+ambassador in Persia went sightseeing in the ruins of 
+ancient Persepolis, where he saw inscriptions that nobody 
+could explain to him. News of the unknown script spread 
+among European savants and piqued their curiosity. In 1657 
+European scholars published the rst transcription of a 
+cuneiform text from Persepolis. More and more transcriptions 
+followed, and for close to two centuries scholars in the West 
+tried to decipher them. None succeeded. 
+
+In the 1830s, a British o cer named Henry Rawlinson was 
+sent to Persia to help the shah train his army in the 
+European style. In his spare time Rawlinson travelled around 
+Persia and one day he was led by local guides to a cli in the 
+Zagros Mountains and shown the huge Behistun Inscription. 
+About fteen metres high and twenty- ve metres wide, it had 
+been etched high up on the cli face on the command of King 
+Darius I sometime around 500 BC. It was written in 
+cuneiform script in three languages: Old Persian, Elamite 
+and Babylonian. The inscription was well known to the local 
+population, but nobody could read it. 
+
+Rawlinson became convinced that if he could decipher the 
+writing it would enable him and other scholars to read the 
+
+
+
+numerous inscriptions and texts that were at the time being 
+discovered all over the Middle East, opening a door into an 
+ancient and forgotten world. 
+
+The rst step in deciphering the lettering was to produce an 
+accurate transcription that could be sent back to Europe. 
+Rawlinson de ed death to do so, scaling the steep cli to copy 
+the strange letters. He hired several locals to help him, most 
+notably a Kurdish boy who climbed to the most inaccessible 
+parts of the cli in order to copy the upper portion of the 
+inscription. In 1847 the project was completed, and a full 
+and accurate copy was sent to Europe. 
+
+Rawlinson did not rest on his laurels. As an army o cer, he 
+had military and political missions to carry out, but 
+whenever he had a spare moment he puzzled over the 
+secret script. He tried one method after another and nally 
+managed to decipher the Old Persian part of the inscription. 
+This was easiest, since Old Persian was not that di erent from 
+modern Persian, which Rawlinson knew well. 
+
+An understanding of the Old Persian section gave him the 
+key he needed to unlock the secrets of the Elamite and 
+Babylonian sections. The great door swung open, and out 
+came a rush of ancient but lively voices - the bustle of 
+Sumerian bazaars, the proclamations of Assyrian kings, the 
+arguments of Babylonian bureaucrats. 
+
+Without the e orts of modern European imperialists such as 
+Rawlinson, we would not have known much about the fate of 
+the ancient Middle Eastern empires. 
+
+Another notable imperialist scholar was William Jones. Jones 
+arrived in India in September 1783 to serve as a judge in the 
+Supreme Court of Bengal. He was so captivated by the 
+wonders of India that within less than six months of his 
+
+
+
+arrival he had founded the Asiatic Society. This academic 
+organisation was devoted to studying the cultures, histories 
+and societies of Asia, and in particular those of India. Within 
+two years Jones published his observations on the Sanskrit 
+language, which pioneered the science of comparative 
+linguistics. 
+
+In his publications Jones pointed out surprising similarities 
+between Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language that became 
+the sacred tongue of Hindu ritual, and the Greek and Latin 
+languages, as well as similarities between all these 
+languages and Gothic, Celtic, Old Persian, German, French 
+and English. Thus in Sanskrit, 
+
+'mother' is ' matar", in Latin it is ' mater ", and in Old Celtic it 
+is ' mathir J . Jones surmised that all these languages must 
+share a common origin, developing from a now-forgotten 
+ancient ancestor. He was thus the rst to identify what later 
+came to be called the Indo-European family of languages. 
+
+Jones' study was an important milestone not merely due to 
+his bold (and accurate) hypotheses, but also because of the 
+orderly methodology that he developed to compare 
+languages. It was adopted by other scholars, enabling them 
+systematically to study the development of all the world's 
+languages. 
+
+Linguistics received enthusiastic imperial support. The 
+European empires believed that in order to govern e ectively 
+they must know the languages and cultures of their 
+subjects. British o cers arriving in India were supposed to 
+spend up to three years in a Calcutta college, where they 
+studied Hindu and Muslim law alongside English law; 
+Sanskrit, Urdu and Persian alongside Greek and Latin; and 
+Tamil, Bengali and Hindustani culture alongside 
+mathematics, economics and geography. The study of 
+
+
+
+linguistics provided invaluable help in understanding the 
+structure and grammar of local languages. 
+
+Thanks to the work of people like William Jones and Henry 
+Rawlinson, the 
+
+European conquerors knew their empires very well. Far 
+better, indeed, than any previous conquerors, or even than 
+the native population itself. Their superior knowledge had 
+obvious practical advantages. Without such knowledge, it is 
+unlikely that a ridiculously small number of Britons could 
+have succeeded in governing, oppressing and exploiting so 
+many hundreds of millions of Indians for two centuries. 
+Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, 
+fewer than 5,000 British o cials, about 40,000-70,000 British 
+soldiers, and perhaps another 100,000 British business 
+people, hangers-on, wives and children were sufficient to 
+conquer and rule up to 300 million Indians. 9 
+
+Yet these practical advantages were not the only reason why 
+empires nanced the study of linguistics, botany, geography 
+and history. No less important was the fact that science gave 
+the empires ideological justi cation. Modern Europeans came 
+to believe that acquiring new knowledge was always good. 
+The fact that the empires produced a constant stream of new 
+knowledge branded them as progressive and positive 
+enterprises. Even today, histories of sciences such as 
+geography, archaeology and botany cannot avoid crediting 
+the European empires, at least indirectly. Histories of botany 
+have little to say about the su ering of the Aboriginal 
+Australians, but they usually nd some kind words for James 
+Cook and Joseph Banks. 
+
+Furthermore, the new knowledge accumulated by the 
+empires made it possible, at least in theory, to bene t the 
+conquered populations and bring them the bene ts of 
+
+
+'progress' - to provide them with medicine and education, to 
+build railroads and canals, to ensure justice and prosperity. 
+Imperialists claimed that their empires were not vast 
+enterprises of exploitation but rather altruistic projects 
+conducted for the sake of the non-European races - in 
+Rudyard Kipling's words, 'the White Man's burden': 
+
+Take up the White Man's burden - 
+
+Send forth the best ye breed - 
+
+Go bind your sons to exile 
+
+To serve your captives' need; 
+
+To wait in heavy harness, 
+
+On fluttered folk and wild - 
+
+Your new-caught, sul en peoples, 
+
+Half-devil and half-child. 
+
+Of course, the facts often belied this myth. The British 
+conquered Bengal, the richest province of India, in 1764. 
+
+The new rulers were interested in little except enriching 
+themselves. They adopted a disastrous economic policy that 
+a few years later led to the outbreak of the Great Bengal 
+Famine. It began in 1769, reached 
+
+catastrophic levels in 1770, and lasted until 1773. About 10 
+million Bengalis, a third of the province's population, died in 
+the calamity. 10 
+
+In truth, neither the narrative of oppression and exploitation 
+nor that of 'The White Man's Burden' completely matches 
+the facts. The European empires did so many di erent things 
+
+
+on such a large scale, that you can nd plenty of examples to 
+support whatever you want to say about them. You think 
+that these empires were evil monstrosities that spread 
+death, oppression and injustice around the world? You could 
+easily II an encyclopedia with their crimes. You want to 
+argue that they in fact improved the conditions of their 
+subjects with new medicines, better economic conditions 
+and greater security? You could II another encyclopedia with 
+their achievements. Due to their close cooperation with 
+science, these empires wielded so much power and changed 
+the world to such an extent that perhaps they cannot be 
+simply labelled as good or evil. They created the world as we 
+know it, including the ideologies we use in order to judge 
+them. 
+
+But science was also used by imperialists to more sinister 
+ends. Biologists, anthropologists and even linguists provided 
+scienti c proof that Europeans are superior to all other races, 
+and consequently have the right (if not perhaps the duty) to 
+rule over them. After William Jones argued that all Indo- 
+European languages descend from a single ancient 
+language many scholars were eager to discover who the 
+speakers of that language had been. They noticed that the 
+earliest Sanskrit speakers, who had invaded India from 
+Central Asia more than 3,000 years ago, had called 
+themselves Arya. The speakers of the earliest Persian 
+language called themselves Airiia. European scholars 
+consequently surmised that the people who spoke the 
+primordial language that gave birth to both Sanskrit and 
+Persian (as well as to Greek, Latin, Gothic and Celtic) must 
+have called themselves Aryans. Could it be a coincidence 
+that those who founded the magnificent Indian, Persian, 
+Greek and Roman civilisations were all Aryans? 
+
+Next, British, French and German scholars wedded the 
+linguistic theory about the industrious Aryans to Darwin's 
+
+
+
+theory of natural selection and posited that the Aryans were 
+not just a linguistic group but a biological entity - a race. 
+
+And not just any race, but a master race of tall, light-haired, 
+blue-eyed, hard-working, and super-rational humans who 
+emerged from the mists of the north to lay the foundations 
+of culture throughout the world. Regrettably, the Aryans who 
+invaded India and Persia intermarried with the local natives 
+they found in these lands, losing their light complexions and 
+blond hair, and with them their rationality and diligence. 
+
+The civilisations of India and Persia consequently declined. 
+
+In Europe, on the other hand, the Aryans preserved their 
+racial purity. This is why Europeans had managed to conquer 
+the world, and why they were t to rule it - provided they 
+took precautions not to mix with inferior races. 
+
+Such racist theories, prominent and respectable for many 
+decades, have become 
+
+anathema among scientists and politicians alike. People 
+continue to conduct a heroic struggle against racism without 
+noticing that the battlefront has shifted, and that the place 
+of racism in imperial ideology has now been replaced by 
+
+'culturism'. There is no such word, but it's about time we 
+coined it. Among today's elites, assertions about the 
+contrasting merits of diverse human groups are almost 
+always couched in terms of historical di erences between 
+cultures rather than biological di erences between races. We 
+no longer say, 'It's in their blood.' We say, 'It's in their 
+culture.' 
+
+Thus European right-wing parties which oppose Muslim 
+immigration usually take care to avoid racial terminology. 
+Marine le Pen's speechwriters would have been shown the 
+door on the spot had they suggested that the leader of the 
+Front National go on television to declare that, 'We don't 
+
+
+
+want those inferior Semites to dilute our Aryan blood and 
+spoil our Aryan civilisation.' Instead, the French Front 
+National, the Dutch Party for Freedom, the Alliance for the 
+Future of Austria and their like tend to argue that Western 
+culture, as it has evolved in Europe, is characterised by 
+democratic values, tolerance and gender equality, whereas 
+Muslim culture, which evolved in the Middle East, is 
+characterised by hierarchical politics, fanaticism and 
+misogyny. Since the two cultures are so di erent, and since 
+many Muslim immigrants are unwilling (and perhaps unable) 
+to adopt Western values, they should not be allowed to 
+enter, lest they foment internal conflicts and corrode 
+European democracy and liberalism. 
+
+Such culturist arguments are fed by scienti c studies in the 
+humanities and social sciences that highlight the so-called 
+clash of civilisations and the fundamental di erences 
+between di erent cultures. Not all historians and 
+anthropologists accept these theories or support their 
+political usages. But whereas biologists today have an easy 
+time disavowing racism, simply explaining that the 
+biological di erences between present-day human 
+populations are trivial, it is harder for historians and 
+anthropologists to disavow culturism. After all, if the di 
+erences between human cultures are trivial, why should we 
+pay historians and anthropologists to study them? 
+
+Scientists have provided the imperial project with practical 
+knowledge, ideological justi cation and technological 
+gadgets. Without this contribution it is highly questionable 
+whether Europeans could have conquered the world. The 
+conquerors returned the favour by providing scientists with 
+information and protection, supporting all kinds of strange 
+and fascinating projects and spreading the scienti c way of 
+thinking to the far corners of the earth. Without imperial 
+
+
+
+support, it is doubtful whether modern science would have 
+progressed very far. 
+
+There are very few scienti c disciplines that did not begin 
+their lives as servants to imperial growth and that do not 
+owe a large proportion of their discoveries, 
+
+collections, buildings and scholarships to the generous help 
+of army o cers, navy captains and imperial governors. 
+
+This is obviously not the whole story. Science was supported 
+by other institutions, not just by empires. And the European 
+empires rose and ourished thanks also to factors other than 
+science. Behind the meteoric rise of both science and empire 
+lurks one particularly important force: capitalism. Were it 
+not for businessmen seeking to make money, Columbus 
+would not have reached America, James Cook would not 
+have reached Australia, and Neil Armstrong would never 
+have taken that small step on the surface of the moon. 
+
+16 
+
+The Capitalist Creed 
+
+MONEY HAS BEEN ESSENTIAL BOTH FOR building empires 
+and for promoting science. But is money the ultimate goal of 
+these undertakings, or perhaps just a dangerous necessity? 
+
+It is not easy to grasp the true role of economics in modern 
+history. Whole volumes have been written about how money 
+founded states and ruined them, opened new horizons and 
+enslaved millions, moved the wheels of industry and drove 
+hundreds of species into extinction. Yet to understand 
+modern economic history, you really need to understand just 
+a single word. The word is growth. For better or worse, in 
+sickness and in health, the modern economy has been 
+growing like a hormone-soused teenager. It eats up 
+
+
+
+everything it can nd and puts on inches faster than you can 
+count. 
+
+For most of history the economy stayed much the same size. 
+Yes, global production increased, but this was due mostly to 
+demographic expansion and the settlement of new lands. 
+
+Per capita production remained static. But all that changed 
+in the modern age. In 1500, global production of goods and 
+services was equal to about $250 billion; today it hovers 
+around $60 trillion. More importantly, in 1500, annual per 
+capita production averaged $550, while today every man, 
+woman and child produces, on the average, $8,800 a year. 1 
+What accounts for this stupendous growth? 
+
+Economics is a notoriously complicated subject. To make 
+things easier, let's imagine a simple example. 
+
+Samuel Greedy, a shrewd financier, founds a bank in El 
+Dorado, California. 
+
+A. A. Stone, an up-and-coming contractor in El Dorado, 
+nishes his rst big job, receiving payment in cash to the tune 
+of $1 million. He deposits this sum in Mr Greedy's bank. The 
+bank now has $1 million in capital. 
+
+In the meantime, Jane McDoughnut, an experienced but 
+impecunious El Dorado 
+
+chef, thinks she sees a business opportunity - there's no 
+really good bakery in her part of town. But she doesn't have 
+enough money of her own to buy a proper facility complete 
+with industrial ovens, sinks, knives and pots. She goes to the 
+bank, presents her business plan to Greedy, and persuades 
+him that it's a worthwhile investment. He issues her a $1 
+million loan, by crediting her account 
+
+in the bank with that sum. 
+
+
+McDoughnut now hires Stone, the contractor, to build and 
+furnish her bakery. 
+
+His price is $1,000,000. 
+
+When she pays him, with a cheque drawn on her account, 
+Stone deposits it in his account in the Greedy bank. 
+
+So how much money does Stone have in his bank account? 
+Right, $2 million. 
+
+How much money, cash, is actually located in the bank's 
+safe? Yes, $1 million. 
+
+It doesn't stop there. As contractors are wont to do, two 
+months into the job Stone informs McDoughnut that, due to 
+unforeseen problems and expenses, the bill for constructing 
+the bakery will actually be $2 million. Mrs McDoughnut is 
+not pleased, but she can hardly stop the job in the middle. 
+So she pays another visit to the bank, convinces Mr Greedy 
+to give her an additional loan, and he puts another $1 
+million in her account. She transfers the money to the 
+contractor's account. 
+
+How much money does Stone have in his account now? He's 
+got $3 million. 
+
+But how much money is actually sitting in the bank? Still 
+just $1 million. In fact, the same $1 million that's been in 
+the bank all along. 
+
+Current US banking law permits the bank to repeat this 
+exercise seven more times. The contractor would eventually 
+have $10 million in his account, even though the bank still 
+has but $1 million in its vaults. Banks are allowed to loan 
+$10 for every dollar they actually possess, which means that 
+90 per cent of all the money in our bank accounts is not 
+
+
+
+covered by actual coins and notes. 2_lf all of the account 
+holders at Barclays Bank suddenly demand their money, 
+Barclays will promptly collapse (unless the government 
+steps in to save it). The same is true of Lloyds, Deutsche 
+Bank, Citibank, and all other banks in the world. 
+
+It sounds like a giant Ponzi scheme, doesn't it? But if it's a 
+fraud, then the entire modern economy is a fraud. The fact 
+is, it's not a deception, but rather a tribute to the amazing 
+abilities of the human imagination. What enables banks - 
+and the entire economy - to survive and ourish is our trust in 
+the future. This trust is the sole backing for most of the 
+money in the world. 
+
+In the bakery example, the discrepancy between the 
+contractor's account statement and the amount of money 
+actually in the bank is Mrs McDoughnut's bakery. Mr Greedy 
+has put the bank's money into the asset, trusting that one 
+day it would be pro table. The bakery hasn't baked a loaf of 
+bread yet, but McDoughnut and Greedy anticipate that a 
+year hence it will be selling thousands of loaves, rolls, cakes 
+and cookies each day, at a handsome pro t. Mrs McDoughnut 
+will then be able to repay her loan, with interest. If at that 
+point Mr Stone decides to withdraw his savings, Greedy will 
+be able to come up with the cash. The entire enterprise is 
+thus founded on trust in an imaginary future - the trust that 
+the entrepreneur and the banker have in the bakery of their 
+dreams, 
+
+along with the contractor's trust in the future solvency of the 
+bank. 
+
+We've already seen that money is an astounding thing 
+because it can represent myriad di erent objects and convert 
+anything into almost anything else. 
+
+
+However, before the modern era this ability was limited. In 
+most cases, money could represent and convert only things 
+that actually existed in the present. This imposed a severe 
+limitation on growth, since it made it very hard to nance new 
+enterprises. 
+
+Consider our bakery again. Could McDoughnut get it built if 
+money could represent only tangible objects? No. In the 
+present, she has a lot of dreams, but no tangible resources. 
+The only way she could get her bakery built would be to nd 
+a contractor willing to work today and receive payment in a 
+few years' time, if and when the bakery starts making 
+money. Alas, such contractors are rare breeds. So our 
+entrepreneur is in a bind. Without a bakery, she can't bake 
+cakes. Without cakes, she can't make money. Without 
+money, she can't hire a contractor. Without a contractor, she 
+has no bakery. 
+
+Humankind was trapped in this predicament for thousands 
+of years. As a result, economies remained frozen. The way 
+out of the trap was discovered only in the modern era, with 
+the appearance of a new system based on trust in the future. 
+In it, people agreed to represent imaginary goods - goods 
+that do not exist in the present - with a special kind of 
+money they called 'credit'. Credit enables us to build the 
+present at the expense of the future. It's founded on the 
+assumption that our future resources are sure to be far more 
+abundant than our present resources. 
+
+A host of new and wonderful opportunities open up if we can 
+build things in the present using future income. 
+
+If credit is such a wonderful thing, why did nobody think of it 
+earlier? Of course they did. Credit arrangements of one kind 
+or another have existed in all known human cultures, going 
+back at least to ancient Sumer. The problem in previous eras 
+
+
+
+was not that no one had the idea or knew how to use it. It 
+was that people seldom wanted to extend much credit 
+because they didn't trust that the future would be better 
+than the present. They generally believed that times past 
+had been better than their own times and that the future 
+would be worse, or at best much the same. To put that in 
+economic terms, they believed that the total amount of 
+wealth was limited, if not dwindling. People therefore 
+considered it a bad bet to assume that they personally, or 
+their kingdom, or the entire world, would be producing more 
+wealth ten years down the line. Business looked like a zero- 
+sum game. Of course, the pro ts of one particular bakery 
+might rise, but only at the expense of the bakery next door. 
+Venice might ourish, but only by impoverishing Genoa. The 
+king of England might enrich himself, but only by robbing 
+the king of France. You could cut the pie in many different 
+ways, but it never got any bigger. 
+
+
+
+
+
+No 
+contractor 
+
+
+r 
+
+Jo cak< 
+
+1 
+
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+
+L 
+
+
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+
+
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+
+
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+the future 
+
+
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+
+
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+
+1 
+
+Credit 
+
+> 
+
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+
+
+A 
+
+
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+
+
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+
+
+1 
+
+il 
+
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+
+akerie 
+
+J 
+
+
+That's why many cultures concluded that making bundles of 
+money was sinful. 
+
+
+As Jesus said, 'It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye 
+of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of 
+God' (Matthew 19:24). If the pie is static, and I have a big 
+part of it, then I must have taken somebody else's slice. The 
+rich were obliged to do penance for their evil deeds by 
+giving some of their surplus wealth to charity. 
+
+
+The Entrepreneur's Dilemma 
+
+If the global pie stayed the same size, there was no margin 
+for credit. Credit is the di erence between today's pie and 
+tomorrows pie. If the pie stays the same, why extend credit? 
+It would be an unacceptable risk unless you believed that 
+the baker or king asking for your money might be able to 
+steal a slice from a competitor. So it was hard to get a loan in 
+the premodern world, and when you got one it was usually 
+smal , short-term , and subject to high interest rates. Upstart 
+entrepreneurs thus found it di cult to open new bakeries and 
+great kings who wanted to build palaces or wage wars had 
+no choice but to raise the necessary funds through high 
+taxes and tariffs. 
+
+
+The Magic Circle of the Modern Economy 
+
+That was ne for kings (as long as their subjects remained 
+docile), but a scullery maid who had a great idea for a 
+bakery and wanted to move up in the world generally could 
+only dream of wealth while scrubbing down the royal 
+kitchens floors. 
+
+It was lose-lose. Because credit was limited, people had 
+trouble nancing new businesses. Because there were few 
+new businesses, the economy did not grow. 
+
+Because it did not grow, people assumed it never would, and 
+those who had capital were wary of extending credit. The 
+expectation of stagnation ful lied itself. 
+
+A Growing Pie 
+
+Then came the Scienti c Revolution and the idea of progress. 
+The idea of progress is built on the notion that if we admit 
+our ignorance and invest resources in research, things can 
+improve. This idea was soon translated into economic terms. 
+
+Whoever believes in progress believes that geographical 
+discoveries, technological inventions and organisational 
+developments can increase the sum total of human 
+production, trade and wealth. New trade routes in the 
+Atlantic could ourish without ruining old routes in the Indian 
+Ocean. New goods could be produced without reducing the 
+production of old ones. For instance, one could open a new 
+bakery specialising in chocolate cakes and croissants 
+without causing bakeries specialising in bread to go bust. 
+Everybody would simply develop new tastes and eat more. I 
+can be wealthy without your becoming poor; I can be obese 
+without your dying of hunger. The entire global pie can grow. 
+
+
+
+Over the last 500 years the idea of progress convinced 
+people to put more and more trust in the future. This trust 
+created credit; credit brought real economic growth; and 
+growth strengthened the trust in the future and opened the 
+way for even more credit. It didn't happen overnight - the 
+economy behaved more like a roller coaster than a balloon. 
+But over the long run, with the bumps evened out, the 
+general direction was unmistakable. Today, there is so much 
+credit in the world that governments, business corporations 
+and private individuals easily obtain large, long-term and 
+low-interest loans that far exceed current income. 
+
+
+mernodern £ c 
+
+
+^e* odem 
+
+
+
+7 
+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
+
+The Economic History of the World in a Nutshell 
+
+The belief in the growing global pie eventually turned 
+revolutionary. In 1776 
+
+the Scottish economist Adam Smith published The Wealth of 
+Nations, probably the most important economics manifesto 
+of all time. In the eighth chapter of its rst volume, Smith 
+made the following novel argument: when a landlord, a 
+weaver, or a shoemaker has greater pro ts than he needs to 
+maintain his own family, he uses the surplus to employ more 
+assistants, in order to further increase his pro ts. The more 
+
+
+pro ts he has, the more assistants he can employ. It follows 
+that an increase in the pro ts of private entrepreneurs is the 
+basis for the increase in collective wealth and prosperity. 
+
+This may not strike you as very original, because we all live 
+in a capitalist world that takes Smith's argument for 
+granted. We hear variations on this theme every day in the 
+news. Yet Smith's claim that the sel sh human urge to 
+increase private pro ts is the basis for collective wealth is 
+one of the most revolutionary ideas in human history - 
+revolutionary not just from an economic perspective, but 
+even more so from a moral and political perspective. What 
+Smith says is, in fact, that greed is good, and that by 
+becoming richer I bene t everybody, not just myself. Egoism 
+is altruism. 
+
+Smith taught people to think about the economy as a 'win- 
+win situation', in which my pro ts are also your pro ts. Not 
+only can we both enjoy a bigger slice of pie at the same 
+time, but the increase in your slice depends upon the 
+increase in my slice. If I am poor, you too will be poor since I 
+cannot buy your products or services. If I am rich, you too 
+will be enriched since you can now sell me something. Smith 
+denied the traditional contradiction between wealth and 
+morality, and threw open the gates of heaven for the rich. 
+Being rich meant being moral. In Smiths story, people 
+become rich not by despoiling their neighbours, but by 
+increasing the overall size of the pie. And when the pie 
+grows, everyone 
+
+bene ts. The rich are accordingly the most useful and 
+benevolent people in society, because they turn the wheels 
+of growth for everyone's advantage. 
+
+All this depends, however, on the rich using their pro ts to 
+open new factories and hire new employees, rather than 
+
+
+
+wasting them on non-productive activities. 
+
+
+Smith therefore repeated like a mantra the maxim that 
+'When pro ts increase, the landlord or weaver will employ 
+more assistants' and not 'When pro ts increase, Scrooge will 
+hoard his money in a chest and take it out only to count his 
+coins.' A crucial part of the modern capitalist economy was 
+the emergence of a new ethic, according to which pro ts 
+ought to be reinvested in production. This brings about more 
+pro ts, which are again reinvested in production, which 
+brings more pro ts, et cetera ad in nitum. Investments can 
+be made in many ways: enlarging the factory, conducting 
+scienti c research, developing new products. Yet all these 
+investments must somehow increase production and 
+translate into larger pro ts. 
+
+In the new capitalist creed, the first and most sacred 
+commandment is: 'The profits of production must be 
+reinvested in increasing production.' 
+
+That's why capitalism is called 'capitalism'. Capitalism 
+distinguishes 'capital' 
+
+from mere 'wealth'. Capital consists of money, goods and 
+resources that are invested in production. Wealth, on the 
+other hand, is buried in the ground or wasted on 
+unproductive activities. A pharaoh who pours resources into 
+a non-productive pyramid is not a capitalist. A pirate who 
+loots a Spanish treasure eet and buries a chest full of 
+glittering coins on the beach of some Caribbean island is not 
+a capitalist. But a hard-working factory hand who reinvests 
+part of his income in the stock market is. 
+
+The idea that 'The pro ts of production must be reinvested in 
+increasing production' sounds trivial. Yet it was alien to most 
+people throughout history. In premodern times, people 
+
+
+
+believed that production was more or less constant. So why 
+reinvest your pro ts if production won't increase by much, no 
+matter what you do? Thus medieval noblemen espoused an 
+ethic of generosity and conspicuous consumption. They 
+spent their revenues on tournaments, banquets, palaces and 
+wars, and on charity and monumental cathedrals. Few tried 
+to reinvest pro ts in increasing their manors' output, 
+developing better kinds of wheat, or looking for new 
+markets. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+In the modern era, the nobility has been overtaken by a new 
+elite whose members are true believers in the capitalist 
+creed. The new capitalist elite is made up not of dukes and 
+marquises, but of board chairmen, stock traders and 
+industrialists. These magnates are far richer than the 
+medieval nobility, but they are far less interested in 
+extravagant consumption, and they spend a much smaller 
+part of their profits on non-productive activities. 
+
+Medieval noblemen wore colourful robes of gold and silk, 
+and devoted much of their time to attending banquets, 
+carnivals and glamorous tournaments. In comparison, 
+modern CEOs don dreary uniforms called suits that a ord 
+them all the panache of a ock of crows, and they have little 
+
+
+time for festivities. The typical venture capitalist rushes from 
+one business meeting to another, trying to gure out where to 
+invest his capital and following the ups and downs of the 
+stocks and bonds he owns. True, his suits might be Versace 
+and he might get to travel in a private jet, but these 
+expenses are nothing compared to what he invests in 
+increasing human production. 
+
+It's not just Versace-clad business moguls who invest to 
+increase productivity. 
+
+Ordinary folk and government agencies think along similar 
+lines. How many dinner conversations in modest 
+neighbourhoods sooner or later bog down in interminable 
+debate about whether it is better to invest one's savings in 
+the stock market, bonds or property? Governments too strive 
+to invest their tax revenues in productive enterprises that 
+will increase future income - for example, building a new 
+port could make it easier for factories to export their 
+products, enabling them to make more taxable income, 
+thereby increasing the government's future revenues. 
+Another government might prefer to invest in education, on 
+the grounds that educated people form the basis for the 
+lucrative high-tech industries, which pay lots of taxes 
+without needing extensive port facilities. 
+
+Capitalism began as a theory about how the economy 
+functions. It was both 
+
+descriptive and prescriptive - it o ered an account of how 
+money worked and promoted the idea that reinvesting pro ts 
+in production leads to fast economic growth. But capitalism 
+gradually became far more than just an economic doctrine. 
+
+It now encompasses an ethic - a set of teachings about how 
+people should behave, educate their children and even 
+
+
+
+think. Its principal tenet is that economic growth is the 
+supreme good, or at least a proxy for the supreme good, 
+because justice, freedom and even happiness all depend on 
+economic growth. Ask a capitalist how to bring justice and 
+political freedom to a place like Zimbabwe or Afghanistan, 
+and you are likely to get a lecture on how economic a uence 
+and a thriving middle class are essential for stable 
+democratic institutions, and about the need therefore to 
+inculcate Afghan tribesmen in the values of free enterprise, 
+thrift and self-reliance. 
+
+This new religion has had a decisive in uence on the 
+development of modern 
+
+science, too. Scienti c research is usually funded by either 
+governments or private businesses. When capitalist 
+governments and businesses consider investing in a 
+particular scienti c project, the rst questions are usually, 
+
+'Will this project enable us to increase production and pro 
+ts? Will it produce economic growth?' A project that can't 
+clear these hurdles has little chance of nding a sponsor. No 
+history of modern science can leave capitalism out of the 
+picture. 
+
+Conversely, the history of capitalism is unintelligible without 
+taking science into account. Capitalisms belief in perpetual 
+economic growth ies in the face of almost everything we 
+know about the universe. A society of wolves would be 
+extremely foolish to believe that the supply of sheep would 
+keep on growing inde nitely. The human economy has 
+nevertheless managed to grow 
+
+exponentially throughout the modern era, thanks only to the 
+fact that scientists come up with another discovery or 
+gadget every few years - such as the continent of America, 
+
+
+
+the internal combustion engine, or genetically engineered 
+sheep. 
+
+Banks and governments print money, but ultimately, it is 
+the scientists who foot the bill. 
+
+Over the last few years, banks and governments have been 
+frenziedly printing money. Everybody is terri ed that the 
+current economic crisis may stop the growth of the economy. 
+So they are creating trillions of dollars, euros and yen out of 
+thin air, pumping cheap credit into the system, and hoping 
+that the scientists, technicians and engineers will manage to 
+come up with something really big, before the bubble 
+bursts. Everything depends on the people in the labs. New 
+discoveries in elds such as biotechnology and 
+nanotechnology could create entire new industries, whose 
+pro ts could back the trillions of make-believe money that 
+the banks and governments have created since 2008. If the 
+labs do not ful I these expectations before the bubble bursts, 
+we are heading towards very rough times. 
+
+Columbus Searches for an Investor 
+
+Capitalism played a decisive role not only in the rise of 
+modern science, but also in the emergence of European 
+imperialism. And it was European imperialism that created 
+the capitalist credit system in the rst place. Of course, credit 
+was not invented in modern Europe. It existed in almost all 
+agricultural societies, and in the early modern period the 
+emergence of European capitalism was closely linked to 
+economic developments in Asia. Remember, too, that until 
+the late eighteenth century, Asia was the world's economic 
+powerhouse, meaning that Europeans had far less capital at 
+their disposal than the Chinese, Muslims or Indians. 
+
+
+
+However, in the sociopolitical systems of China, India and 
+the Muslim world, credit played only a secondary role. 
+Merchants and bankers in the markets of Istanbul, Isfahan, 
+Delhi and Beijing may have thought along capitalist lines, 
+but the kings and generals in the palaces and forts tended 
+to despise merchants and mercantile thinking. Most non- 
+European empires of the early modern era were established 
+by great conquerors such as Nurhaci and Nader Shah, or by 
+bureaucratic and military elites as in the Qing and Ottoman 
+empires. Financing wars through taxes and plunder (without 
+making ne distinctions between the two), they owed little to 
+credit systems, and they cared even less about the interests 
+of bankers and investors. 
+
+In Europe, on the other hand, kings and generals gradually 
+adopted the mercantile way of thinking, until merchants and 
+bankers became the ruling elite. 
+
+The European conquest of the world was increasingly 
+nanced through credit rather than taxes, and was 
+increasingly directed by capitalists whose main ambition 
+was to receive maximum returns on their investments. The 
+empires built by bankers and merchants in frock coats and 
+top hats defeated the empires built by kings and noblemen 
+in gold clothes and shining armour. The mercantile empires 
+were simply much shrewder in nancing their conquests. 
+Nobody wants to pay taxes, but everyone is happy to invest. 
+
+In 1484 Christopher Columbus approached the king of 
+Portugal with the proposal that he nance a eet that would 
+sail westward to nd a new trade route to East Asia. Such 
+explorations were a very risky and costly business. A lot of 
+money was needed in order to build ships, buy supplies, and 
+pay sailors and soldiers - and there was no guarantee that 
+the investment would yield a return. 
+
+
+
+The king of Portugal declined. 
+
+
+Like a present-day start-up entrepreneur, Columbus did not 
+give up. He pitched his idea to other potential investors in 
+Italy, France, England, and again in Portugal. Each time he 
+was rejected. He then tried his luck with Ferdinand and 
+Isabella, rulers of newly united Spain. He took on some 
+experienced lobbyists, and with their help he managed to 
+convince Queen Isabella to invest. As every school- 
+
+child knows, Isabella hit the jackpot. Columbus' discoveries 
+enabled the Spaniards to conquer America, where they 
+established gold and silver mines as well as sugar and 
+tobacco plantations that enriched the Spanish kings, 
+bankers and merchants beyond their wildest dreams. 
+
+A hundred years later, princes and bankers were willing to 
+extend far more credit to Columbus' successors, and they 
+had more capital at their disposal, thanks to the treasures 
+reaped from America. Equally important, princes and 
+bankers had far more trust in the potential of exploration, 
+and were more willing to part with their money. This was the 
+magic circle of imperial capitalism: credit nanced new 
+discoveries; discoveries led to colonies; colonies provided 
+pro ts; pro ts built trust; and trust translated into more 
+credit. Nurhaci and Nader Shah ran out of fuel after a few 
+thousand kilometres. Capitalist entrepreneurs only increased 
+their financial momentum from conquest to conquest. 
+
+But these expeditions remained chancy a airs, so credit 
+markets nevertheless remained quite cautious. Many 
+expeditions returned to Europe empty-handed, having 
+discovered nothing of value. The English, for instance, 
+wasted a lot of capital in fruitless attempts to discover a 
+north-western passage to Asia through the Arctic. Many 
+other expeditions didn't return at all. Ships hit icebergs, 
+
+
+
+foundered in tropical storms, or fell victim to pirates. In order 
+to increase the number of potential investors and reduce the 
+risk they incurred, Europeans turned to limited liability joint- 
+stock companies. Instead of a single investor betting all his 
+money on a single rickety ship, the joint-stock company 
+collected money from a large number of investors, each 
+risking only a small portion of his capital. The risks were 
+thereby curtailed, but no cap was placed on the pro ts. Even 
+a small investment in the right ship could turn you into a 
+millionaire. 
+
+Decade by decade, western Europe witnessed the 
+development of a sophisticated nancial system that could 
+raise large amounts of credit on short notice and put it at 
+the disposal of private entrepreneurs and governments. This 
+system could nance explorations and conquests far more e 
+ciently than any kingdom or empire. The new-found power 
+of credit can be seen in the bitter struggle between Spain 
+and the Netherlands. In the sixteenth century, Spain was the 
+most powerful state in Europe, holding sway over a vast 
+global empire. It ruled much of Europe, huge chunks of 
+North and South America, the Philippine Islands, and a 
+string of bases along the coasts of Africa and Asia. Every 
+year, eets heavy with American and Asian treasures returned 
+to the ports of Seville and Cadiz. The Netherlands was a 
+small and windy swamp, devoid of natural resources, a small 
+corner of the king of Spain's dominions. 
+
+In 1568 the Dutch, who were mainly Protestant, revolted 
+against their Catholic Spanish overlord. At rst the rebels 
+seemed to play the role of Don Quixote, courageously tilting 
+at invincible windmills. Yet within eighty years the Dutch 
+had 
+
+not only secured their independence from Spain, but had 
+managed to replace the Spaniards and their Portuguese 
+
+
+
+allies as masters of the ocean highways, build a global 
+Dutch empire, and become the richest state in Europe. 
+
+The secret of Dutch success was credit. The Dutch burghers, 
+who had little taste for combat on land, hired mercenary 
+armies to ght the Spanish for them. The Dutch themselves 
+meanwhile took to the sea in ever-larger eets. Mercenary 
+armies and cannon-brandishing eets cost a fortune, but the 
+Dutch were able to nance their military expeditions more 
+easily than the mighty Spanish Empire because they 
+secured the trust of the burgeoning European nancial 
+system at a time when the Spanish king was carelessly 
+eroding its trust in him. Financiers extended the Dutch 
+enough credit to set up armies and eets, and these armies 
+and eets gave the Dutch control of world trade routes, which 
+in turn yielded handsome pro ts. The pro ts allowed the 
+Dutch to repay the loans, which strengthened the trust of 
+the nanciers. Amsterdam was fast becoming not only one of 
+the most important ports of Europe, but also the continent's 
+nancial Mecca. 
+
+How exactly did the Dutch win the trust of the nancial 
+system? Firstly, they were sticklers about repaying their 
+loans on time and in full, making the extension of credit less 
+risky for lenders. Secondly, their country's judicial system 
+enjoyed independence and protected private rights - in 
+particular private property rights. 
+
+Capital trickles away from dictatorial states that fail to 
+defend private individuals and their property. Instead, it ows 
+into states upholding the rule of law and private property. 
+
+Imagine that you are the son of a solid family of German 
+nanciers. Your father sees an opportunity to expand the 
+business by opening branches in major European cities. He 
+sends you to Amsterdam and your younger brother to 
+
+
+
+Madrid, giving you each 10,000 gold coins to invest. Your 
+brother lends his start-up capital at interest to the king of 
+Spain, who needs it to raise an army to ght the king of 
+France. You decide to lend yours to a Dutch merchant, who 
+wants to invest in scrubland on the southern end of a 
+desolate island called Manhattan, certain that property 
+values there will skyrocket as the Hudson River turns into a 
+major trade artery. Both loans are to be repaid within a year. 
+
+The year passes. The Dutch merchant sells the land he's 
+bought at a handsome markup and repays your money with 
+the interest he promised. Your father is pleased. But your 
+little brother in Madrid is getting nervous. The war with 
+France ended well for the king of Spain, but he has now 
+embroiled himself in a con ict with the Turks. He needs every 
+penny to nance the new war, and thinks this is far more 
+important than repaying old debts. Your brother sends 
+letters to the palace and asks friends with connections at 
+court to intercede, but to no avail. Not 
+
+only has your brother not earned the promised interest - 
+he's lost the principal. 
+
+Your father is not pleased. 
+
+Now, to make matters worse, the king sends a treasury o cial 
+to your brother to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that he 
+expects to receive another loan of the same size, forthwith. 
+Your brother has no money to lend. He writes home to Dad, 
+trying to persuade him that this time the king will come 
+through. The paterfamilias has a soft spot for his youngest, 
+and agrees with a heavy heart. 
+
+Another 10,000 gold coins disappear into the Spanish 
+treasury, never to be seen again. Meanwhile in Amsterdam, 
+things are looking bright. You make more and more loans to 
+
+
+
+enterprising Dutch merchants, who repay them promptly 
+and in full. But your luck does not hold indefinitely. One of 
+your usual clients has a hunch that wooden clogs are going 
+to be the next fashion craze in Paris, and asks you for a loan 
+to set up a footwear emporium in the French capital. You 
+lend him the money, but unfortunately the clogs don't catch 
+on with the French ladies, and the disgruntled merchant 
+refuses to repay the loan. 
+
+Your father is furious, and tells both of you it is time to 
+unleash the lawyers. 
+
+Your brother les suit in Madrid against the Spanish monarch, 
+while you le suit in Amsterdam against the erstwhile 
+wooden-shoe wizard. In Spain, the law courts are 
+subservient to the king - the judges serve at his pleasure 
+and fear punishment if they do not do his will. In the 
+Netherlands, the courts are a separate branch of 
+government, not dependent on the country's burghers and 
+princes. The court in Madrid throws out your brother's suit, 
+while the court in Amsterdam nds in your favour and puts a 
+lien on the clog-merchant's assets to force him to pay up. 
+Your father has learned his lesson. Better to do business with 
+merchants than with kings, and better to do it in Holland 
+than in Madrid. 
+
+And your brother's travails are not over. The king of Spain 
+desperately needs more money to pay his army. He's sure 
+that your father has cash to spare. So he brings trumped-up 
+treason charges against your brother. If he doesn't come up 
+with 20,000 gold coins forthwith, he'll get cast into a 
+dungeon and rot there until he dies. 
+
+Your father has had enough. He pays the ransom for his 
+beloved son, but swears never to do business in Spain again. 
+He closes his Madrid branch and relocates your brother to 
+
+
+
+Rotterdam. Two branches in Holland now look like a really 
+good idea. He hears that even Spanish capitalists are 
+smuggling their fortunes out of their country. They, too, 
+realise that if they want to keep their money and use it to 
+gain more wealth, they are better o investing it where the 
+rule of law prevails and where private property is respected - 
+in the Netherlands, for example. 
+
+In such ways did the king of Spain squander the trust of 
+investors at the same time that Dutch merchants gained 
+their con dence. And it was the Dutch merchants - not the 
+Dutch state - who built the Dutch Empire. The king of Spain 
+
+kept on trying to nance and maintain his conquests by 
+raising unpopular taxes from a disgruntled populace. The 
+Dutch merchants nanced conquest by getting loans, and 
+increasingly also by selling shares in their companies that 
+entitled their holders to receive a portion of the company's 
+pro ts. Cautious investors who would never have given their 
+money to the king of Spain, and who would have thought 
+twice before extending credit to the Dutch government, 
+happily invested fortunes in the Dutch joint-stock 
+companies that were the mainstay of the new empire. 
+
+If you thought a company was going to make a big pro t but 
+it had already sold all its shares, you could buy some from 
+people who owned them, probably for a higher price than 
+they originally paid. If you bought shares and later 
+discovered that the company was in dire straits, you could 
+try to unload your stock for a lower price. The resulting trade 
+in company shares led to the establishment in most major 
+European cities of stock exchanges, places where the shares 
+of companies were traded. 
+
+The most famous Dutch joint-stock company, the Vereenigde 
+Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC for short, was chartered in 
+
+
+
+1602, just as the Dutch were throwing o Spanish rule and 
+the boom of Spanish artillery could still be heard not far 
+from Amsterdam's ramparts. VOC used the money it raised 
+from selling shares to build ships, send them to Asia, and 
+bring back Chinese, Indian and Indonesian goods. It also 
+nanced military actions taken by company ships against 
+competitors and pirates. Eventually VOC money nanced the 
+conquest of Indonesia. 
+
+Indonesia is the world's biggest archipelago. Its thousands 
+upon thousands of islands were ruled in the early 
+seventeenth century by hundreds of kingdoms, 
+principalities, sultanates and tribes. When VOC merchants 
+rst arrived in Indonesia in 1603, their aims were strictly 
+commercial. However, in order to secure their commercial 
+interests and maximise the pro ts of the shareholders, VOC 
+merchants began to ght against local potentates who 
+charged in ated tari s, as well as against European 
+competitors. VOC armed its merchant ships with cannons; it 
+recruited European, Japanese, Indian and Indonesian 
+mercenaries; and it built forts and conducted full-scale 
+battles and sieges. This enterprise may sound a little 
+strange to us, but in the early modern age it was common 
+for private companies to hire not only soldiers, but also 
+generals and admirals, cannons and ships, and even entire o 
+-the-shelf armies. The international community took this for 
+granted and didn't raise an eyebrow when a private 
+company established an empire. 
+
+Island after island fell to VOC mercenaries and a large part of 
+Indonesia became a VOC colony. VOC ruled Indonesia for 
+close to 200 years. Only in 1800 
+
+did the Dutch state assume control of Indonesia, making it a 
+Dutch national 
+
+
+
+colony for the following 150 years. Today some people warn 
+that twenty- rst-century corporations are accumulating too 
+much power. Early modern history shows just how far that 
+can go if businesses are allowed to pursue their self-interest 
+unchecked. 
+
+While VOC operated in the Indian Ocean, the Dutch West 
+Indies Company, or 
+
+WIC, plied the Atlantic. In order to control trade on the 
+important Hudson River, WIC built a settlement called New 
+Amsterdam on an island at the river's mouth. 
+
+The colony was threatened by Indians and repeatedly 
+attacked by the British, who eventually captured it in 1664. 
+The British changed its name to New York. The remains of 
+the wall built by WIC to defend its colony against Indians 
+and British are today paved over by the world's most famous 
+street - Wall Street. 
+
+As the seventeenth century wound to an end, complacency 
+and costly continental wars caused the Dutch to lose not 
+only New York, but also their place as Europe's nancial and 
+imperial engine. The vacancy was hotly contested by France 
+and Britain. At rst France seemed to be in a far stronger 
+position. It was bigger than Britain, richer, more populous, 
+and it possessed a larger and more experienced army. Yet 
+Britain managed to win the trust of the financial system 
+whereas France proved itself unworthy. The behaviour of the 
+French crown was particularly notorious during what was 
+called the Mississippi Bubble, the largest nancial crisis of 
+eighteenth-century Europe. That story also begins with an 
+empire-building joint-stock company. 
+
+In 1717 the Mississippi Company, chartered in France, set 
+out to colonise the lower Mississippi valley, establishing the 
+
+
+
+city of New Orleans in the process. To finance its ambitious 
+plans, the company, which had good connections at the 
+court of King Louis XV, sold shares on the Paris stock 
+exchange. John Law, the company's director, was also the 
+governor of the central bank of France. 
+
+Furthermore, the king had appointed him controller-general 
+of nances, an o ce roughly equivalent to that of a modern 
+nance minister. In 1717 the lower Mississippi valley o ered 
+few attractions besides swamps and alligators, yet the 
+Mississippi Company spread tales of fabulous riches and 
+boundless opportunities. 
+
+French aristocrats, businessmen and the stolid members of 
+the urban bourgeoisie fell for these fantasies, and Mississipp 
+share prices skyrocketed. Initially, shares were o ered at 500 
+livres apiece. On 1 August 1719, shares traded at 2,750 
+livres. 
+
+By 30 August, they were worth 4,100 livres, and on 4 
+September, they reached 5,000 livres. On 2 December the 
+price of a Mississippi share crossed the threshold of 10,000 
+livres. Euphoria swept the streets of Paris. People sold all 
+their possessions and took huge loans in order to buy 
+Mississippi shares. Everybody believed they'd discovered 
+the easy way to riches. 
+
+
+
+
+39. New Amsterdam in 1660, at the tip of Manhattan 
+Island. The settlement's protective wall is today 
+paved over by Wall Street. 
+
+A few days later, the panic began. Some speculators realised 
+that the share prices were totally unrealistic and 
+unsustainable. They figured that they had better sell while 
+stock prices were at their peak. As the supply of shares 
+available rose, their price declined. When other investors 
+saw the price going down, they also wanted to get out quick. 
+The stock price plummeted further, setting o an avalanche. 
+
+In order to stabilise prices, the central bank of France - at 
+the direction of its governor, John Law - bought up 
+Mississippi shares, but it could not do so for ever. Eventually 
+it ran out of money. When this happened, the controller- 
+general of finances, the same John Law, authorised the 
+printing of more money in order to buy additional shares. 
+This placed the entire French nancial system inside the 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+bubble. And not even this nancial wizardry could save the 
+day. 
+
+The price of Mississippi shares dropped from 10,000 livres 
+back to 1,000 livres, and then collapsed completely, and the 
+shares lost every sou of their worth. By now, the central 
+bank and the royal treasury owned a huge amount of 
+worthless stock and had no money. The big speculators 
+emerged largely unscathed - they had sold in time. Small 
+investors lost everything, and many committed suicide. 
+
+The Mississippi Bubble was one of history's most spectacular 
+nancial crashes. 
+
+The royal French nancial system never recuperated fully 
+from the blow. The way in which the Mississippi Company 
+used its political clout to manipulate share prices and fuel 
+the buying frenzy caused the public to lose faith in the 
+French 
+
+banking system and in the nancial wisdom of the French 
+king. Louis XV found it more and more di cult to raise credit. 
+This became one of the chief reasons that the overseas 
+French Empire fell into British hands. While the British could 
+borrow money easily and at low interest rates, France had di 
+culties securing loans, and had to pay high interest on them. 
+In order to nance his growing debts, the king of France 
+borrowed more and more money at higher and higher 
+interest rates. 
+
+Eventually, in the 1780s, Louis XVI, who had ascended to 
+the throne on his grandfather's death, realised that half his 
+annual budget was tied to servicing the interest on his 
+loans, and that he was heading towards bankruptcy. 
+Reluctantly, in 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates 
+General, the French parliament that had not met for a 
+
+
+
+century and a half, in order to nd a solution to the crisis. 
+Thus began the French Revolution. 
+
+While the French overseas empire was crumbling, the British 
+Empire was expanding rapidly. Like the Dutch Empire before 
+it, the British Empire was established and run largely by 
+private joint-stock companies based in the London stock 
+exchange. The rst English settlements in North America 
+were established in the early seventeenth century by joint- 
+stock companies such as the London Company, the 
+Plymouth Company, the Dorchester Company and the 
+
+Massachusetts Company. 
+
+The Indian subcontinent too was conquered not by the 
+British state, but by the mercenary army of the British East 
+India Company. This company outperformed even the VOC. 
+From its headquarters in Leadenhall Street, London, it ruled 
+a mighty Indian empire for about a century, maintaining a 
+huge military force of up to 350,000 soldiers, considerably 
+outnumbering the armed forces of the British monarchy. 
+
+Only in 1858 did the British crown nationalise India along 
+with the company's private army. Napoleon made fun of the 
+British, calling them a nation of shopkeepers. Yet these 
+shopkeepers defeated Napoleon himself, and their empire 
+was the largest the world has ever seen. 
+
+In the Name of Capital 
+
+The nationalisation of Indonesia by the Dutch crown (1800) 
+and of India by the British crown (1858) hardly ended the 
+embrace of capitalism and empire. On the contrary, the 
+connection only grew stronger during the nineteenth 
+century. Joint-stock companies no longer needed to establish 
+and govern private colonies - their managers and large 
+shareholders now pulled the strings of power in London, 
+
+
+
+Amsterdam and Paris, and they could count on the state to 
+look after their interests. As Marx and other social critics 
+quipped, Western governments were 
+
+becoming a capitalist trade union. 
+
+The most notorious example of how governments did the 
+bidding of big money 
+
+was the First Opium War, fought between Britain and China 
+(1840-42). In the rst half of the nineteenth century, the 
+British East India Company and sundry British business 
+people made fortunes by exporting drugs, particularly 
+opium, to China. Millions of Chinese became addicts, 
+debilitating the country both economically and socially. In 
+the late 1830s the Chinese government issued a ban on 
+drug tra eking, but British drug merchants simply ignored 
+the law. Chinese authorities began to con scate and destroy 
+drug cargos. The drug cartels had close connections in 
+Westminster and Downing Street - many MPs and Cabinet 
+ministers in fact held stock in the drug companies - so they 
+pressured the government to take action. 
+
+In 1840 Britain duly declared war on China in the name of 
+'free trade'. It was a walkover. The overcon dent Chinese 
+were no match for Britain's new wonder weapons - 
+steamboats, heavy artillery, rockets and rapid- re ri es. 
+Under the subsequent peace treaty, China agreed not to 
+constrain the activities of British drug merchants and to 
+compensate them for damages in icted by the Chinese 
+police. Furthermore, the British demanded and received 
+control of Hong Kong, which they proceeded to use as a 
+secure base for drug tra eking (Hong Kong remained in 
+British hands until 1997). In the late nineteenth century, 
+about 40 
+
+
+
+million Chinese, a tenth of the country's population, were 
+opium addicts. 3 
+
+Egypt, too, learned to respect the long arm of British 
+capitalism. During the nineteenth century, French and 
+British investors lent huge sums to the rulers of Egypt, rst in 
+order to nance the Suez Canal project, and later to fund far 
+less successful enterprises. Egyptian debt swelled, and 
+European creditors increasingly meddled in Egyptian a airs. 
+In 1881 Egyptian nationalists had had enough and rebelled. 
+They declared a unilateral abrogation of all foreign debt. 
+Queen Victoria was not amused. A year later she dispatched 
+her army and navy to the Nile and Egypt remained a British 
+protectorate until after World WarTwo. 
+
+These were hardly the only wars fought in the interests of 
+investors. In fact, war itself could become a commodity, just 
+like opium. In 1821 the Greeks rebelled against the Ottoman 
+Empire. The uprising aroused great sympathy in liberal and 
+romantic circles in Britain - Lord Byron, the poet, even went 
+to Greece to ght alongside the insurgents. But London 
+nanciers saw an opportunity as well. They proposed to the 
+rebel leaders the issue of tradable Greek Rebellion Bonds on 
+the London stock exchange. The Greeks would promise to 
+repay the bonds, plus interest, if and when they won their 
+independence. Private investors bought bonds to make a pro 
+t, or out of sympathy for the Greek cause, or both. The value 
+of Greek Rebellion Bonds rose and fell on the London stock 
+exchange in tempo with 
+
+military successes and failures on the battle elds of Hellas. 
+The Turks gradually gained the upper hand. With a rebel 
+defeat imminent, the bondholders faced the prospect of 
+losing their trousers. The bondholders' interest was the 
+national interest, so the British organised an international 
+eet that, in 1827, sank the main Ottoman otilla in the Battle 
+
+
+of Navarino. After centuries of subjugation, Greece was nally 
+free. But freedom came with a huge debt that the new 
+country had no way of repaying. The Greek economy was 
+mortgaged to British creditors for decades to come. 
+
+The bear hug between capital and politics has had far- 
+reaching implications for the credit market. The amount of 
+credit in an economy is determined not only by purely 
+economic factors such as the discovery of a new oil eld or 
+the invention of a new machine, but also by political events 
+such as regime changes or more ambitious foreign policies. 
+After the Battle of Navarino, British capitalists were more 
+willing to invest their money in risky overseas deals. They 
+had seen that if a foreign debtor refused to repay loans, Her 
+Majesty's army would get their money back. 
+
+This is why today a country's credit rating is far more 
+important to its economic well-being than are its natural 
+resources. Credit ratings indicate the probability that a 
+country will pay its debts. In addition to purely economic 
+data, they take into account political, social and even 
+cultural factors. An oil-rich country cursed with a despotic 
+government, endemic warfare and a corrupt judicial system 
+will usually receive a low credit rating. As a result, it is likely 
+to remain relatively poor since it will not be able to raise the 
+necessary capital to make the most of its oil bounty. A 
+country devoid of natural resources, but which enjoys peace, 
+a fair judicial system and a free government is likely to 
+receive a high credit rating. As such, it may be able to raise 
+enough cheap capital to support a good education system 
+and foster a flourishing high-tech industry. 
+
+The Cult of the Free Market 
+
+Capital and politics in uence each other to such an extent 
+that their relations are hotly debated by economists, 
+
+
+
+politicians and the general public alike. Ardent capitalists 
+tend to argue that capital should be free to in uence politics, 
+but politics should not be allowed to in uence capital. They 
+argue that when governments interfere in the markets, 
+political interests cause them to make unwise investments 
+that result in slower growth. For example, a government may 
+impose heavy taxation on industrialists and use the money 
+to give lavish unemployment bene ts, which are popular 
+with voters. In the view of many 
+
+business people, it would be far better if the government left 
+the money with them. They would use it, they claim, to open 
+new factories and hire the unemployed. 
+
+In this view, the wisest economic policy is to keep politics 
+out of the economy, reduce taxation and government 
+regulation to a minimum, and allow market forces free rein 
+to take their course. Private investors, unencumbered by 
+political considerations, will invest their money where they 
+can get the most pro t, so the way to ensure the most 
+economic growth - which will bene t everyone, industrialists 
+and workers - is for the government to do as little as 
+possible. This free-market doctrine is today the most 
+common and in uential variant of the capitalist creed. The 
+most enthusiastic advocates of the free market criticise 
+military adventures abroad with as much zeal as welfare 
+programmes at home. 
+
+They o er governments the same advice that Zen masters o 
+er initiates: just do nothing. 
+
+But in its extreme form, belief in the free market is as naive 
+as belief in Santa Claus. There simply is no such thing as a 
+market free of all political bias. The most important 
+economic resource is trust in the future, and this resource is 
+constantly threatened by thieves and charlatans. Markets by 
+
+
+
+themselves o er no protection against fraud, theft and 
+violence. It is the job of political systems to ensure trust by 
+legislating sanctions against cheats and to establish and 
+support police forces, courts and jails which will enforce the 
+law. When kings fail to do their jobs and regulate the 
+markets properly, it leads to loss of trust, dwindling credit 
+and economic depression. That was the lesson taught by the 
+Mississippi Bubble of 1719, and anyone who forgot it was 
+reminded by the US housing bubble of 2007, and the 
+ensuing credit crunch and recession. 
+
+The Capitalist Hel 
+
+There is an even more fundamental reason why it's 
+dangerous to give markets a completely free rein. Adam 
+Smith taught that the shoemaker would use his surplus to 
+employ more assistants. This implies that egoistic greed is 
+bene cial for all, since profits are utilised to expand 
+production and hire more employees. 
+
+Yet what happens if the greedy shoemaker increases his pro 
+ts by paying employees less and increasing their work 
+hours? The standard answer is that the free market would 
+protect the employees. If our shoemaker pays too little and 
+demands too much, the best employees would naturally 
+abandon him and go to 
+
+work for his competitors. The tyrant shoemaker would nd 
+himself left with the worst labourers, or with no labourers at 
+all. He would have to mend his ways or 
+
+go out of business. His own greed would compel him to treat 
+his employees well. 
+
+This sounds bulletproof in theory, but in practice the bullets 
+get through all too easily. In a completely free market, 
+unsupervised by kings and priests, avaricious capitalists can 
+
+
+
+establish monopolies or collude against their workforces. If 
+there is a single corporation controlling all shoe factories in 
+a country, or if all factory owners conspire to reduce wages 
+simultaneously, then the labourers are no longer able to 
+protect themselves by switching jobs. 
+
+Even worse, greedy bosses might curtail the workers' 
+freedom of movement through debt peonage or slavery. At 
+the end of the Middle Ages, slavery was almost unknown in 
+Christian Europe. During the early modern period, the rise of 
+European capitalism went hand in hand with the rise of the 
+Atlantic slave trade. 
+
+Unrestrained market forces, rather than tyrannical kings or 
+racist ideologues, were responsible for this calamity. 
+
+When the Europeans conquered America, they opened gold 
+and silver mines and established sugar, tobacco and cotton 
+plantations. These mines and plantations became the 
+mainstay of American production and export. The sugar 
+plantations were particularly important. In the Middle Ages, 
+sugar was a rare luxury in Europe. It was imported from the 
+Middle East at prohibitive prices and used sparingly as a 
+secret ingredient in delicacies and snake-oil medicines. After 
+large sugar plantations were established in America, ever- 
+increasing amounts of sugar began to reach Europe. The 
+price of sugar dropped and Europe developed an insatiable 
+sweet tooth. Entrepreneurs met this need by producing huge 
+quantities of sweets: cakes, cookies, chocolate, candy, and 
+sweetened beverages such as cocoa, co ee and tea. The 
+annual sugar intake of the average Englishman rose from 
+near zero in the early seventeenth century to around eight 
+kilograms in the early nineteenth century. 
+
+However, growing cane and extracting its sugar was a 
+labour-intensive business. Few people wanted to work long 
+
+
+
+hours in malaria-infested sugar elds under a tropical sun. 
+Contract labourers would have produced a commodity too 
+expensive for mass consumption. Sensitive to market forces, 
+and greedy for pro ts and economic growth, European 
+plantation owners switched to slaves. 
+
+From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, about 10 
+million African slaves were imported to America. About 70 
+per cent of them worked on the sugar plantations. Labour 
+conditions were abominable. Most slaves lived a short and 
+miserable life, and millions more died during wars waged to 
+capture slaves or during the long voyage from inner Africa to 
+the shores of America. All this so that Europeans could enjoy 
+their sweet tea and candy - and sugar barons could enjoy 
+huge profits. 
+
+The slave trade was not controlled by any state or 
+government. It was a purely economic enterprise, organised 
+and nanced by the free market according to the 
+
+laws of supply and demand. Private slave-trading companies 
+sold shares on the Amsterdam, London and Paris stock 
+exchanges. Middle-class Europeans looking fora good 
+investment bought these shares. Relying on this money, the 
+companies bought ships, hired sailors and soldiers, 
+purchased slaves in Africa, and transported them to 
+America. There they sold the slaves to the plantation 
+owners, using the proceeds to purchase plantation products 
+such as sugar, cocoa, co ee, tobacco, cotton and rum. They 
+returned to Europe, sold the sugar and cotton for a good 
+price, and then sailed to Africa to begin another round. The 
+shareholders were very pleased with this arrangement. 
+Throughout the eighteenth century the yield on slave-trade 
+investments was about 6 per cent a year - they were 
+extremely profitable, as any modern consultant would be 
+quick to admit. 
+
+
+
+This is the y in the ointment of free-market capitalism. It 
+cannot ensure that pro ts are gained in a fair way, or 
+distributed in a fair manner. On the contrary, the craving to 
+increase pro ts and production blinds people to anything 
+that might stand in the way. When growth becomes a 
+supreme good, unrestricted by any other ethical 
+considerations, it can easily lead to catastrophe. Some 
+religions, such as Christianity and Nazism, have killed 
+millions out of burning hatred. 
+
+Capitalism has killed millions out of cold indi erence coupled 
+with greed. The Atlantic slave trade did not stem from racist 
+hatred towards Africans. The individuals who bought the 
+shares, the brokers who sold them, and the managers of the 
+slave-trade companies rarely thought about the Africans. 
+
+Nor did the owners of the sugar plantations. Many owners 
+lived far from their plantations, and the only information 
+they demanded were neat ledgers of profits and losses. 
+
+It is important to remember that the Atlantic slave trade was 
+not a single aberration in an otherwise spotless record. The 
+Great Bengal Famine, discussed in the previous chapter, was 
+caused by a similar dynamic - the British East India 
+Company cared more about its pro ts than about the lives of 
+10 million Bengalis. 
+
+VOC's military campaigns in Indonesia were nanced by 
+upstanding Dutch burghers who loved their children, gave 
+to charity, and enjoyed good music and ne art, but had no 
+regard for the su ering of the inhabitants of Java, Sumatra 
+and Malacca. Countless other crimes and misdemeanours 
+accompanied the growth of the modern economy in other 
+parts of the planet. 
+
+The nineteenth century brought no improvement in the 
+ethics of capitalism. The Industrial Revolution that swept 
+
+
+
+through Europe enriched the bankers and capital-owners, 
+but condemned millions of workers to a life of abject poverty. 
+In the European colonies things were even worse. In 1876, 
+King Leopold II of Belgium set up a nongovernmental 
+humanitarian organisation with the declared aim of 
+exploring Central Africa and ghting the slave trade along the 
+Congo River. It was also charged with improving conditions 
+for the inhabitants of the region by 
+
+building roads, schools and hospitals. In 1885 the European 
+powers agreed to give this organisation control of 2.3 million 
+square kilometres in the Congo basin. This territory, seventy- 
+ve times the size of Belgium, was henceforth known as the 
+Congo Free State. Nobody asked the opinion of the 
+territory's 20-30 million inhabitants. 
+
+Within a short time the humanitarian organisation became a 
+business enterprise whose real aim was growth and pro t. 
+
+The schools and hospitals were forgotten, and the Congo 
+basin was instead lied with mines and plantations, run by 
+mostly Belgian o cials who ruthlessly exploited the local 
+population. The rubber industry was particularly notorious. 
+Rubber was fast becoming an industrial staple, and rubber 
+export was the Congo's most important source of income. 
+The African villagers who collected the rubber were required 
+to provide higher and higher quotas. Those who failed to 
+deliver their quota were punished brutally for their 
+
+'laziness'. Their arms were chopped o and occasionally 
+entire villages were massacred. According to the most 
+moderate estimates, between 1885 and 1908 the pursuit of 
+growth and pro ts cost the lives of 6 million individuals (at 
+least 20 per cent of the Congo's population). Some 
+estimates reach up to 10 million deaths. 4 
+
+
+After 1908, and especially after 1945, capitalist greed was 
+somewhat reined in, not least due to the fear of 
+Communism. Yet inequities are still rampant. The economic 
+pie of 2014 is far larger than the pie of 1500, but it is 
+distributed so unevenly that many African peasants and 
+Indonesian labourers return home after a hard day's work 
+with less food than did their ancestors 500 years ago. Much 
+like the Agricultural Revolution, so too the growth of the 
+modern economy might turn out to be a colossal fraud. The 
+human species and the global economy may well keep 
+growing, but many more individuals may live in hunger and 
+want. 
+
+Capitalism has two answers to this criticism. First, capitalism 
+has created a world that nobody but a capitalist is capable 
+of running. The only serious attempt to manage the world di 
+erently - Communism - was so much worse in almost every 
+conceivable way that nobody has the stomach to try again. 
+
+In 8500 BC one could cry bitter tears over the Agricultural 
+Revolution, but it was too late to give up agriculture. 
+Similarly, we may not like capitalism, but we cannot live 
+without it.The second answer is that we just need more 
+patience - paradise, the capitalists promise, is right around 
+the corner. True, mistakes have been made, such as the 
+Atlantic slave trade and the exploitation of the European 
+working class. But we have learned our lesson, and if we just 
+wait a little longer and allow the pie to grow a little bigger, 
+everybody will receive a fatter slice. The division of spoils 
+will never be equitable, but there will be enough to satisfy 
+every man, woman and child - even in the Congo. 
+
+There are, indeed, some positive signs. At least when we use 
+purely material 
+
+criteria - such as life expectancy, child mortality and calorie 
+intake - the standard of living of the average human in 2014 
+
+
+
+is signi cantly higher than it was in 1914, despite the 
+exponential growth in the number of humans. 
+
+Yet can the economic pie grow inde nitely? Every pie 
+requires raw materials and energy. Prophets of doom warn 
+that sooner or later Homo sapiens will exhaust the raw 
+materials and energy of planet Earth. And what will happen 
+then? 
+
+17 
+
+The Wheels of Industry 
+
+THE MODERN ECONOMY GROWS THANKS to our trust in the 
+future and to the 
+
+willingness of capitalists to reinvest their pro ts in 
+production. Yet that does not su ce. Economic growth also 
+requires energy and raw materials, and these are finite. 
+When and if they run out, the entire system will collapse. 
+
+But the evidence provided by the past is that they are nite 
+only in theory. 
+
+Counter-intuitively, while humankind's use of energy and 
+raw materials has mushroomed in the last few centuries, the 
+amounts available for our exploitation have actually 
+increased. Whenever a shortage of either has threatened to 
+slow economic growth, investments have owed into scienti c 
+and technological research. These have invariably produced 
+not only more e cient ways of exploiting existing resources, 
+but also completely new types of energy and materials. 
+
+Consider the vehicle industry. Over the last 300 years, 
+humankind has manufactured billions of vehicles - from 
+carts and wheelbarrows, to trains, cars, supersonic jets and 
+space shuttles. One might have expected that such a 
+
+
+
+prodigious e ort would have exhausted the energy sources 
+and raw materials available for vehicle production, and that 
+today we would be scraping the bottom of the barrel. 
+
+Yet the opposite is the case. Whereas in 1700 the global 
+vehicle industry relied overwhelmingly on wood and iron, 
+today it has at its disposal a cornucopia of new-found 
+materials such as plastic, rubber, aluminium and titanium, 
+none of which our ancestors even knew about. Whereas in 
+1700 carts were built mainly by the muscle power of 
+carpenters and smiths, today the machines in Toyota and 
+Boeing factories are powered by petroleum combustion 
+engines and nuclear power stations. A similar revolution has 
+swept almost all other elds of industry. 
+
+We call it the Industrial Revolution. 
+
+For millennia prior to the Industrial Revolution, humans 
+already knew how to make use of a large variety of energy 
+sources. They burned wood in order to smelt iron, heat 
+houses and bake cakes. Sailing ships harnessed wind power 
+to move around, and watermills captured the ow of rivers to 
+grind grain. Yet all these had clear limits and problems. Trees 
+were not available everywhere, the wind 
+
+didn't always blow when you needed it, and water power 
+was only useful if you lived near a river. 
+
+An even bigger problem was that people didn't know how to 
+convert one type 
+
+of energy into another. They could harness the movement of 
+wind and water to sail ships and push millstones, but not to 
+heat water or smelt iron. Conversely, they could not use the 
+heat energy produced by burning wood to make a millstone 
+move. Humans had only one machine capable of performing 
+such energy conversion tricks: the body. In the natural 
+
+
+
+process of metabolism, the bodies of humans and other 
+animals burn organic fuels known as food and convert the 
+released energy into the movement of muscles. Men, women 
+and beasts could consume grain and meat, burn up their 
+carbohydrates and fats, and use the energy to haul a 
+rickshaw or pull a plough. 
+
+Since human and animal bodies were the only energy 
+conversion device available, muscle power was the key to 
+almost all human activities. Human muscles built carts and 
+houses, ox muscles ploughed elds, and horse muscles 
+transported goods. The energy that fuelled these organic 
+muscle-machines came ultimately from a single source - 
+plants. Plants in their turn obtained their energy from the 
+sun. By the process of photosynthesis, they captured solar 
+energy and packed it into organic compounds. Almost 
+everything people did throughout history was fuelled by 
+solar energy that was captured by plants and converted into 
+muscle power. 
+
+Human history was consequently dominated by two main 
+cycles: the growth cycles of plants and the changing cycles 
+of solar energy (day and night, summer and winter). When 
+sunlight was scarce and when wheat elds were still green, 
+humans had little energy. Granaries were empty, tax 
+collectors were idle, soldiers found it di cult to move and 
+ght, and kings tended to keep the peace. When the sun 
+shone brightly and the wheat ripened, peasants harvested 
+the crops and lied the granaries. Tax collectors hurried to 
+take their share. Soldiers exed their muscles and sharpened 
+their swords. Kings convened councils and planned their 
+next campaigns. Everyone was fuelled by solar energy - 
+captured and packaged in wheat, rice and potatoes. 
+
+The Secret in the Kitchen 
+
+
+
+Throughout these long millennia, day in and day out, people 
+stood face to face with the most important invention in the 
+history of energy production - and failed to notice it. It 
+stared them in the eye every time a housewife or servant 
+put up a kettle to boil water for tea or put a pot full of 
+potatoes on the stove. The minute 
+
+the water boiled, the lid of the kettle or the pot jumped. 
+
+Heat was being converted to movement. But jumping pot 
+lids were an annoyance, especially if you forgot the pot on 
+the stove and the water boiled over. Nobody saw their real 
+potential. 
+
+A partial breakthrough in converting heat into movement 
+followed the invention of gunpowder in ninth-century China. 
+At rst, the idea of using gunpowder to propel projectiles was 
+so counter-intuitive that for centuries gunpowder was used 
+primarily to produce re bombs. But eventually - perhaps 
+after some bomb expert ground gunpowder in a mortar only 
+to have the pestle shoot out with force - guns made their 
+appearance. About 600 years passed between the invention 
+of gunpowder and the development of effective artillery. 
+
+Even then, the idea of converting heat into motion remained 
+so counter-intuitive that another three centuries went by 
+before people invented the next machine that used heat to 
+move things around. The new technology was born in British 
+coal mines. As the British population swelled, forests were 
+cut down to fuel the growing economy and make way for 
+houses and elds. Britain su ered from an increasing shortage 
+of rewood. It began burning coal as a substitute. Many coal 
+seams were located in waterlogged areas, and ooding 
+prevented miners from accessing the lower strata of the 
+mines. It was a problem looking for a solution. Around 1700, 
+a strange noise began reverberating around British 
+mineshafts. That noise - harbinger of the Industrial 
+
+
+
+Revolution - was subtle at rst, but it grew louder and louder 
+with each passing decade until it enveloped the entire world 
+in a deafening cacophony. It emanated from a steam engine. 
+
+There are many types of steam engines, but they all share 
+one common principle. You burn some kind of fuel, such as 
+coal, and use the resulting heat to boil water, producing 
+steam. As the steam expands it pushes a piston. The piston 
+moves, and anything that is connected to the piston moves 
+with it. You have converted heat into movement! In 
+eighteenth-century British coal mines, the piston was 
+connected to a pump that extracted water from the bottom 
+of the mineshafts. The earliest engines were incredibly ine 
+cient. You needed to burn a huge load of coal in order to 
+pump out even a tiny amount of water. But in the mines coal 
+was plentiful and close at hand, so nobody cared. 
+
+In the decades that followed, British entrepreneurs improved 
+the e ciency of the steam engine, brought it out of the 
+mineshafts, and connected it to looms and gins. This 
+revolutionised textile production, making it possible to 
+produce ever-larger quantities of cheap textiles. In the blink 
+of an eye, Britain became the workshop of the world. But 
+even more importantly, getting the steam engine out of the 
+mines broke an important psychological barrier. If you could 
+burn coal in order to move textile looms, why not use the 
+same method to move other things, such as vehicles? 
+
+In 1825, a British engineer connected a steam engine to a 
+train of mine wagons 
+
+full of coal. The engine drew the wagons along an iron rail 
+some twenty kilometres long from the mine to the nearest 
+harbour. This was the rst steam-powered locomotive in 
+history. Clearly, if steam could be used to transport coal, why 
+not other goods? And why not even people? On 15 
+
+
+
+September 1830, the rst commercial railway line was 
+opened, connecting Liverpool with Manchester. The trains 
+moved under the same steam power that had previously 
+pumped water and moved textile looms. A mere twenty 
+years later, Britain had tens of thousands of kilometres of 
+railway tracks. 1 
+
+Henceforth, people became obsessed with the idea that 
+machines and engines could be used to convert one type of 
+energy into another. Any type of energy, anywhere in the 
+world, might be harnessed to whatever need we had, if we 
+could just invent the right machine. For example, when 
+physicists realised that an immense amount of energy is 
+stored within atoms, they immediately started thinking 
+about how this energy could be released and used to make 
+electricity, power submarines and annihilate cities. Six 
+hundred years passed between the moment Chinese 
+alchemists discovered gunpowder and the moment Turkish 
+cannon pulverised the walls of Constantinople. Only forty 
+years passed between the moment Einstein determined that 
+any kind of mass could be converted into energy - that's 
+what E = mc2 means - and the moment atom bombs 
+obliterated 
+
+Hiroshima and Nagasaki and nuclear power stations 
+mushroomed all over the globe. 
+
+Another crucial discovery was the internal combustion 
+engine, which took little more than a generation to 
+revolutionise human transportation and turn petroleum into 
+liquid political power. Petroleum had been known for 
+thousands of years, and was used to waterproof roofs and 
+lubricate axles. Yet until just a century ago nobody thought 
+it was useful for much more than that. The idea of spilling 
+blood for the sake of oil would have seemed ludicrous. You 
+
+
+might ght a war over land, gold, pepper or slaves, but not 
+oil. 
+
+The career of electricity was more startling yet. Two 
+centuries ago electricity played no role in the economy, and 
+was used at most for arcane scienti c experiments and cheap 
+magic tricks. A series of inventions turned it into our 
+universal genie in a lamp. We ick our ngers and it prints 
+books and sews clothes, keeps our vegetables fresh and our 
+ice cream frozen, cooks our dinners and executes our 
+criminals, registers our thoughts and records our smiles, 
+lights up our nights and entertains us with countless 
+television shows. Few of us understand how electricity does 
+all these things, but even fewer can imagine life without it. 
+
+An Ocean of Energy 
+
+At heart, the Industrial Revolution has been a revolution in 
+energy conversion. It has demonstrated again and again 
+that there is no limit to the amount of energy at our 
+disposal. Or, more precisely, that the only limit is set by our 
+ignorance. 
+
+Every few decades we discover a new energy source, so that 
+the sum total of energy at our disposal just keeps growing. 
+
+Why are so many people afraid that we are running out of 
+energy? Why do they warn of disaster if we exhaust all 
+available fossil fuels? Clearly the world does not lack energy. 
+All we lack is the knowledge necessary to harness and 
+convert it to our needs. The amount of energy stored in all 
+the fossil fuel on earth is negligible compared to the amount 
+that the sun dispenses every day, free of charge. Only a tiny 
+proportion of the sun's energy reaches us, yet it amounts to 
+3,766,800 
+
+
+
+exajoules of energy each year (a joule is a unit of energy in 
+the metric system, about the amount you expend to lift a 
+small apple one yard straight up; an exajoule is a billion 
+billion joules - that's a lot of apples). 2_AII the world's plants 
+capture only about 3,000 of those solar exajoules through 
+the process of photosynthesis. 3_AII human activities and 
+industries put together consume about 500 exajoules 
+annually, equivalent to the amount of energy earth receives 
+from the sun in just ninety minutes. 4^And that's only solar 
+energy. In addition, we are surrounded by other enormous 
+sources of energy, such as nuclear energy and gravitational 
+energy, the latter most evident in the power of the ocean 
+tides caused by the moon's pull on the earth. 
+
+Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the human energy market 
+was almost completely dependent on plants. People lived 
+alongside a green energy reservoir carrying 3,000 exajoules 
+a year, and tried to pump as much of its energy as they 
+could. Yet there was a clear limit to how much they could 
+extract. During the Industrial Revolution, we came to realise 
+that we are actually living alongside an enormous ocean of 
+energy, one holding billions upon billions of exajoules of 
+potential power. All we need to do is invent better pumps. 
+
+* 
+
+Learning how to harness and convert energy e ectively 
+solved the other problem that slows economic growth - the 
+scarcity of raw materials. As humans worked out how to 
+harness large quantities of cheap energy, they could begin 
+exploiting previously inaccessible deposits of raw materials 
+(for example, mining iron in the Siberian wastelands), or 
+transporting raw materials from ever more distant locations 
+(for example, supplying a British textile mill with Australian 
+wool). 
+
+
+Simultaneously, scienti c breakthroughs enabled humankind 
+to invent completely new raw materials, such as plastic, and 
+discover previously unknown natural 
+
+materials, such as silicon and aluminium. 
+
+Chemists discovered aluminium only in the 1820s, but 
+separating the metal from its ore was extremely di cult and 
+costly. For decades, aluminium was much more expensive 
+than gold. In the 1860S, Emperor Napoleon III of France 
+commissioned aluminium cutlery to be laid out for his most 
+distinguished guests. Less important visitors had to make do 
+with the gold knives and forks. 5_But at the end of the 
+nineteenth century chemists discovered a way to extract 
+immense amounts of cheap aluminium, and current global 
+production stands at 30 million tons per year. Napoleon III 
+would be surprised to hear that his subjects' descendants 
+use cheap disposable aluminium foil to wrap their 
+sandwiches and put away their leftovers. 
+
+Two thousand years ago, when people in the Mediterranean 
+basin su ered from dry skin they smeared olive oil on their 
+hands. Today, they open a tube of hand cream. Below is the 
+list of ingredients of a simple modern hand cream that I 
+bought at a local store: 
+
+deionised water, stearic acid, glycerin, 
+caprylic/caprictiglyceride, propylene glycol, isopropyl 
+myristate, panax ginseng root extract, fragrance, cetyl 
+alcohol, triethanolamine, dimeticone, arctostaphylos uva- 
+ursi leaf extract, magnesium ascorbyl phosphate, 
+imidazolidinyl urea, methyl paraben, camphor, propyl 
+paraben, hydroxy iso hexyl 3-cyclohexene carboxaldehyde, 
+hydroxyl-citronel al, linalool, butylphenyl methylproplonal, 
+citronnel ol, limonene, geraniol. 
+
+
+Almost all of these ingredients were invented or discovered 
+in the last two centuries. 
+
+During World War One, Germany was placed under blockade 
+and su ered severe shortages of raw materials, in particular 
+saltpetre, an essential ingredient in gunpowder and other 
+explosives. The most important saltpetre deposits were in 
+Chile and India; there were none at all in Germany. True, 
+saltpetre could be replaced by ammonia, but that was 
+expensive to produce as well. Luckily for the Germans, one 
+of their fellow citizens, a Jewish chemist named Fritz Haber, 
+had discovered in 1908 a process for producing ammonia 
+literally out of thin air. 
+
+When war broke out, the Germans used Haber's discovery to 
+commence industrial production of explosives using air as a 
+raw material. Some scholars believe that if it hadn't been for 
+Haber's discovery, Germany would have been forced to 
+surrender long before November 1918. 6_The discovery won 
+Haber (who during the war also pioneered the use of poison 
+gas in battle) a Nobel Prize in 1918. In chemistry, not in 
+peace. 
+
+Life on the Conveyor Belt 
+
+The Industrial Revolution yielded an unprecedented 
+combination of cheap and abundant energy and cheap and 
+abundant raw materials. The result was an explosion in 
+human productivity. The explosion was felt rst and foremost 
+in agriculture. Usually, when we think of the Industrial 
+Revolution, we think of an urban landscape of smoking 
+chimneys, or the plight of exploited coal miners sweating in 
+the bowels of the earth. Yet the Industrial Revolution was 
+above all else the Second Agricultural Revolution. 
+
+
+During the last 200 years, industrial production methods 
+became the mainstay of agriculture. Machines such as 
+tractors began to undertake tasks that were previously 
+performed by muscle power, or not performed at all. Fields 
+and animals became vastly more productive thanks to arti 
+cial fertilisers, industrial insecticides and an entire arsenal of 
+hormones and medications. Refrigerators, ships and 
+aeroplanes have made it possible to store produce for 
+months, and transport it quickly and cheaply to the other 
+side of the world. Europeans began to dine on fresh 
+Argentinian beef and Japanese sushi. 
+
+Even plants and animals were mechanised. Around the time 
+that Homo sapiens was elevated to divine status by 
+humanist religions, farm animals stopped being viewed as 
+living creatures that could feel pain and distress, and 
+instead came to be treated as machines. Today these 
+animals are often mass-produced in factory-like facilities, 
+their bodies shaped in accordance with industrial needs. 
+They pass their entire lives as cogs in a giant production 
+line, and the length and quality of their existence is 
+determined by the pro ts and losses of business 
+corporations. 
+
+Even when the industry takes care to keep them alive, 
+reasonably healthy and well fed, it has no intrinsic interest 
+in the animals' social and psychological needs (except when 
+these have a direct impact on production). 
+
+Egg-laying hens, for example, have a complex world of 
+behavioural needs and drives. They feel strong urges to 
+scout their environment, forage and peck around, determine 
+social hierarchies, build nests and groom themselves. But 
+the egg industry often locks the hens inside tiny coops, and 
+it is not uncommon for it to squeeze four hens to a cage, 
+each given a oor space of about twenty- ve by twenty-two 
+
+
+
+centimetres. The hens receive su cient food, but they are 
+unable to claim a territory, build a nest or engage in other 
+natural activities. Indeed, the cage is so small that hens are 
+often unable even to ap their wings or stand fully erect. 
+
+Pigs are among the most intelligent and inquisitive of 
+mammals, second perhaps only to the great apes. Yet 
+industrialised pig farms routinely con ne nursing sows inside 
+such small crates that they are literally unable to turn 
+around (not to mention walk or forage). The sows are kept in 
+these crates day and night for four weeks after giving birth. 
+Their o spring are then taken away to be fattened up and 
+the sows are impregnated with the next litter of piglets. 
+
+
+
+Many dairy cows live almost all their allotted years inside a 
+small enclosure; standing, sitting and sleeping in their own 
+urine and excrement. They receive their measure of food, 
+hormones and medications from one set of machines, and 
+get milked every few hours by another set of machines. The 
+cow in the middle is treated as little more than a mouth that 
+
+
+
+takes in raw materials and an udder that produces a 
+commodity. Treating living creatures possessing complex 
+emotional worlds as if they were machines is likely to cause 
+them not only physical discomfort, but also much social 
+stress and psychological frustration. 7 
+
+40. Chicks on a conveyor belt in a commercial 
+hatchery. Male chicks and imperfect female chicks 
+are picked off the conveyor belt and are then 
+asphyxiated in gas chambers, dropped into 
+automatic shredders, or simply thrown into the 
+rubbish, where they are crushed to death. Hundreds 
+of millions of chicks die each year in such hatcheries. 
+
+Just as the Atlantic slave trade did not stem from hatred 
+towards Africans, so the modern animal industry is not 
+motivated by animosity. Again, it is fuelled by indi erence. 
+Most people who produce and consume eggs, milk and meat 
+rarely stop to think about the fate of the chickens, cows or 
+pigs whose esh and emissions they are eating. Those who do 
+think often argue that such animals are really little di erent 
+from machines, devoid of sensations and emotions, 
+incapable of su ering. Ironically, the same scienti c 
+disciplines which shape our milk machines and egg 
+machines have lately demonstrated beyond reasonable 
+doubt that mammals and birds have a complex sensory and 
+emotional make-up. They not only feel physical pain, but 
+can also suffer from emotional distress. 
+
+Evolutionary psychology maintains that the emotional and 
+social needs of farm 
+
+animals evolved in the wild, when they were essential for 
+survival and reproduction. For example, a wild cow had to 
+know how to form close relations with other cows and bulls, 
+or else she could not survive and reproduce. In order to learn 
+
+
+
+the necessary skills, evolution implanted in calves - as in 
+the young of all other social mammals - a strong desire to 
+play (playing is the mammalian way of learning social 
+behaviour). And it implanted in them an even stronger 
+desire to bond with their mothers, whose milk and care were 
+essential for survival. 
+
+What happens if farmers now take a young calf, separate her 
+from her mother, put her in a closed cage, give her food, 
+water and inoculations against diseases, and then, when she 
+is old enough, inseminate her with bull sperm? From an 
+objective perspective, this calf no longer needs either 
+maternal bonding or playmates in order to survive and 
+reproduce. But from a subjective perspective, the calf still 
+feels a very strong urge to bond with her mother and to play 
+with other calves. If these urges are not ful lied, the calf su 
+ers greatly. This is the basic lesson of evolutionary 
+psychology: a need shaped in the wild continues to be felt 
+subjectively even if it is no longer really necessary for 
+survival and reproduction. The tragedy of industrial 
+agriculture is that it takes great care of the objective needs 
+of animals, while neglecting their subjective needs. 
+
+The truth of this theory has been known at least since the 
+1950s, when the American psychologist Harry Harlow 
+studied the development of monkeys. 
+
+Harlow separated infant monkeys from their mothers several 
+hours after birth. 
+
+The monkeys were isolated inside cages, and then raised by 
+dummy mothers. In each cage, Harlow placed two dummy 
+mothers. One was made of metal wires, and was tted with a 
+milk bottle from which the infant monkey could suck. The 
+other was made of wood covered with cloth, which made it 
+resemble a real monkey mother, but it provided the infant 
+
+
+
+monkey with no material sustenance whatsoever. It was 
+assumed that the infants would cling to the nourishing 
+metal mother rather than to the barren cloth one. 
+
+To Harlow's surprise, the infant monkeys showed a marked 
+preference for the cloth mother, spending most of their time 
+with her. When the two mothers were placed in close 
+proximity, the infants held on to the cloth mother even while 
+they reached over to suck milk from the metal mother. 
+Harlow suspected that perhaps the infants did so because 
+they were cold. So he tted an electric bulb inside the wire 
+mother, which now radiated heat. Most of the monkeys, 
+except for the very young ones, continued to prefer the 
+cloth mother. 
+
+
+
+
+41. One of Harlow's orphaned monkeys clings to the 
+cloth mother even while sucking milk from the metal 
+mother. 
+
+Follow-up research showed that Harlow's orphaned monkeys 
+grew up to be emotionally disturbed even though they had 
+received all the nourishment they required. They never tted 
+into monkey society, had di culties communicating with 
+other monkeys, and su ered from high levels of anxiety and 
+aggression. The conclusion was inescapable: monkeys must 
+have psychological needs and desires that go beyond their 
+material requirements, and if these are not ful lied, they will 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+su er greatly. Harlow's infant monkeys preferred to spend 
+their time in the hands of the barren cloth mother because 
+they were looking for an emotional bond and not only for 
+milk. In the following decades, numerous studies showed 
+that this conclusion applies not only to monkeys, but to 
+other mammals, as well as birds. 
+
+At present, millions of farm animals are subjected to the 
+same conditions as Harlow's monkeys, as farmers routinely 
+separate calves, kids and other youngsters from their 
+mothers, to be raised in isolation. 8 
+
+Altogether, tens of billions of farm animals live today as part 
+of a mechanised assembly line, and about 50 billion of them 
+are slaughtered annually. These industrial livestock methods 
+have led to a sharp increase in agricultural production and 
+in human food reserves. Together with the mechanisation of 
+plant cultivation, industrial animal husbandry is the basis for 
+the entire modern socio-economic order. Before the 
+industrialisation of agriculture, most of the food produced in 
+fields and farms was 'wasted' feeding peasants and 
+farmyard animals. 
+
+Only a small percentage was available to feed artisans, 
+teachers, priests and bureaucrats. Consequently, in almost 
+all societies peasants comprised more than 90 per cent of 
+the population. Following the industrialisation of agriculture, 
+a shrinking number of farmers was enough to feed a growing 
+number of clerks and factory hands. Today in the United 
+States, only 2 per cent of the population makes a living from 
+agriculture, yet this 2 per cent produces enough not only to 
+feed the entire US population, but also to export surpluses 
+to the rest of the world. 9_Without the industrialisation of 
+agriculture the urban Industrial Revolution could never have 
+taken place - there would not have been enough hands and 
+brains to staff factories and offices. 
+
+
+As those factories and o ces absorbed the billions of hands 
+and brains that were released from eldwork, they began 
+pouring out an unprecedented avalanche of products. 
+Humans now produce far more steel, manufacture much 
+more clothing, and build many more structures than ever 
+before. In addition, they produce a mind-boggling array of 
+previously unimaginable goods, such as light bulbs, mobile 
+phones, cameras and dishwashers. For the rst time in human 
+history, supply began to outstrip demand. And an entirely 
+new problem was born: who is going to buy all this stuff? 
+
+The Age of Shopping 
+
+The modern capitalist economy must constantly increase 
+production if it is to survive, like a shark that must swim or 
+su ocate. Yet it's not enough just to produce. Somebody 
+must also buy the products, or industrialists and investors 
+alike will go bust. To prevent this catastrophe and to make 
+sure that people will always buy whatever new stu industry 
+produces, a new kind of ethic appeared: consumerism. 
+
+Most people throughout history lived under conditions of 
+scarcity. Frugality was thus their watchword. The austere 
+ethics of the Puritans and Spartans are but two famous 
+examples. A good person avoided luxuries, never threw food 
+away, and patched up torn trousers instead of buying a new 
+pair. Only kings and nobles 
+
+allowed themselves to renounce such values publicly and 
+conspicuously aunt their riches. 
+
+Consumerism sees the consumption of ever more products 
+and services as a positive thing. It encourages people to 
+treat themselves, spoil themselves, and even kill themselves 
+slowly by overconsumption. Frugality is a disease to be 
+cured. 
+
+
+
+You don't have to look far to see the consumer ethic in 
+action - just read the back of a cereal box. Here's a quote 
+from a box of one of my favourite breakfast cereals, 
+produced by an Israeli firm, Telma: 
+
+Sometimes you need a treat. Sometimes you need a little 
+extra energy. There are times to watch your weight and 
+times when you've just got to have something ... right now! 
+Telma o ers a variety of tasty cereals just for you - 
+
+treats without remorse. 
+
+The same package sports an ad for another brand of cereal 
+called Health Treats: Health Treats offers lots of grains, fruits 
+and nuts for an experience that combines taste, pleasure 
+and health. For an enjoyable treat in the middle of the day, 
+suitable for a healthy lifestyle. A real treat with the 
+wonderful taste of more [emphasis in the original]. 
+
+
+
+Throughout most of history, people were likely to be have 
+been repelled rather than attracted by such a text. They 
+would have branded it as sel sh, decadent and morally 
+corrupt. Consumerism has worked very hard, with the help of 
+popular psychology ('Just do it!') to convince people that 
+indulgence is good for you, whereas frugality is self¬ 
+oppression. 
+
+It has succeeded. We are all good consumers. We buy 
+countless products that we don't really need, and that until 
+yesterday we didn't know existed. Manufacturers 
+deliberately design short-term goods and invent new and 
+unnecessary models of perfectly satisfactory products that 
+we must purchase in order to stay 'in'. 
+
+Shopping has become a favourite pastime, and consumer 
+goods have become essential mediators in relationships 
+between family members, spouses and friends. 
+
+Religious holidays such as Christmas have become shopping 
+festivals. In the United States, even Memorial Day - 
+originally a solemn day for remembering fallen soldiers - is 
+now an occasion for special sales. Most people mark this day 
+by going shopping, perhaps to prove that the defenders of 
+freedom did not die in vain. 
+
+The owering of the consumerist ethic is manifested most 
+clearly in the food market. Traditional agricultural societies 
+lived in the awful shade of starvation. In the a uent world of 
+today one of the leading health problems is obesity, which 
+strikes the poor (who stu themselves with hamburgers and 
+pizzas) even more severely than the rich (who eat organic 
+salads and fruit smoothies). Each year the US population 
+spends more money on diets than the amount needed to 
+feed all 
+
+
+
+the hungry people in the rest of the world. Obesity is a 
+double victory for consumerism. Instead of eating little, 
+which will lead to economic contraction, people eat too 
+much and then buy diet products - contributing to economic 
+growth twice over. 
+
+How can we square the consumerist ethic with the capitalist 
+ethic of the business person, according to which pro ts 
+should not be wasted, and should instead be reinvested in 
+production? It's simple. As in previous eras, there is today a 
+division of labour between the elite and the masses. In 
+medieval Europe, aristocrats spent their money carelessly on 
+extravagant luxuries, whereas peasants lived frugally, 
+minding every penny. Today, the tables have turned. The 
+rich take great care managing their assets and investments, 
+while the less well heeled go into debt buying cars and 
+televisions they don't really need. 
+
+The capitalist and consumerist ethics are two sides of the 
+same coin, a merger of two commandments. The supreme 
+commandment of the rich is 'Invest!' The supreme 
+commandment of the rest of us is 'Buy!' 
+
+The capitalist-consumerist ethic is revolutionary in another 
+respect. Most previous ethical systems presented people 
+with a pretty tough deal. They were promised paradise, but 
+only if they cultivated compassion and tolerance, overcame 
+craving and anger, and restrained their sel sh interests. This 
+was too tough for most. The history of ethics is a sad tale of 
+wonderful ideals that nobody can live up to. Most Christians 
+did not imitate Christ, most Buddhists failed to follow 
+Buddha, and most Confucians would have caused Confucius 
+a temper tantrum. 
+
+In contrast, most people today successfully live up to the 
+capitalist-consumerist ideal. The new ethic promises 
+
+
+
+paradise on condition that the rich remain greedy and spend 
+their time making more money, and that the masses give 
+free rein to their cravings and passions - and buy more and 
+more. This is the rst religion in history whose followers 
+actually do what they are asked to do. How, though, do we 
+know that we'll really get paradise in return? We've seen it 
+on television. 
+
+18 
+
+A Permanent Revolution 
+
+THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION OPENED up new ways to 
+convert energy and to 
+
+produce goods, largely liberating humankind from its 
+dependence on the surrounding ecosystem. Humans cut 
+down forests, drained swamps, dammed rivers, ooded plains, 
+laid down tens of thousands of kilometres of railroad tracks, 
+and built skyscraping metropolises. As the world was 
+moulded to t the needs of Homo sapiens , habitats were 
+destroyed and species went extinct. Our once green and 
+blue planet is becoming a concrete and plastic shopping 
+centre. 
+
+Today, the earths continents are home to almost 7 billion 
+Sapiens. If you took all these people and put them on a large 
+set of scales, their combined mass would be about 300 
+million tons. If you then took all our domesticated farmyard 
+animals 
+
+- cows, pigs, sheep and chickens - and placed them on an 
+even larger set of scales, their mass would amount to about 
+700 million tons. In contrast, the combined mass of all 
+surviving large wild animals - from porcupines and penguins 
+to elephants and whales - is less than 100 million tons. Our 
+children's books, our iconography and ourTV screens are 
+
+
+
+still full of gira es, wolves and chimpanzees, but the real 
+world has very few of them left. There are about 80,000 
+
+gira es in the world, compared to 1.5 billion cattle; only 
+200,000 wolves, compared to 400 million domesticated 
+dogs; only 250,000 chimpanzees - in contrast to billions of 
+humans. Humankind really has taken over the world. 1 
+
+Ecological degradation is not the same as resource scarcity. 
+As we saw in the previous chapter, the resources available to 
+humankind are constantly increasing, and are likely to 
+continue to do so. That's why doomsday prophesies of 
+resource scarcity are probably misplaced. In contrast, the 
+fear of ecological degradation is only too well founded. The 
+future may see Sapiens gaining control of a cornucopia of 
+new materials and energy sources, while simultaneously 
+destroying what remains of the natural habitat and driving 
+most other species to extinction. 
+
+In fact, ecological turmoil might endanger the survival of 
+Homo sapiens itself. 
+
+Global warming, rising oceans and widespread pollution 
+could make the earth less hospitable to our kind, and the 
+future might consequently see a spiralling race between 
+human power and human-induced natural disasters. As 
+humans use their power to counter the forces of nature and 
+subjugate the ecosystem to their needs 
+
+and whims, they might cause more and more unanticipated 
+and dangerous side e ects. These are likely to be 
+controllable only by even more drastic manipulations of the 
+ecosystem, which would result in even worse chaos. 
+
+Many call this process 'the destruction of nature'. But it's not 
+really destruction, it's change. Nature cannot be destroyed. 
+Sixty- ve million years ago, an asteroid wiped out the 
+
+
+dinosaurs, but in so doing opened the way forward for 
+mammals. 
+
+
+Today, humankind is driving many species into extinction 
+and might even annihilate itself. But other organisms are 
+doing quite well. Rats and cockroaches, for example, are in 
+their heyday. These tenacious creatures would probably 
+creep out from beneath the smoking rubble of a nuclear 
+Armageddon, ready and able to spread their DNA. Perhaps 
+65 million years from now, intelligent rats will look back 
+gratefully on the decimation wrought by humankind, just as 
+we today can thank that dinosaur-busting asteroid. 
+
+Still, the rumours of our own extinction are premature. Since 
+the Industrial Revolution, the world's human population has 
+burgeoned as never before. In 1700 
+
+the world was home to some 700 million humans. In 1800 
+there were 950 million of us. By 1900 we almost doubled our 
+numbers to 1.6 billion. And by 2000 that quadrupled to 6 
+billion. Today there are just shy of 7 billion Sapiens. 
+
+Modern Time 
+
+While all these Sapiens have grown increasingly impervious 
+to the whims of nature, they have become ever more subject 
+to the dictates of modern industry and government. The 
+Industrial Revolution opened the way to a long line of 
+experiments in social engineering and an even longer series 
+of unpremeditated changes in daily life and human 
+mentality. One example among many is the replacement of 
+the rhythms of traditional agriculture with the uniform and 
+precise schedule of industry. 
+
+Traditional agriculture depended on cycles of natural time 
+and organic growth. 
+
+
+
+Most societies were unable to make precise time 
+measurements, nor were they terribly interested in doing so. 
+The world went about its business without clocks and 
+timetables, subject only to the movements of the sun and 
+the growth cycles of plants. There was no uniform working 
+day, and all routines changed drastically from season to 
+season. People knew where the sun was, and watched 
+anxiously for portents of the rainy season and harvest time, 
+but they did not know the hour and hardly cared about the 
+year. If a lost time traveller popped up in a medieval village 
+and asked a passerby, 'What year is this?' the villager would 
+be as bewildered by the question as by the strangers 
+ridiculous clothing. 
+
+
+
+In contrast to medieval peasants and shoemakers, modern 
+industry cares little about the sun or the season. It sancti es 
+precision and uniformity. For example, in a medieval 
+workshop each shoemaker made an entire shoe, from sole to 
+buckle. If one shoemaker was late for work, it did not stall 
+the others. However, in a modern footwear-factory assembly 
+
+
+
+line, every worker mans a machine that produces just a 
+small part of a shoe, which is then passed on to the next 
+machine. 
+
+If the worker who operates machine no. 5 has overslept, it 
+stalls all the other machines. In order to prevent such 
+calamities, everybody must adhere to a precise timetable. 
+Each worker arrives at work at exactly the same time. 
+Everybody takes their lunch break together, whether they 
+are hungry or not. Everybody goes home when a whistle 
+announces that the shift is over - not when they have nished 
+their project. 
+
+42. Charlie Chaplin as a simple worker caught in the 
+wheels of the industrial assembly line, from the film 
+
+Modem Times ( 1936). 
+
+The Industrial Revolution turned the timetable and the 
+assembly line into a template for almost all human 
+activities. Shortly after factories imposed their time frames 
+on human behaviour, schools too adopted precise 
+timetables, followed by hospitals, government o ces and 
+grocery stores. Even in places devoid of assembly lines and 
+machines, the timetable became king. If the shift at the 
+factory ends at 5 p.m., the local pub had better be open for 
+business by 5:02. 
+
+A crucial link in the spreading timetable system was public 
+transportation. If workers needed to start their shift by 
+08:00, the train or bus had to reach the factory gate by 
+07:55. A few minutes' delay would lower production and 
+perhaps 
+
+even lead to the lay-o s of the unfortunate latecomers. In 
+1784 a carriage service with a published schedule began 
+operating in Britain. Its timetable sped ed only the hour of 
+
+
+
+departure, not arrival. Back then, each British city and town 
+had its own local time, which could di erfrom London time 
+by up to half an hour. When it was 12:00 in London, it was 
+perhaps 12:20 in Liverpool and 11:50 in Canterbury. Since 
+there were no telephones, no radio or television, and no fast 
+trains - who could know, and who cared? 2 
+
+The rst commercial train service began operating between 
+Liverpool and Manchester in 1830. Ten years later, the rst 
+train timetable was issued. The trains were much faster than 
+the old carriages, so the quirky di erences in local hours 
+became a severe nuisance. In 1847, British train companies 
+put their heads together and agreed that henceforth all train 
+timetables would be calibrated to Greenwich Observatory 
+time, rather than the local times of Liverpool, Manchester or 
+Glasgow. More and more institutions followed the lead of the 
+train companies. 
+
+Finally, in 1880, the British government took the 
+unprecedented step of legislating that all timetables in 
+Britain must follow Greenwich. For the first time in history, a 
+country adopted a national time and obliged its population 
+to live according to an artificial clock rather than local ones 
+or sunrise-to-sunset cycles. 
+
+This modest beginning spawned a global network of 
+timetables, synchronised down to the tiniest fractions of a 
+second. When the broadcast media - rst radio, then 
+television - made their debut, they entered a world of 
+timetables and became its main enforcers and evangelists. 
+Among the rst things radio stations broadcast were time 
+signals, beeps that enabled far- ung settlements and ships 
+at sea to set their clocks. Later, radio stations adopted the 
+custom of broadcasting the news every hour. Nowadays, the 
+rst item of every news broadcast - more important even than 
+the outbreak of war - is the time. During World War Two, BBC 
+
+
+News was broadcast to Nazi-occupied Europe. Each news 
+programme opened with a live broadcast of Big Ben tolling 
+the hour - the magical sound of freedom. Ingenious German 
+physicists found a way to determine the weather conditions 
+in London based on tiny differences in the tone of the 
+broadcast ding-dongs. This information o ered invaluable 
+help to the Luftwa e. When the British Secret Service 
+discovered this, they replaced the live broadcast with a set 
+recording of the famous clock. 
+
+In order to run the timetable network, cheap but precise 
+portable clocks became ubiquitous. In Assyrian, Sassanid or 
+Inca cities there might have been at most a few sundials. In 
+European medieval cities there was usually a single clock - a 
+giant machine mounted on top of a high tower in the town 
+square. These tower clocks were notoriously inaccurate, but 
+since there were no other clocks in town to contradict them, 
+it hardly made any di erence. Today, a single a uent family 
+generally has more timepieces at home than an entire 
+medieval country. You can 
+
+tell the time by looking at your wristwatch, glancing at your 
+Android, peering at the alarm clock by your bed, gazing at 
+the clock on the kitchen wall, staring at the microwave, 
+catching a glimpse of the TV or DVD, or taking in the taskbar 
+on your computer out of the corner of your eye. You need to 
+make a conscious e ort notto know what time it is. 
+
+The typical person consults these clocks several dozen times 
+a day, because almost everything we do has to be done on 
+time. An alarm clock wakes us up at 7 
+
+a.m., we heat our frozen bagel for exactly fty seconds in the 
+microwave, brush our teeth for three minutes until the 
+electric toothbrush beeps, catch the 07:40 
+
+
+
+train to work, run on the treadmill at the gym until the 
+beeper announces that half an hour is over, sit down in front 
+of the TV at 7 p.m. to watch our favourite show, get 
+interrupted at preordained moments by commercials that 
+cost $1,000 
+
+per second, and eventually unload all our angst on a 
+therapist who restricts our prattle to the now standard fifty- 
+minute therapy hour. 
+
+The Industrial Revolution brought about dozens of major 
+upheavals in human society. Adapting to industrial time is 
+just one of them. Other notable examples include 
+urbanisation, the disappearance of the peasantry, the rise of 
+the industrial proletariat, the empowerment of the common 
+person, democratisation, youth culture and the 
+disintegration of patriarchy. 
+
+Yet all of these upheavals are dwarfed by the most 
+momentous social revolution that ever befell humankind: 
+the collapse of the family and the local community and their 
+replacement by the state and the market. As best we can 
+tell, from the earliest times, more than a million years ago, 
+humans lived in small, intimate communities, most of whose 
+members were kin. The Cognitive Revolution and the 
+Agricultural Revolution did not change that. They glued 
+together families and communities to create tribes, cities, 
+kingdoms and empires, but families and communities 
+remained the basic building blocks of all human societies. 
+The Industrial Revolution, on the other hand, managed 
+within little more than two centuries to break these building 
+blocks into atoms. Most of the traditional functions of 
+families and communities were handed over to states and 
+markets. 
+
+
+The Col apse of the Family and the Community 
+
+
+
+Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the daily life of most 
+humans ran its course within three ancient frames: the 
+nuclear family, the extended family and the local intimate 
+community. f_Most people worked in the family business - 
+the family farm or the family workshop, for example - or 
+they worked in their neighbours' 
+
+family businesses. The family was also the welfare system, 
+the health system, the education system, the construction 
+industry, the trade union, the pension fund, the insurance 
+company, the radio, the television, the newspapers, the 
+bank and even the police. 
+
+When a person fell sick, the family took care of her. When a 
+person grew old, the family supported her, and her children 
+were her pension fund. When a person died, the family took 
+care of the orphans. If a person wanted to build a hut, the 
+family lent a hand. If a person wanted to open a business, 
+the family raised the necessary money. If a person wanted to 
+marry, the family chose, or at least vetted, the prospective 
+spouse. If con ict arose with a neighbour, the family muscled 
+in. But if a person's illness was too grave for the family to 
+manage, or a new business demanded too large an 
+investment, or the neighbourhood quarrel escalated to the 
+point of violence, the local community came to the rescue. 
+
+The community o ered help on the basis of local traditions 
+and an economy of favours, which often di ered greatly from 
+the supply and demand laws of the free market. In an old- 
+fashioned medieval community, when my neighbour was in 
+need, I helped build his hut and guard his sheep, without 
+expecting any payment in return. When I was in need, my 
+neighbour returned the favour. At the same time, the local 
+potentate might have drafted all of us villagers to construct 
+his castle without paying us a penny. In exchange, we 
+counted on him to defend us against brigands and 
+
+
+barbarians. Village life involved many transactions but few 
+payments. There were some markets, of course, but their 
+roles were limited. You could buy rare spices, cloth and tools, 
+and hire the services of lawyers and doctors. 
+
+Yet less than 10 per cent of commonly used products and 
+services were bought in the market. Most human needs were 
+taken care of by the family and the community. 
+
+There were also kingdoms and empires that performed 
+important tasks such as waging wars, building roads and 
+constructing palaces. For these purposes kings raised taxes 
+and occasionally enlisted soldiers and labourers. Yet, with 
+few exceptions, they tended to stay out of the daily a airs of 
+families and communities. Even if they wanted to intervene, 
+most kings could do so only with di culty. Traditional 
+agricultural economies had few surpluses with which to feed 
+crowds of government o cials, policemen, social workers, 
+teachers and doctors. 
+
+Consequently, most rulers did not develop mass welfare 
+systems, health-care systems or educational systems. They 
+left such matters in the hands of families and communities. 
+Even on rare occasions when rulers tried to intervene more 
+intensively in the daily lives of the peasantry (as happened, 
+for example, in the Qin Empire in China), they did so by 
+converting family heads and community elders into 
+government agents. 
+
+Often enough, transportation and communication di culties 
+made it so di cult 
+
+to intervene in the a airs of remote communities that many 
+kingdoms preferred to cede even the most basic royal 
+prerogatives - such as taxation and violence - to 
+communities. The Ottoman Empire, for instance, allowed 
+
+
+
+family vendettas to mete out justice, rather than supporting 
+a large imperial police force. If my cousin killed somebody, 
+the victim's brother might kill me in sanctioned revenge. 
+
+The sultan in Istanbul or even the provincial pasha did not 
+intervene in such clashes, as long as violence remained 
+within acceptable limits. 
+
+In the Chinese Ming Empire (1368-1644), the population 
+was organised into the baojia system. Ten families were 
+grouped to form a jia, and ten jia constituted a bao. When a 
+member of a bao commited a crime, other bao members 
+could be punished for it, in particular the bao elders. Taxes 
+too were levied on the bao, and it was the responsibility of 
+the bao elders rather than of the state o cials to assess the 
+situation of each family and determine the amount of tax it 
+should pay. From the empire's perspective, this system had a 
+huge advantage. Instead of maintaining thousands of 
+revenue o cials and tax collectors, who would have to 
+monitor the earnings and expenses of every family, these 
+tasks were left to the community elders. The elders knew 
+how much each villager was worth and they could usually 
+enforce tax payments without involving the imperial army. 
+
+Many kingdoms and empires were in truth little more than 
+large protection rackets. The king was the capo di tutti capi 
+who collected protection money, and in return made sure 
+that neighbouring crime syndicates and local small fry did 
+not harm those under his protection. He did little else. 
+
+Life in the bosom of family and community was far from 
+ideal. Families and communities could oppress their 
+members no less brutally than do modern states and 
+markets, and their internal dynamics were often fraught with 
+tension and violence - yet people had little choice. A person 
+who lost her family and community around 1750 was as 
+good as dead. She had no job, no education and no support 
+
+
+
+in times of sickness and distress. Nobody would loan her 
+money or defend her if she got into trouble. There were no 
+policemen, no social workers and no compulsory education. 
+In order to survive, such a person quickly had to nd an 
+alternative family or community. Boys and girls who ran 
+away from home could expect, at best, to become servants 
+in some new family. At worst, there was the army or the 
+brothel. 
+
+All this changed dramatically over the last two centuries. 
+
+The Industrial Revolution gave the market immense new 
+powers, provided the state with new means of 
+communication and transportation, and placed at the 
+government's disposal an army of clerks, teachers, 
+policemen and social workers. At rst the market and the 
+state discovered their path blocked by traditional families 
+and communities who had little love for outside 
+intervention. Parents and community 
+
+elders were reluctant to let the younger generation be 
+indoctrinated by nationalist education systems, conscripted 
+into armies or turned into a rootless urban proletariat. 
+
+Over time, states and markets used their growing power to 
+weaken the traditional bonds of family and community. The 
+state sent its policemen to stop family vendettas and 
+replace them with court decisions. The market sent its 
+hawkers to wipe out longstanding local traditions and 
+replace them with ever-changing commercial fashions. Yet 
+this was not enough. In order really to break the power of 
+family and community, they needed the help of a fifth 
+column. 
+
+The state and the market approached people with an o er 
+that could not be refused. 'Become individuals,' they said. 
+'Marry whomever you desire, without asking permission from 
+
+
+
+your parents. Take up whatever job suits you, even if 
+community elders frown. Live wherever you wish, even if you 
+cannot make it every week to the family dinner. You are no 
+longer dependent on your family or your community. We, the 
+state and the market, will take care of you instead. We will 
+provide food, shelter, education, health, welfare and 
+employment. We will provide pensions, insurance and 
+protection.' 
+
+Romantic literature often presents the individual as 
+somebody caught in a struggle against the state and the 
+market. Nothing could be further from the truth. 
+
+The state and the market are the mother and father of the 
+individual, and the individual can survive only thanks to 
+them. The market provides us with work, insurance and a 
+pension. If we want to study a profession, the government's 
+schools are there to teach us. If we want to open a business, 
+the bank loans us money. If we want to build a house, a 
+construction company builds it and the bank gives us a 
+mortgage, in some cases subsidised or insured by the state. 
+
+If violence ares up, the police protect us. If we are sick for a 
+few days, our health insurance takes care of us. If we are 
+debilitated for months, social security steps in. If we need 
+around-the-clock assistance, we can go to the market and 
+hire a nurse - usually some stranger from the other side of 
+the world who takes care of us with the kind of devotion that 
+we no longer expect from our own children. If we have the 
+means, we can spend our golden years at a senior citizens' 
+home. The tax authorities treat us as individuals, and do not 
+expect us to pay the neighbours' 
+
+taxes. The courts, too, see us as individuals, and never 
+punish us for the crimes of our cousins. 
+
+
+
+Not only adult men, but also women and children, are 
+recognised as individuals. 
+
+
+Throughout most of history, women were often seen as the 
+property of family or community. Modern states, on the other 
+hand, see women as individuals, enjoying economic and 
+legal rights independently of their family and community. 
+They may hold their own bank accounts, decide whom to 
+marry, and even choose to divorce or live on their own. 
+
+But the liberation of the individual comes at a cost. Many of 
+us now bewail the loss of strong families and communities 
+and feel alienated and threatened by the power the 
+impersonal state and market wield over our lives. States and 
+markets composed of alienated individuals can intervene in 
+the lives of their members much more easily than states and 
+markets composed of strong families and communities. 
+
+When neighbours in a high-rise apartment building cannot 
+even agree on how much to pay their janitor, how can we 
+expect them to resist the state? 
+
+The deal between states, markets and individuals is an 
+uneasy one. The state and the market disagree about their 
+mutual rights and obligations, and individuals complain that 
+both demand too much and provide too little. In many cases 
+individuals are exploited by markets, and states employ 
+their armies, police forces and bureaucracies to persecute 
+individuals instead of defending them. Yet it is amazing that 
+this deal works at all - however imperfectly. For it breaches 
+countless generations of human social arrangements. 
+
+Millions of years of evolution have designed us to live and 
+think as community members. Within a mere two centuries 
+we have become alienated individuals. Nothing testi es 
+better to the awesome power of culture. 
+
+
+
+The nuclear family did not disappear completely from the 
+modern landscape. 
+
+When states and markets took from the family most of its 
+economic and political roles, they left it some important 
+emotional functions. The modern family is still supposed to 
+provide for intimate needs, which state and market are (so 
+far) incapable of providing. Yet even here the family is 
+subject to increasing interventions. The market shapes to an 
+ever-greater degree the way people conduct their romantic 
+and sexual lives. Whereas traditionally the family was the 
+main matchmaker, today it's the market that tailors our 
+romantic and sexual preferences, and then lends a hand in 
+providing for them - for a fat fee. 
+
+
+Previously bride and groom met in the family living room, 
+and money passed from the hands of one father to another. 
+Today courting is done at bars and cafes, and money passes 
+from the hands of lovers to waitresses. Even more money is 
+transferred to the bank accounts of fashion designers, gym 
+managers, dieticians, cosmeticians and plastic surgeons, 
+who help us arrive at the cafe looking as similar as possible 
+to the markets ideal of beauty. 
+
+
+^ e 9 (e m od e, oc Modern Cyc/e 
+
+
+
+Weak state 
+and market 
+
+
+
+
+Weak 
+individuals 
+
+
+
+Family and community vs. state and market 
+
+
+The state, too, keeps a sharper eye on family relations, 
+especially between parents and children. Parents are obliged 
+to send their children to be educated by the state. Parents 
+who are especially abusive or violent with their children may 
+be restrained by the state. If need be, the state may even 
+imprison the parents or transfer their children to foster 
+families. Until not long ago, the suggestion that the state 
+ought to prevent parents from beating or humiliating their 
+children would have been rejected out of hand as ludicrous 
+and unworkable. In most societies parental authority was 
+sacred. Respect of and obedience to one's parents were 
+among the most hallowed values, and parents could do 
+almost anything they wanted, including killing newborn 
+babies, selling children into slavery and marrying o 
+daughters to men more than twice their age. Today, parental 
+authority is in full retreat. Youngsters are increasingly 
+excused from obeying their elders, whereas parents are 
+blamed for anything that goes wrong in the life of their 
+child. Mum and Dad are about as likely to get o in the 
+Freudian courtroom as were defendants in a Stalinist show 
+trial. 
+
+Imagined Communities 
+
+Like the nuclear family, the community could not completely 
+disappear from our world without any emotional 
+replacement. Markets and states today provide most of the 
+material needs once provided by communities, but they 
+must also supply tribal bonds. 
+
+Markets and states do so by fostering 'imagined 
+communities' that contain millions of strangers, and which 
+are tailored to national and commercial needs. 
+
+
+
+An imagined community is a community of people who don't 
+really know each other, but imagine that they do. Such 
+communities are not a novel invention. 
+
+Kingdoms, empires and churches functioned for millennia as 
+imagined communities. In ancient China, tens of millions of 
+people saw themselves as members of a single family, with 
+the emperor as its father. In the Middle Ages, millions of 
+devout Muslims imagined that they were all brothers and 
+sisters in the great community of Islam. Yet throughout 
+history, such imagined communities played second ddle to 
+intimate communities of several dozen people who knew 
+each other well. The intimate communities ful lied the 
+emotional needs of their members and were essential for 
+everyone's survival and welfare. In the last two centuries, 
+the intimate communities have withered, leaving imagined 
+communities to fill in the emotional vacuum. 
+
+The two most important examples for the rise of such 
+imagined communities are the nation and the consumer 
+tribe. The nation is the imagined community of the state. 
+
+The consumer tribe is the imagined community of the 
+market. Both are imagined communities because it is 
+impossible for all customers in a market or for all members 
+of a nation really to know one another the way villagers 
+knew one another in the past. No German can intimately 
+know the other 80 million members of the German nation, or 
+the other 500 million customers inhabiting the European 
+Common Market (which evolved rst into the European 
+Community and finally became the European Union). 
+
+Consumerism and nationalism work extra hours to make us 
+imagine that millions of strangers belong to the same 
+community as ourselves, that we all have a common past, 
+common interests and a common future. This isn't a lie. It's 
+imagination. Like money, limited liability companies and 
+
+
+
+human rights, nations and consumer tribes are inter- 
+subjective realities. They exist only in our collective 
+imagination, yet their power is immense. As long as millions 
+of Germans believe in the existence of a German nation, get 
+excited at the sight of German national symbols, retell 
+German national myths, and are willing to sacri ce money, 
+time and limbs for the German nation, Germany will remain 
+one of the strongest powers in the world. 
+
+The nation does its best to hide its imagined character. Most 
+nations argue that they are a natural and eternal entity, 
+created in some primordial epoch by mixing the soil of the 
+motherland with the blood of the people. Yet such claims are 
+usually exaggerated. Nations existed in the distant past, but 
+their importance was much smaller than today because the 
+importance of the state was much smaller. A resident of 
+medieval Nuremberg might have felt some loyalty towards 
+the German nation, but she felt far more loyalty towards her 
+family and local community, which took care of most of her 
+needs. Moreover, whatever importance ancient nations may 
+have had, few of them survived. Most existing nations 
+evolved only 
+
+after the Industrial Revolution. 
+
+The Middle East provides ample examples. The Syrian, 
+Lebanese, Jordanian and Iraqi nations are the product of 
+haphazard borders drawn in the sand by French and British 
+diplomats who ignored local history, geography and 
+economy. These diplomats determined in 1918 that the 
+people of Kurdistan, Baghdad and Basra would henceforth 
+be 'Iraqis'. It was primarily the French who decided who 
+would be Syrian and who Lebanese. Saddam Hussein and 
+Hafez el-Asad tried their best to promote and reinforce their 
+Anglo-French-manufactured national consciousnesses, but 
+
+
+
+their bombastic speeches about the allegedly eternal Iraqi 
+and Syrian nations had a hollow ring. 
+
+It goes without saying that nations cannot be created from 
+thin air. Those who worked hard to construct Iraq or Syria 
+made use of real historical, geographical and cultural raw 
+materials - some of which are centuries and millennia old. 
+
+Saddam Hussein co-opted the heritage of the Abbasid 
+caliphate and the Babylonian Empire, even calling one of his 
+crack armoured units the Hammurabi Division. Yet that does 
+not turn the Iraqi nation into an ancient entity. If I bake a 
+cake from our, oil and sugar, all of which have been sitting 
+in my pantry for the past two months, it does not mean that 
+the cake itself is two months old. 
+
+In recent decades, national communities have been 
+increasingly eclipsed by tribes of customers who do not 
+know one another intimately but share the same 
+consumption habits and interests, and therefore feel part of 
+the same consumer tribe - and de ne themselves as such. 
+This sounds very strange, but we are surrounded by 
+examples. Madonna fans, for example, constitute a 
+consumer tribe. 
+
+They de ne themselves largely by shopping. They buy 
+Madonna concert tickets, CDs, posters, shirts and ring tones, 
+and thereby de ne who they are. Manchester United fans, 
+vegetarians and environmentalists are other examples. 
+
+They, too, are de ned above all by what they consume. It is 
+the keystone of their identity. A German vegetarian might 
+well prefer to marry a French vegetarian than a German 
+carnivore. 
+
+
+Perpetuum Mobile 
+
+
+
+The revolutions of the last two centuries have been so swift 
+and radical that they have changed the most fundamental 
+characteristic of the social order. 
+
+Traditionally, the social order was hard and rigid. 'Order' 
+implied stability and continuity. Swift social revolutions were 
+exceptional, and most social transformations resulted from 
+the accumulation of numerous small steps. Humans tended 
+to assume that the social structure was in exible and eternal. 
+Families and 
+
+communities might struggle to change their place within the 
+order, but the idea that you could change the fundamental 
+structure of the order was alien. People tended to reconcile 
+themselves to the status quo, declaring that 'this is how it 
+always was, and this is how it always will be'. 
+
+Over the last two centuries, the pace of change became so 
+quick that the social order acquired a dynamic and 
+malleable nature. It now exists in a state of permanent ux. 
+When we speak of modern revolutions we tend to think of 
+1789 
+
+(the French Revolution), 1848 (the liberal revolutions) or 
+1917 (the Russian Revolution). But the fact is that, these 
+days, every year is revolutionary. Today, even a thirty-year- 
+old can honestly tell disbelieving teenagers, 'When I was 
+young, the world was completely di erent.' The Internet, for 
+example, came into wide usage only in the early 1990s, 
+hardly twenty years ago. Today we cannot imagine the world 
+without it. 
+
+Hence any attempt to de ne the characteristics of modern 
+society is akin to de ning the colour of a chameleon. The 
+only characteristic of which we can be certain is the 
+incessant change. People have become used to this, and 
+
+
+
+most of us think about the social order as something exible, 
+which we can engineer and improve at will. The main 
+promise of premodern rulers was to safeguard the traditional 
+order or even to go back to some lost golden age. In the last 
+two centuries, the currency of politics is that it promises to 
+destroy the old world and build a better one in its place. Not 
+even the most conservative of political parties vows merely 
+to keep things as they are. Everybody promises social 
+reform, educational reform, economic reform - and they 
+often fulfil those promises. 
+
+Just as geologists expect that tectonic movements will result 
+in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, so might we expect 
+that drastic social movements will result in bloody outbursts 
+of violence. The political history of the nineteenth and 
+twentieth centuries is often told as a series of deadly wars, 
+holocausts and revolutions. Like a child in new boots leaping 
+from puddle to puddle, this view sees history as 
+leapfrogging from one bloodbath to the next, from World 
+War One to World War Two to the Cold War, from the 
+Armenian genocide to the Jewish genocide to the Rwandan 
+genocide, from Robespierre to Lenin to Hitler. 
+
+There is truth here, but this all too familiar list of calamities 
+is somewhat misleading. We focus too much on the puddles 
+and forget about the dry land separating them. The late 
+modern era has seen unprecedented levels not only of 
+violence and horror, but also of peace and tranquillity. 
+Charles Dickens wrote of the French Revolution that 'It was 
+the best of times, it was the worst of times.' This may be true 
+not only of the French Revolution, but of the entire era it 
+heralded. 
+
+It is especially true of the seven decades that have elapsed 
+since the end of World War Two. During this period 
+humankind has for the rst time faced the 
+
+
+
+possibility of complete self-annihilation and has experienced 
+a fair number of actual wars and genocides. Yet these 
+decades were also the most peaceful era in human history - 
+and by a wide margin. This is surprising because these very 
+same decades experienced more economic, social and 
+political change than any previous era. The tectonic plates 
+of history are moving at a frantic pace, but the volcanoes are 
+mostly silent. The new elastic order seems to be able to 
+contain and even initiate radical structural changes without 
+collapsing into violent conflict. 3 
+
+Peace in Our Time 
+
+Most people don't appreciate just how peaceful an era we 
+live in. None of us was alive a thousand years ago, so we 
+easily forget how much more violent the world used to be. 
+And as wars become more rare they attract more attention. 
+Many more people think about the wars raging today in 
+Afghanistan and Iraq than about the peace in which most 
+Brazilians and Indians live. 
+
+Even more importantly, it's easier to relate to the su ering of 
+individuals than of entire populations. However, in order to 
+understand macro-historical processes, we need to examine 
+mass statistics rather than individual stories. In the year 
+2000, wars caused the deaths of 310,000 individuals, and 
+violent crime killed another 520,000. Each and every victim 
+is a world destroyed, a family ruined, friends and relatives 
+scarred for life. Yet from a macro perspective these 830,000 
+
+victims comprised only 1.5 per cent of the 56 million people 
+who died in 2000. 
+
+That year 1.26 million people died in car accidents (2.25 per 
+cent of total mortality) and 815,000 people committed 
+suicide (1.45 per cent). 4 
+
+
+The gures for 2002 are even more surprising. Out of 57 
+million dead, only 172,000 people died in war and 569,000 
+died of violent crime (a total of 741,000 
+
+victims of human violence). In contrast, 873,000 people 
+committed suicide. 5 It turns out that in the year following 
+the 9/11 attacks, despite all the talk of terrorism and war, 
+the average person was more likely to kill himself than to be 
+killed by a terrorist, a soldier or a drug dealer. 
+
+In most parts of the world, people go to sleep without 
+fearing that in the middle of the night a neighbouring tribe 
+might surround their village and slaughter everyone. Well-o 
+British subjects travel daily from Nottingham to London 
+through Sherwood Forest without fear that a gang of merry 
+green-clad brigands will ambush them and take their money 
+to give to the poor (or, more likely, murder them and take 
+the money for themselves). Students brook no canings from 
+their teachers, children need not fear that they will be sold 
+into slavery when their parents can't pay their bills, and 
+women know that the law forbids their husbands 
+
+from beating them and forcing them to stay at home. 
+Increasingly, around the world, these expectations are 
+fulfilled. 
+
+The decline of violence is due largely to the rise of the state. 
+Throughout history, most violence resulted from local feuds 
+between families and communities. (Even today, as the 
+above gures indicate, local crime is a far deadlier threat than 
+international wars.) As we have seen, early farmers, who 
+knew no political organisations larger than the local 
+community, su ered rampant violence. 6_As kingdoms and 
+empires became stronger, they reined in communities and 
+the level of violence decreased. In the decentralised 
+kingdoms of medieval Europe, about twenty to forty people 
+
+
+were murdered each year for every 100,000 inhabitants. In 
+recent decades, when states and markets have become all- 
+powerful and communities have vanished, violence rates 
+have dropped even further. Today the global average is only 
+nine murders a year per 100,000 people, and most of these 
+murders take place in weak states such as Somalia and 
+Colombia. In the centralised states of Europe, the average is 
+one murder a year per 100,000 
+
+people. 7 
+
+There are certainly cases where states use their power to kill 
+their own citizens, and these often loom large in our 
+memories and fears. During the twentieth century, tens of 
+millions if not hundreds of millions of people were killed by 
+the security forces of their own states. Still, from a macro 
+perspective, state-run courts and police forces have 
+probably increased the level of security worldwide. Even in 
+oppressive dictatorships, the average modern person is far 
+less likely to die at the hands of another person than in 
+premodern societies. In 1964 a military dictatorship was 
+established in Brazil. It ruled the country until 1985. During 
+these twenty years, several thousand Brazilians were 
+murdered by the regime. 
+
+Thousands more were imprisoned and tortured. Yet even in 
+the worst years, the average Brazilian in Rio de Janeiro was 
+far less likely to die at human hands than the average 
+Waorani, Arawete or Yanomamo. The Waorani, Arawete and 
+Yanomamo are indigenous people who live in the depths of 
+the Amazon forest, without army, police or prisons. 
+Anthropological studies have indicated that between a 
+quarter and a half of their menfolk die sooner or later in 
+violent conflicts over property, women or prestige. 8 
+
+
+Imperial Retirement 
+
+
+It is perhaps debatable whether violence within states has 
+decreased or increased since 1945. What nobody can deny 
+is that international violence has dropped to an all-time low. 
+Perhaps the most obvious example is the collapse of the 
+European 
+
+empires. Throughout history empires have crushed 
+rebellions with an iron st, and when its day came, a sinking 
+empire used all its might to save itself, usually collapsing 
+into a bloodbath. Its nal demise generally led to anarchy and 
+wars of succession. Since 1945 most empires have opted for 
+peaceful early retirement. 
+
+Their process of collapse became relatively swift, calm and 
+orderly. 
+
+In 1945 Britain ruled a quarter of the globe. Thirty years 
+later it ruled just a few small islands. In the intervening 
+decades it retreated from most of its colonies in a peaceful 
+and orderly manner. Though in some places such as Malaya 
+and Kenya the British tried to hang on by force of arms, in 
+most places they accepted the end of empire with a sigh 
+rather than with a temper tantrum. They focused their e orts 
+not on retaining power, but on transferring it as smoothly as 
+possible. At least some of the praise usually heaped on 
+Mahatma Gandhi for his non-violent creed is actually owed 
+to the British Empire. Despite many years of bitter and often 
+violent struggle, when the end of the Raj came, the Indians 
+did not have to ght the British in the streets of Delhi and 
+Calcutta. The empire's place was taken by a slew of 
+independent states, most of which have since enjoyed 
+stable borders and have for the most part lived peacefully 
+alongside their neighbours. True, tens of thousands of 
+people perished at the hands of the threatened British 
+Empire, and in several hot spots its retreat led to the 
+eruption of ethnic con icts that claimed hundreds of 
+
+
+
+thousands of lives (particularly in India). Yet when compared 
+to the long-term historical average, the British withdrawal 
+was an exemplar of peace and order. The French Empire was 
+more stubborn. Its collapse involved bloody rearguard 
+actions in Vietnam and Algeria that cost hundreds of 
+thousands of lives. 
+
+Yet the French, too, retreated from the rest of their 
+dominions quickly and peacefully, leaving behind orderly 
+states rather than a chaotic free-for-all. 
+
+The Soviet collapse in 1989 was even more peaceful, despite 
+the eruption of ethnic con ict in the Balkans, the Caucasus 
+and Central Asia. Never before has such a mighty empire 
+disappeared so swiftly and so quietly. The Soviet Empire of 
+1989 had su ered no military defeat except in Afghanistan, 
+no external invasions, no rebellions, nor even large-scale 
+Martin Luther King-style campaigns of civil disobedience. 
+
+The Soviets still had millions of soldiers, tens of thousands of 
+tanks and aeroplanes, and enough nuclear weapons to wipe 
+out the whole of humankind several times over. The Red 
+Army and the other Warsaw Pact armies remained loyal. Had 
+the last Soviet ruler, Mikhail Gorbachev, given the order, the 
+Red Army would have opened fire on the subjugated 
+masses. 
+
+Yet the Soviet elite, and the Communist regimes through 
+most of eastern Europe (Romania and Serbia were the 
+exceptions), chose not to use even a tiny fraction of this 
+military power. When its members realised that Communism 
+was bankrupt, they renounced force, admitted their failure, 
+packed their suitcases and went home. Gorbachev and his 
+colleagues gave up without a struggle not only the 
+
+Soviet conquests of World War Two, but also the much older 
+tsarist conquests in the Baltic, the Ukraine, the Caucasus 
+
+
+
+and Central Asia. It is chilling to contemplate what might 
+have happened if Gorbachev had behaved like the Serbian 
+leadership - or like the French in Algeria. 
+
+Pax Atomica 
+
+The independent states that came after these empires were 
+remarkably uninterested in war. With very few exceptions, 
+since 1945 states no longer invade other states in order to 
+conquer and swallow them up. Such conquests had been the 
+bread and butter of political history since time immemorial. 
+
+It was how most great empires were established, and how 
+most rulers and populations expected things to stay. But 
+campaigns of conquest like those of the Romans, Mongols 
+and Ottomans cannot take place today anywhere in the 
+world. Since 1945, no independent country recognised by 
+the UN has been conquered and wiped o the map. Limited 
+international wars still occur from time to time, and millions 
+still die in wars, but wars are no longer the norm. 
+
+Many people believe that the disappearance of international 
+war is unique to the rich democracies of western Europe. In 
+fact, peace reached Europe after it prevailed in other parts 
+of the world. Thus the last serious international wars 
+between South American countries were the Peru-Ecuador 
+War of 1941 and the Bolivia-Paraguay War of 1932-5. And 
+before that there hadn't been a serious war between South 
+American countries since 1879-84, with Chile on one side 
+and Bolivia and Peru on the other. 
+
+We seldom think of the Arab world as particularly peaceful. 
+Yet only once since the Arab countries won their 
+independence has one of them mounted a full-scale invasion 
+of another (the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990). There have 
+been quite a few border clashes (e.g. Syria vs Jordan in 
+1970), many armed interventions of one in the a airs of 
+
+
+
+another (e.g. Syria in Lebanon), numerous civil wars 
+(Algeria, Yemen, Libya) and an abundance of coups and 
+revolts. Yet there have been no full-scale international wars 
+among the Arab states except the Gulf War. Even widening 
+the scope to include the entire Muslim world adds only one 
+more example, the Iran-lraq War. There was no Turkey—Iran 
+War, Pakistan-Afghanistan War, or Indonesia-Malaysia War. 
+
+In Africa things are far less rosy. But even there, most con 
+icts are civil wars and coups. Since African states won their 
+independence in the 1960s and 1970s, very few countries 
+have invaded one another in the hope of conquest. 
+
+There have been periods of relative calm before, as, for 
+example, in Europe 
+
+
+
+between 1871 and 1914, and they always ended badly. But 
+this time it is di erent. 
+
+For real peace is not the mere absence of war. Real peace is 
+the implausibility of war. There has never been real peace in 
+the world. Between 1871 and 1914, a European war 
+remained a plausible eventuality, and the expectation of war 
+
+
+
+dominated the thinking of armies, politicians and ordinary 
+citizens alike. This foreboding was true for all other peaceful 
+periods in history. An iron law of international politics 
+decreed, 'For every two nearby polities, there is a plausible 
+scenario that will cause them to go to war against one 
+another within one year.' 
+
+This law of the jungle was in force in late nineteenth-century 
+Europe, in medieval Europe, in ancient China and in 
+classical Greece. If Sparta and Athens were at peace in 450 
+BC, there was a plausible scenario that they would be at war 
+by 449 
+
+BC.Today humankind has broken the law of the jungle. There 
+is at last real peace, and not just absence of war. For most 
+polities, there is no plausible scenario leading to full-scale 
+con ict within one year. What could lead to war between 
+Germany and France next year? Or between China and 
+Japan? Or between Brazil and Argentina? Some minor border 
+clash might occur, but only a truly apocalyptic scenario 
+could result in an old-fashioned full-scale war between Brazil 
+and Argentina in 2014, with Argentinian armoured divisions 
+sweeping to the gates of Rio, and Brazilian carpet-bombers 
+pulverising the neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires. 
+
+Such wars might still erupt between several pairs of states, 
+e.g. between Israel and Syria, Ethiopia and Eritrea, or the 
+USA and Iran, but these are only the exceptions that prove 
+the rule. 
+
+This situation might of course change in the future and, with 
+hindsight, the world of today might seem incredibly naive. 
+Yet from a historical perspective, our very naivety is 
+fascinating. Never before has peace been so prevalent that 
+people could not even imagine war. 
+
+
+
+
+Scholars have sought to explain this happy development in 
+more books and articles than you would ever want to read 
+yourself, and they have identi ed several contributing 
+factors. First and foremost, the price of war has gone up 
+dramatically. The Nobel Peace Prize to end all peace prizes 
+should have been given to Robert Oppenheimer and his 
+fellow architects of the atomic bomb. 
+
+Nuclear weapons have turned war between superpowers into 
+collective suicide, and made it impossible to seek world 
+domination by force of arms. 
+
+Secondly, while the price of war soared, its pro ts declined. 
+For most of history, polities could enrich themselves by 
+looting or annexing enemy territories. Most wealth consisted 
+of elds, cattle, slaves and gold, so it was easy to loot it or 
+occupy it. Today, wealth consists mainly of human capital, 
+technical know-how and complex socio-economic structures 
+such as banks. Consequently it is di cult to carry it off or 
+incorporate it into one's territory. 
+
+Consider California. Its wealth was initially built on gold 
+mines. But today it is built on silicon and celluloid - Silicon 
+
+
+Valley and the celluloid hills of Hollywood. 
+
+What would happen if the Chinese were to mount an armed 
+invasion of California, land a million soldiers on the beaches 
+of San Francisco and storm inland? They would gain little. 
+There are no silicon mines in Silicon Valley. The wealth 
+resides in the minds of Google engineers and Hollywood 
+script doctors, directors and special-e ects wizards, who 
+would be on the rst plane to Bangalore or Mumbai long 
+before the Chinese tanks rolled into Sunset Boulevard. It is 
+not coincidental that the few full-scale international wars 
+that still take place in the world, such as the Iraqi invasion of 
+Kuwait, occur in places were wealth is old-fashioned material 
+wealth. The Kuwaiti sheikhs could ee abroad, but the oil elds 
+stayed put and were occupied. 
+
+43 . and 44. Gold miners in California during the Gold 
+Rush, and Facebook's headquarters near San 
+
+Francisco. In 1849 California built its fortunes on 
+gold. Today, California builds its fortunes on silicon. 
+
+But whereas in 1849 the gold actually lay there in 
+the Californian soil, the real treasures of Silicon 
+Valley are locked inside the heads of high-tech 
+employees. 
+
+While war became less pro table, peace became more 
+lucrative than ever. In traditional agricultural economies 
+long-distance trade and foreign investment were sideshows. 
+Consequently, peace brought little pro t, aside from avoiding 
+the costs of war. If, say, in 1400 England and France were at 
+peace, the French did not have to pay heavy war taxes and 
+to su er destructive English invasions, but otherwise it did 
+not bene t their wallets. In modern capitalist economies, 
+foreign trade and investments have become all-important. 
+
+
+
+Peace therefore brings unique dividends. As long as China 
+and the USA are at peace, the Chinese can prosper by 
+selling products to the USA, trading in Wall Street and 
+receiving US investments. 
+
+Last but not least, a tectonic shift has taken place in global 
+political culture. 
+
+Many elites in history - Hun chieftains, Viking noblemen and 
+Aztec priests, for example - viewed war as a positive good. 
+Others viewed it as evil, but an inevitable one, which we had 
+better turn to our own advantage. Ours is the rst time in 
+history that the world is dominated by a peace-loving elite - 
+politicians, business people, intellectuals and artists who 
+genuinely see war as both evil and avoidable. (There were 
+paci sts in the past, such as the early Christians, but in the 
+rare cases that they gained power, they tended to forget 
+about their requirement to 'turn the other cheek'.) 
+
+There is a positive feedback loop between all these four 
+factors. The threat of nuclear holocaust fosters paci sm; 
+when paci sm spreads, war recedes and trade ourishes; and 
+trade increases both the pro ts of peace and the costs of war. 
+Over time, this feedback loop creates another obstacle to 
+war, which may ultimately prove the most important of all. 
+The tightening web of international connections erodes the 
+independence of most countries, lessening the chance that 
+any one of them might single-handedly let slip the dogs of 
+war. Most countries no longer engage in full-scale war for the 
+simple reason that they are no longer independent. Though 
+citizens in Israel, Italy, Mexico or Thailand may harbour 
+illusions of independence, the fact is that their governments 
+cannot conduct independent economic or foreign policies, 
+and they are certainly incapable of initiating and conducting 
+full-scale war on their own. As explained in Chapter 11 . we 
+are witnessing the formation of a global empire. Like 
+
+
+
+
+previous empires, this one, too, enforces peace within its 
+borders. And since its borders cover the entire globe, the 
+World Empire effectively enforces world peace. 
+
+So, is the modern era one of mindless slaughter, war and 
+oppression, typi ed by the trenches of World War One, the 
+nuclear mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and 
+
+the gory manias of Hitler and Stalin? Or is it an era of peace, 
+epitomised by the trenches never dug in South America, the 
+mushroom clouds that never appeared over Moscow and 
+New York, and the serene visages of Mahatma Gandhi and 
+Martin Luther King? 
+
+The answer is a matter of timing. It is sobering to realise how 
+often our view of the past is distorted by events of the last 
+few years. If this chapter had been written in 1945 or 1962, 
+it would probably have been much more glum. Since it was 
+written in 2014, it takes a relatively buoyant approach to 
+modern history. 
+
+To satisfy both optimists and pessimists, we may conclude 
+by saying that we are on the threshold of both heaven and 
+hell, moving nervously between the gateway of the one and 
+the anteroom of the other. History has still not decided 
+where we will end up, and a string of coincidences might yet 
+send us rolling in either direction. 
+
+^_An 'intimate community' is a group of people who know 
+one another wel and depend on each other for survival. 
+
+19 
+
+And They Lived Happily Ever After 
+
+THE LAST 500 YEARS HAVE WITNESSED A breathtaking 
+series of revolutions. The earth has been united into a single 
+
+
+ecological and historical sphere. The economy has grown 
+exponentially, and humankind today enjoys the kind of 
+wealth that used to be the stu of fairy tales. Science and the 
+Industrial Revolution have given humankind superhuman 
+powers and practically limitless energy. The social order has 
+been completely transformed, as have politics, daily life and 
+human psychology. 
+
+But are we happier? Did the wealth humankind accumulated 
+over the last ve 
+
+centuries translate into a new-found contentment? Did the 
+discovery of inexhaustible energy resources open before us 
+inexhaustible stores of bliss? Going further back, have the 
+seventy or so turbulent millennia since the Cognitive 
+Revolution made the world a better place to live? Was the 
+late Neil Armstrong, whose footprint remains intact on the 
+windless moon, happier than the nameless hunter-gatherer 
+who 30,000 years ago left her handprint on a wall in 
+Chauvet Cave? If not, what was the point of developing 
+agriculture, cities, writing, coinage, empires, science and 
+industry? 
+
+Historians seldom ask such questions. They do not ask 
+whether the citizens of Uruk and Babylon were happier than 
+their foraging ancestors, whether the rise of Islam made 
+Egyptians more pleased with their lives, or how the collapse 
+of the European empires in Africa have in uenced the 
+happiness of countless millions. 
+
+Yet these are the most important questions one can ask of 
+history. Most current ideologies and political programmes are 
+based on rather imsy ideas concerning the real source of 
+human happiness. Nationalists believe that political self- 
+determination is essential for our happiness. Communists 
+postulate that everyone would be blissful under the 
+
+
+
+dictatorship of the proletariat. Capitalists maintain that only 
+the free market can ensure the greatest happiness of the 
+greatest number, by creating economic growth and material 
+abundance and by teaching people to be self-reliant and 
+enterprising. 
+
+What would happen if serious research were to disprove 
+these hypotheses? If economic growth and self-reliance do 
+not make people happier, what's the bene t of Capitalism? 
+What if it turns out that the subjects of large empires are 
+generally 
+
+happier than the citizens of independent states and that, for 
+example, Algerians were happier under French rule than 
+under their own? What would that say about the process of 
+decolonisation and the value of national self-determination? 
+
+These are all hypothetical possibilities, because so far 
+historians have avoided raising these questions - not to 
+mention answering them. They have researched the history 
+of just about everything politics, society, economics, gender, 
+diseases, sexuality, food, clothing - yet they have seldom 
+stopped to ask how these influence human happiness. 
+
+Though few have studied the long-term history of happiness, 
+almost every scholar and layperson has some vague 
+preconception about it. In one common view, human 
+capabilities have increased throughout history. Since 
+humans generally use their capabilities to alleviate miseries 
+and ful I aspirations, it follows that we must be happier than 
+our medieval ancestors, and they must have been happier 
+than Stone Age hunter-gatherers. 
+
+But this progressive account is unconvincing. As we have 
+seen, new aptitudes, behaviours and skills do not 
+necessarily make for a better life. When humans learned to 
+
+
+
+farm in the Agricultural Revolution, their collective power to 
+shape their environment increased, but the lot of many 
+individual humans grew harsher. 
+
+Peasants had to work harder than foragers to eke out less 
+varied and nutritious food, and they were far more exposed 
+to disease and exploitation. Similarly, the spread of 
+European empires greatly increased the collective power of 
+humankind, by circulating ideas, technologies and crops, 
+and opening new avenues of commerce. Yet this was hardly 
+good news for millions of Africans, Native Americans and 
+Aboriginal Australians. Given the proven human propensity 
+for misusing power, it seems naive to believe that the more 
+clout people have, the happier they will be. 
+
+Some challengers of this view take a diametrically opposed 
+position. They argue for a reverse correlation between 
+human capabilities and happiness. Power corrupts, they say, 
+and as humankind gained more and more power, it created a 
+cold mechanistic world ill-suited to our real needs. Evolution 
+moulded our minds and bodies to the life of hunter- 
+gatherers. The transition rst to agriculture and then to 
+industry has condemned us to living unnatural lives that 
+cannot give full expression to our inherent inclinations and 
+instincts, and therefore cannot satisfy our deepest 
+yearnings. Nothing in the comfortable lives of the urban 
+middle class can approach the wild excitement and sheer 
+joy experienced by a forager band on a successful mammoth 
+hunt. Every new invention just puts another mile between 
+us and the Garden of Eden. 
+
+Yet this romantic insistence on seeing a dark shadow behind 
+each invention is as dogmatic as the belief in the 
+inevitability of progress. Perhaps we are out of touch with 
+our inner hunter-gatherer, but it's not all bad. For instance, 
+over the 
+
+
+
+last two centuries modern medicine has decreased child 
+mortality from 33 per cent to less than 5 per cent. Can 
+anyone doubt that this made a huge contribution to the 
+happiness not only of those children who would otherwise 
+have died, but also of their families and friends? 
+
+A more nuanced position takes the middle road. Until the 
+Scienti c Revolution there was no clear correlation between 
+power and happiness. Medieval peasants may indeed have 
+been more miserable than their hunter-gatherer forebears. 
+But in the last few centuries humans have learned to use 
+their capacities more wisely. 
+
+The triumphs of modern medicine are just one example. 
+Other unprecedented achievements include the steep drop 
+in violence, the virtual disappearance of international wars, 
+and the near elimination of large-scale famines. 
+
+Yet this, too, is an oversimpli cation. Firstly, it bases its 
+optimistic assessment on a very small sample of years. The 
+majority of humans began to enjoy the fruits of modern 
+medicine no earlier than 1850, and the drastic drop in child 
+mortality is a twentieth-century phenomenon. Mass famines 
+continued to blight much of humanity up to the middle of 
+the twentieth century. During Communist Chinas Great Leap 
+Forward of 1958-61, somewhere between 10 and 50 million 
+human beings starved to death. International wars became 
+rare only after 1945, largely thanks to the new threat of 
+nuclear annihilation. Hence, though the last few decades 
+have been an unprecedented golden age for humanity, it is 
+too early to know whether this represents a fundamental 
+shift in the currents of history or an ephemeral eddy of good 
+fortune. When judging modernity, it is all too tempting to 
+take the viewpoint of a twenty- rst-century middle-class 
+Westerner. We must not forget the viewpoints of a 
+nineteenth-century Welsh coal miner, Chinese opium addict 
+
+
+
+or Tasmanian Aborigine. Truganini is no less important than 
+Homer Simpson. 
+
+Secondly, even the brief golden age of the last half-century 
+may turn out to have sown the seeds of future catastrophe. 
+Over the last few decades, we have been disturbing the 
+ecological equilibrium of our planet in myriad new ways, 
+with what seem likely to be dire consequences. A lot of 
+evidence indicates that we are destroying the foundations of 
+human prosperity in an orgy of reckless consumption. 
+
+Finally, we can congratulate ourselves on the 
+unprecedented accomplishments of modern Sapiens only if 
+we completely ignore the fate of all other animals. 
+
+Much of the vaunted material wealth that shields us from 
+disease and famine was accumulated at the expense of 
+laboratory monkeys, dairy cows and conveyor-belt chickens. 
+Over the last two centuries tens of billions of them have 
+been subjected to a regime of industrial exploitation whose 
+cruelty has no precedent in the annals of planet Earth. If we 
+accept a mere tenth of what animal-rights activists are 
+claiming, then modern industrial agriculture might well be 
+the greatest crime in 
+
+history. When evaluating global happiness, it is wrong to 
+count the happiness only of the upper classes, of Europeans 
+or of men. Perhaps it is also wrong to consider only the 
+happiness of humans. 
+
+Counting Happiness 
+
+So far we have discussed happiness as if it were largely a 
+product of material factors, such as health, diet and wealth. 
+
+If people are richer and healthier, then they must also be 
+happier. But is that really so obvious? Philosophers, priests 
+and poets have brooded over the nature of happiness for 
+
+
+
+millennia, and many have concluded that social, ethical and 
+spiritual factors have as great an impact on our happiness as 
+material conditions. Perhaps people in modern a uent 
+societies su er greatly from alienation and meaninglessness 
+despite their prosperity. And perhaps our less well-to-do 
+ancestors found much contentment in community, religion 
+and a bond with nature. 
+
+In recent decades, psychologists and biologists have taken 
+up the challenge of studying scienti cally what really makes 
+people happy. Is it money, family, genetics or perhaps 
+virtue? The rst step is to de ne what is to be measured. The 
+generally accepted de nition of happiness is 'subjective well- 
+being'. Happiness, according to this view, is something I feel 
+inside myself, a sense of either immediate pleasure or long¬ 
+term contentment with the way my life is going. If it's 
+something felt inside, how can it be measured from outside? 
+Presumably, we can do so by asking people to tell us how 
+they feel. So psychologists or biologists who want to assess 
+how happy people feel give them questionnaires to II out 
+and tally the results. 
+
+A typical subjective well-being questionnaire asks 
+interviewees to grade on a scale of zero to ten their 
+agreement with statements such as 'I feel pleased with the 
+way I am', 'I feel that life is very rewarding', 'I am optimistic 
+about the future' 
+
+and 'Life is good'. The researcher then adds up all the 
+answers and calculates the interviewee's general level of 
+subjective well-being. 
+
+Such questionnaires are used in order to correlate happiness 
+with various objective factors. One study might compare a 
+thousand people who earn $100,000 
+
+
+
+a year with a thousand people who earn $50,000. If the 
+study discovers that the rst group has an average subjective 
+well-being level of 8.7, while the latter has an average of 
+only 7.3, the researcher may reasonably conclude that there 
+is a positive correlation between wealth and subjective well¬ 
+being. To put it in simple English, money brings happiness. 
+The same method can be used to examine whether people 
+living in democracies are happier than people living in 
+
+dictatorships, and whether married people are happier than 
+singles, divorcees or widowers. 
+
+This provides a grounding for historians, who can examine 
+wealth, political freedom and divorce rates in the past. If 
+people are happier in democracies and married people are 
+happier than divorcees, a historian has a basis for arguing 
+that the democratisation process of the last few decades 
+contributed to the happiness of humankind, whereas the 
+growing rates of divorce indicate an opposite trend. 
+
+This way of thinking is not awless, but before pointing out 
+some of the holes, it is worth considering the findings. 
+
+One interesting conclusion is that money does indeed bring 
+happiness. But only up to a point, and beyond that point it 
+has little signi cance. For people stuck at the bottom of the 
+economic ladder, more money means greater happiness. If 
+you are an American single mother earning $12,000 a year 
+cleaning houses and you suddenly win $500,000 in the 
+lottery, you will probably experience a signi cant and long¬ 
+term surge in your subjective well-being. You'll be able to 
+feed and clothe your children without sinking further into 
+debt. However, if you're a top executive earning $250,000 a 
+year and you win $1 million in the lottery, or your company 
+board suddenly decides to double your salary, your surge is 
+likely to last only a few weeks. According to the empirical 
+
+
+
+ndings, it's almost certainly not going to make a big di 
+erence to the way you feel over the long run. You'll buy a 
+snazzier car, move into a palatial home, get used to drinking 
+Chateau Petrus instead of California Cabernet, but it'll soon 
+all seem routine and unexceptional. 
+
+Another interesting nding is that illness decreases happiness 
+in the short term, but is a source of long-term distress only if 
+a person's condition is constantly deteriorating or if the 
+disease involves ongoing and debilitating pain. People who 
+are diagnosed with chronic illness such as diabetes are 
+usually depressed for a while, but if the illness does not get 
+worse they adjust to their new condition and rate their 
+happiness as highly as healthy people do. Imagine that Lucy 
+and Luke are middle-class twins, who agree to take part in a 
+subjective well-being study. On the way back from the 
+psychology laboratory, Lucy's car is hit by a bus, leaving 
+Lucy with a number of broken bones and a permanently 
+lame leg. Just as the rescue crew is cutting her out of the 
+wreckage, the phone rings and Luke shouts that he has won 
+the lottery's $10,000,000 jackpot. Two years later she'll be 
+limping and he'll be a lot richer, but when the psychologist 
+comes around for a follow-up study, they are both likely to 
+give the same answers they did on the morning of that 
+fateful day. 
+
+Family and community seem to have more impact on our 
+happiness than money 
+
+and health. People with strong families who live in tight-knit 
+and supportive communities are signi cantly happier than 
+people whose families are dysfunctional and who have never 
+found (or never sought) a community to be 
+
+part of. Marriage is particularly important. Repeated studies 
+have found that there is a very close correlation between 
+
+
+
+good marriages and high subjective well-being, and 
+between bad marriages and misery. This holds true 
+irrespective of economic or even physical conditions. An 
+impecunious invalid surrounded by a loving spouse, a 
+devoted family and a warm community may well feel better 
+than an alienated billionaire, provided that the invalid's 
+poverty is not too severe and that his illness is not 
+degenerative or painful. 
+
+This raises the possibility that the immense improvement in 
+material conditions over the last two centuries was o set by 
+the collapse of the family and the community. If so, the 
+average person might well be no happier today than in 
+1800. Even the freedom we value so highly may be working 
+against us. We can choose our spouses, friends and 
+neighbours, but they can choose to leave us. With the 
+individual wielding unprecedented power to decide her own 
+path in life, we nd it ever harder to make commitments. We 
+thus live in an increasingly lonely world of unravelling 
+communities and families. 
+
+But the most important nding of all is that happiness does 
+not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, 
+health or even community. Rather, it depends on the 
+correlation between objective conditions and subjective 
+expectations. If you want a bullock-cart and get a bullock- 
+cart, you are content. If you want a brand-new Ferrari and 
+get only a second-hand Fiat you feel deprived. 
+
+This is why winning the lottery has, over time, the same 
+impact on people's happiness as a debilitating car accident. 
+When things improve, expectations balloon, and 
+consequently even dramatic improvements in objective 
+conditions can leave us dissatis ed. When things deteriorate, 
+expectations shrink, and consequently even a severe illness 
+might leave you pretty much as happy as you were before. 
+
+
+
+You might say that we didn't need a bunch of psychologists 
+and their questionnaires to discover this. Prophets, poets 
+and philosophers realised thousands of years ago that being 
+satis ed with what you already have is far more important 
+than getting more of what you want. Still, it's nice when 
+modern research - bolstered by lots of numbers and charts - 
+reaches the same conclusions the ancients did. 
+
+The crucial importance of human expectations has far- 
+reaching implications for understanding the history of 
+happiness. If happiness depended only on objective 
+conditions such as wealth, health and social relations, it 
+would have been relatively easy to investigate its history. 
+The nding that it depends on subjective expectations makes 
+the task of historians far harder. We moderns have an 
+arsenal of tranquillisers and painkillers at our disposal, but 
+our expectations of ease and pleasure, and our intolerance 
+of inconvenience and discomfort, have increased to 
+
+such an extent that we may well su erfrom pain more than 
+our ancestors ever did.It's hard to accept this line of 
+thinking. The problem is a fallacy of reasoning embedded 
+deep in our psyches. When we try to guess or imagine how 
+happy other people are now, or how people in the past were, 
+we inevitably imagine ourselves in their shoes. But that 
+won't work because it pastes our expectations on to the 
+material conditions of others. In modern a uent societies it is 
+customary to take a shower and change your clothes every 
+day. Medieval peasants went without washing for months on 
+end, and hardly ever changed their clothes. The very 
+thought of living like that, Ithy and reeking to the bone, is 
+abhorrent to us. Yet medieval peasants seem not to have 
+minded. They were used to the feel and smell of a long- 
+unlaundered shirt. It's not that they wanted a change of 
+clothes but couldn't get it - they had what they wanted. So, 
+at least as far as clothing goes, they were content. 
+
+
+
+That's not so surprising, when you think of it. After all, our 
+chimpanzee cousins seldom wash and never change their 
+clothes. Nor are we disgusted by the fact that our pet dogs 
+and cats don't shower or change their coats daily. We pat, 
+hug and kiss them all the same. Small children in a uent 
+societies often dislike showering, and it takes them years of 
+education and parental discipline to adopt this supposedly 
+attractive custom. It is all a matter of expectations. 
+
+If happiness is determined by expectations, then two pillars 
+of our society - 
+
+mass media and the advertising industry - may unwittingly 
+be depleting the globe's reservoirs of contentment. If you 
+were an eighteen-year-old youth in a small village 5,000 
+years ago you'd probably think you were good-looking 
+because there were only fty other men in your village and 
+most of them were either old, scarred and wrinkled, or still 
+little kids. But if you are a teenager today you are a lot more 
+likely to feel inadequate. Even if the other guys at school are 
+an ugly lot, you don't measure yourself against them but 
+against the movie stars, athletes and supermodels you see 
+all day on television, Facebook and giant billboards. 
+
+So maybe Third World discontent is fomented not merely by 
+poverty, disease, corruption and political oppression but also 
+by mere exposure to First World standards. The average 
+Egyptian was far less likely to die from starvation, plague or 
+violence under Hosni Mubarak than under Ramses II or 
+Cleopatra. Never had the material condition of most 
+Egyptians been so good. You'd think they would have been 
+dancing in the streets in 2011, thanking Allah for their good 
+fortune. 
+
+Instead they rose up furiously to overthrow Mubarak. They 
+weren't comparing themselves to their ancestors under the 
+
+
+
+pharaohs, but rather to their contemporaries in Obama's 
+America. 
+
+
+If that's the case, even immortality might lead to discontent. 
+Suppose science comes up with cures for all diseases, e 
+ective anti-ageing therapies and 
+
+
+
+regenerative treatments that keep people inde nitely young. 
+In all likelihood, the immediate result will be an 
+unprecedented epidemic of anger and anxiety. 
+
+Those unable to a ord the new miracle treatments - the vast 
+majority of people 
+
+- will be beside themselves with rage. Throughout history, 
+the poor and oppressed comforted themselves with the 
+thought that at least death is even-handed - that the rich 
+and powerful will also die. The poor will not be comfortable 
+with the thought that they have to die, while the rich will 
+remain young and beautiful for ever. 
+
+
+
+
+45. In previous eras the standard of beauty was set 
+by the handful of people who lived next door to you. 
+
+Today the media and the fashion industry expose us 
+to a totally unrealistic standard of beauty. They 
+search out the most gorgeous people on the planet, 
+and then parade them constantly before our eyes. 
+
+No wonder we are far less happy with the way we 
+look. 
+
+But the tiny minority able to a ord the new treatments will 
+not be euphoric either. They will have much to be anxious 
+about. Although the new therapies could extend life and 
+youth, they cannot revive corpses. How dreadful to think 
+that I and my loved ones can live for ever, but only if we 
+don't get hit by a truck or blown to smithereens by a 
+terrorist! Potentially a-mortal people are likely to grow 
+averse to taking even the slightest risk, and the agony of 
+losing a spouse, child or close friend will be unbearable. 
+
+Chemical Happiness 
+
+Social scientists distribute subjective well-being 
+questionnaires and correlate the results with socio-economic 
+factors such as wealth and political freedom. Biologists use 
+the same questionnaires, but correlate the answers people 
+give them with biochemical and genetic factors. Their 
+findings are shocking. 
+
+Biologists hold that our mental and emotional world is 
+governed by biochemical mechanisms shaped by millions of 
+years of evolution. Like all other mental states, our 
+subjective well-being is not determined by external 
+parameters such as salary, social relations or political rights. 
+Rather, it is determined by a complex system of nerves, 
+
+
+
+neurons, synapses and various biochemical substances such 
+as serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. 
+
+Nobody is ever made happy by winning the lottery, buying a 
+house, getting a promotion or even nding true love. People 
+are made happy by one thing and one thing only - pleasant 
+sensations in their bodies. A person who just won the lottery 
+or found new love and jumps from joy is not really reacting 
+to the money or the lover. She is reacting to various 
+hormones coursing through her bloodstream, and to the 
+storm of electric signals ashing between di erent parts of her 
+brain. 
+
+Unfortunately for all hopes of creating heaven on earth, our 
+internal biochemical system seems to be programmed to 
+keep happiness levels relatively constant. There's no natural 
+selection for happiness as such - a happy hermit's genetic 
+line will go extinct as the genes of a pair of anxious parents 
+get carried on to the next generation. Happiness and misery 
+play a role in evolution only to the extent that they 
+encourage or discourage survival and reproduction. Perhaps 
+it's not surprising, then, that evolution has moulded us to be 
+neither too miserable nor too happy. It enables us to enjoy a 
+momentary rush of pleasant sensations, but these never last 
+for ever. Sooner or later they subside and give place to 
+unpleasant sensations. 
+
+For example, evolution provided pleasant feelings as 
+rewards to males who spread their genes by having sex with 
+fertile females. If sex were not accompanied by such 
+pleasure, few males would bother. At the same time, 
+evolution made sure that these pleasant feelings quickly 
+subsided. If orgasms were to last for ever, the very happy 
+males would die of hunger for lack of interest in food, and 
+would not take the trouble to look for additional fertile 
+females. 
+
+
+
+Some scholars compare human biochemistry to an air- 
+conditioning system that keeps the temperature constant, 
+come heatwave or snowstorm. Events might momentarily 
+change the temperature, but the air-conditioning system 
+always returns the temperature to the same set point. 
+
+Some air-conditioning systems are set at twenty- ve degrees 
+Celsius. Others are 
+
+set at twenty degrees. Human happiness conditioning 
+systems also di erfrom person to person. On a scale from 
+one to ten, some people are born with a cheerful 
+biochemical system that allows their mood to swing between 
+levels six and ten, stabilising with time at eight. Such a 
+person is quite happy even if she lives in an alienating big 
+city, loses all her money in a stock-exchange crash and is 
+diagnosed with diabetes. Other people are cursed with a 
+gloomy biochemistry that swings between three and seven 
+and stabilises at ve. Such an unhappy person remains 
+depressed even if she enjoys the support of a tight-knit 
+community, wins millions in the lottery and is as healthy as 
+an Olympic athlete. Indeed, even if our gloomy friend wins 
+$50,000,000 in the morning, discovers the cure for both 
+AIDS 
+
+and cancer by noon, makes peace between Israelis and 
+Palestinians that afternoon, and then in the evening reunites 
+with her long-lost child who disappeared years ago - she 
+would still be incapable of experiencing anything beyond 
+level seven happiness. Her brain is simply not built for 
+exhilaration, come what may. 
+
+Think for a moment of your family and friends. You know 
+some people who remain relatively joyful, no matter what 
+befalls them. And then there are those who are always 
+disgruntled, no matter what gifts the world lays at their feet. 
+
+
+
+We tend to believe that if we could just change our 
+workplace, get married, nish writing that novel, buy a new 
+car or repay the mortgage, we would be on top of the world. 
+Yet when we get what we desire we don't seem to be any 
+happier. 
+
+Buying cars and writing novels do not change our 
+biochemistry. They can startle it for a fleeting moment, but it 
+is soon back to its set point. 
+
+How can this be squared with the above-mentioned 
+psychological and sociological ndings that, for example, 
+married people are happier on average than singles? 
+
+First, these ndings are correlations - the direction of 
+causation may be the opposite of what some researchers 
+have assumed. It is true that married people are happier 
+than singles and divorcees, but that does not necessarily 
+mean that marriage produces happiness. It could be that 
+happiness causes marriage. Or more correctly, that 
+serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin bring about and maintain 
+a marriage. People who are born with a cheerful 
+biochemistry are generally happy and content. Such people 
+are more attractive spouses, and consequently they have a 
+greater chance of getting married. They are also less likely 
+to divorce, because it is far easier to live with a happy and 
+content spouse than with a depressed and dissatis ed one. 
+Consequently, it's true that married people are happier on 
+average than singles, but a single woman prone to gloom 
+because of her biochemistry would not necessarily become 
+happier if she were to hook up with a husband. 
+
+In addition, most biologists are not fanatics. They maintain 
+that happiness is 
+
+
+
+determined mainly by biochemistry, but they agree that 
+psychological and sociological factors also have their place. 
+Our mental air-conditioning system has some freedom of 
+movement within predetermined borders. It is almost 
+impossible to exceed the upper and lower emotional 
+boundaries, but marriage and divorce can have an impact in 
+the area between the two. Somebody born with an average 
+of level ve happiness would never dance wildly in the 
+streets. But a good marriage should enable her to enjoy 
+level seven from time to time, and to avoid the despondency 
+of level three. 
+
+If we accept the biological approach to happiness, then 
+history turns out to be of minor importance, since most 
+historical events have had no impact on our biochemistry. 
+History can change the external stimuli that cause serotonin 
+to be secreted, yet it does not change the resulting 
+serotonin levels, and hence it cannot make people happier. 
+
+Compare a medieval French peasant to a modern Parisian 
+banker. The peasant 
+
+lived in an unheated mud hut overlooking the local pigsty, 
+while the banker goes home to a splendid penthouse with all 
+the latest technological gadgets and a view to the Champs- 
+Elysees. Intuitively, we would expect the banker to be much 
+happier than the peasant. However, mud huts, penthouses 
+and the Champs-Elysees don't really determine our mood. 
+Serotonin does. When the medieval peasant completed the 
+construction of his mud hut, his brain neurons secreted 
+serotonin, bringing it up to level X. When in 2014 the banker 
+made the last payment on his wonderful penthouse, brain 
+neurons secreted a similar amount of serotonin, bringing it 
+up to a similar level X. It makes no di erence to the brain 
+that the penthouse is far more comfortable than the mud 
+hut. The only thing that matters is that at present the level 
+
+
+
+of serotonin is X. Consequently the banker would not be one 
+iota happier than his great-great-great-grandfather, the poor 
+medieval peasant. 
+
+This is true not only of private lives, but also of great 
+collective events. Take, for example, the French Revolution. 
+The revolutionaries were busy: they executed the king, gave 
+lands to the peasants, declared the rights of man, abolished 
+noble privileges and waged war against the whole of Europe. 
+Yet none of that changed French biochemistry. 
+
+Consequently, despite all the political, social, ideological 
+and economic upheavals brought about by the revolution, 
+its impact on French happiness was small. Those who won a 
+cheerful biochemistry in the genetic lottery were just as 
+happy before the revolution as after. Those with a gloomy 
+biochemistry complained about Robespierre and Napoleon 
+with the same bitterness with which they earlier complained 
+about Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. 
+
+If so, what good was the French Revolution? If people did not 
+become any happier, then what was the point of all that 
+chaos, fear, blood and war? Biologists 
+
+would never have stormed the Bastille. People think that 
+this political revolution or that social reform will make them 
+happy, but their biochemistry tricks them time and again. 
+
+There is only one historical development that has real 
+significance. Today, when we nally realise that the keys to 
+happiness are in the hands of our biochemical system, we 
+can stop wasting our time on politics and social reforms, 
+putsches and ideologies, and focus instead on the only thing 
+that can make us truly happy: manipulating our 
+biochemistry. If we invest billions in understanding our brain 
+chemistry and developing appropriate treatments, we can 
+make people far happier than ever before, without any need 
+
+
+
+of revolutions. Prozac, for example, does not change 
+regimes, but by raising serotonin levels it lifts people out of 
+their depression. 
+
+Nothing captures the biological argument better than the 
+famous New Age slogan: 'Happiness Begins Within.' Money, 
+social status, plastic surgery, beautiful houses, powerful 
+positions - none of these will bring you happiness. Lasting 
+happiness comes only from serotonin, dopamine and 
+oxytocin. 1 
+
+In Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel Brave New World, 
+published in 1932 at the height of the Great Depression, 
+happiness is the supreme value and psychiatric drugs 
+replace the police and the ballot as the foundation of 
+politics. Each day, each person takes a dose of 'soma', a 
+synthetic drug which makes people happy without harming 
+their productivity and e ciency. The World State that governs 
+the entire globe is never threatened by wars, revolutions, 
+strikes or demonstrations, because all people are supremely 
+content with their current conditions, whatever they may be. 
+Huxley's vision of the future is far more troubling than 
+George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Huxley's world seems 
+monstrous to most readers, but it is hard to explain why. 
+Everybody is happy all the time - what could be wrong with 
+that? 
+
+The Meaning of Life 
+
+Huxley's disconcerting world is based on the biological 
+assumption that happiness equals pleasure. To be happy is 
+no more and no less than experiencing pleasant bodily 
+sensations. Since our biochemistry limits the volume and 
+duration of these sensations, the only way to make people 
+experience a high level of happiness over an extended 
+period of time is to manipulate their biochemical system. 
+
+
+But that de nition of happiness is contested by some 
+scholars. In a famous study, Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 
+Nobel Prize in economics, asked people to recount a typical 
+work day, going through it episode by episode and 
+evaluating 
+
+how much they enjoyed or disliked each moment. He 
+discovered what seems to be a paradox in most people's 
+view of their lives. Take the work involved in raising a child. 
+Kahneman found that when counting moments of joy and 
+moments of drudgery, bringing up a child turns out to be a 
+rather unpleasant a air. It consists largely of changing 
+nappies, washing dishes and dealing with temper tantrums, 
+which nobody likes to do. Yet most parents declare that their 
+children are their chief source of happiness. Does it mean 
+that people don't really know what's good for them? 
+
+That's one option. Another is that the findings demonstrate 
+that happiness is not the surplus of pleasant over 
+unpleasant moments. Rather, happiness consists in seeing 
+one's life in its entirety as meaningful and worthwhile. There 
+is an important cognitive and ethical component to 
+happiness. Our values make all the di erence to whether we 
+see ourselves as 'miserable slaves to a baby dictator' or as 
+'lovingly nurturing a new life'. 2_As Nietzsche put it, if you 
+have a why to live, you can bear almost any how. A 
+meaningful life can be extremely satisfying even in the 
+midst of hardship, whereas a meaningless life is a terrible 
+ordeal no matter how comfortable it is. 
+
+Though people in all cultures and eras have felt the same 
+type of pleasures and pains, the meaning they have 
+ascribed to their experiences has probably varied widely. If 
+so, the history of happiness might have been far more 
+turbulent than biologists imagine. It's a conclusion that does 
+not necessarily favour modernity. 
+
+
+Assessing life minute by minute, medieval people certainly 
+had it rough. However, if they believed the promise of 
+everlasting bliss in the afterlife, they may well have viewed 
+their lives as far more meaningful and worthwhile than 
+modern secular people, who in the long term can expect 
+nothing but complete and meaningless oblivion. Asked 'Are 
+you satis ed with your life as a whole?', people in the Middle 
+Ages might have scored quite highly in a subjective well¬ 
+being questionnaire. 
+
+So our medieval ancestors were happy because they found 
+meaning to life in collective delusions about the afterlife? 
+Yes. As long as nobody punctured their fantasies, why 
+shouldn't they? As far as we can tell, from a purely scienti c 
+viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans 
+are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that 
+operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of 
+some divine cosmic plan, and if planet Earth were to blow up 
+tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going 
+about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this 
+point, human subjectivity would not be missed. 
+
+Hence any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just 
+a delusion. The other-worldly meanings medieval people 
+found in their lives were no more deluded than the modern 
+humanist, nationalist and capitalist meanings modern 
+people nd. 
+
+The scientist who says her life is meaningful because she 
+increases the store of 
+
+human knowledge, the soldier who declares that his life is 
+meaningful because he ghts to defend his homeland, and 
+the entrepreneur who nds meaning in building a new 
+company are no less delusional than their medieval 
+
+
+
+counterparts who found meaning in reading scriptures, 
+going on a crusade or building a new cathedral. 
+
+So perhaps happiness is synchronising one's personal 
+delusions of meaning with the prevailing collective 
+delusions. As long as my personal narrative is in line with 
+the narratives of the people around me, I can convince 
+myself that my life is meaningful, and find happiness in that 
+conviction. 
+
+This is quite a depressing conclusion. Does happiness really 
+depend on self-delusion? 
+
+Know Thyself 
+
+If happiness is based on feeling pleasant sensations, then in 
+order to be happier we need to re-engineer our biochemical 
+system. If happiness is based on feeling that life is 
+meaningful, then in order to be happier we need to delude 
+ourselves more effectively. Is there a third alternative? 
+
+Both the above views share the assumption that happiness 
+is some sort of subjective feeling (of either pleasure or 
+meaning), and that in order to judge people's happiness, all 
+we need to do is ask them how they feel. To many of us, that 
+seems logical because the dominant religion of our age is 
+liberalism. 
+
+Liberalism sancti es the subjective feelings of individuals. It 
+views these feelings as the supreme source of authority. 
+What is good and what is bad, what is beautiful and what is 
+ugly, what ought to be and what ought not to be, are all 
+determined by what each one of us feels. 
+
+Liberal politics is based on the idea that the voters know 
+best, and there is no need for Big Brother to tell us what is 
+good for us. Liberal economics is based on the idea that the 
+
+
+
+customer is always right. Liberal art declares that beauty is 
+in the eye of the beholder. Students in liberal schools and 
+universities are taught to think for themselves. Commercials 
+urge us to 'Just do it!' Action Ims, stage dramas, soap operas, 
+novels and catchy pop songs indoctrinate us constantly: 'Be 
+true to yourself, 'Listen to yourself, 'Follow your heart'. 
+Jean-Jacques Rousseau stated this view most classically: 
+'What I feel to be good - is good. What I feel to be bad - 
+
+is bad.' 
+
+People who have been raised from infancy on a diet of such 
+slogans are prone to believe that happiness is a subjective 
+feeling and that each individual best knows whether she is 
+happy or miserable. Yet this view is unique to liberalism. 
+
+Most religions and ideologies throughout history stated that 
+there are objective yardsticks for goodness and beauty, and 
+for how things ought to be. They were suspicious of the 
+feelings and preferences of the ordinary person. At the 
+entrance of the temple of Apollo at Delphi, pilgrims were 
+greeted by the inscription: 'Know thyself!' The implication 
+was that the average person is ignorant of his true self, and 
+is therefore likely to be ignorant of true happiness. Freud 
+would probably concur. * 
+
+And so would Christian theologians. St Paul and St 
+Augustine knew perfectly well that if you asked people 
+about it, most of them would prefer to have sex than pray to 
+God. Does that prove that having sex is the key to 
+happiness? Not according to Paul and Augustine. It proves 
+only that humankind is sinful by nature, and that people are 
+easily seduced by Satan. From a Christian viewpoint, the 
+vast majority of people are in more or less the same 
+situation as heroin addicts. Imagine that a psychologist 
+embarks on a study of happiness among drug users. He polls 
+
+
+them and nds that they declare, every single one of them, 
+that they are only happy when they shoot up. Would the 
+psychologist publish a paper declaring that heroin is the key 
+to happiness? 
+
+The idea that feelings are not to be trusted is not restricted 
+to Christianity. At least when it comes to the value of 
+feelings, even Darwin and Dawkins might nd common 
+ground with St Paul and St Augustine. According to the sel 
+sh gene theory, natural selection makes people, like other 
+organisms, choose what is good for the reproduction of their 
+genes, even if it is bad for them as individuals. Most males 
+spend their lives toiling, worrying, competing and ghting, 
+instead of enjoying peaceful bliss, because their DNA 
+manipulates them for its own sel sh aims. Like Satan, DNA 
+uses eeting pleasures to tempt people and place them in its 
+power. 
+
+Most religions and philosophies have consequently taken a 
+very di erent approach to happiness than liberalism does. 3 
+The Buddhist position is particularly interesting. Buddhism 
+has assigned the question of happiness more importance 
+than perhaps any other human creed. For 2,500 years, 
+Buddhists have systematically studied the essence and 
+causes of happiness, which is why there is a growing interest 
+among the scienti c community both in their philosophy and 
+their meditation practices. 
+
+Buddhism shares the basic insight of the biological approach 
+to happiness, namely that happiness results from processes 
+occurring within one's body, and not from events in the 
+outside world. However, starting from the same insight, 
+Buddhism reaches very different conclusions. 
+
+According to Buddhism, most people identify happiness with 
+pleasant feelings, while identifying su ering with unpleasant 
+
+
+feelings. People consequently ascribe immense importance 
+to what they feel, craving to experience more and more 
+
+pleasures, while avoiding pain. Whatever we do throughout 
+our lives, whether scratching our leg, dgeting slightly in the 
+chair, or ghting world wars, we are just trying to get pleasant 
+feelings. 
+
+The problem, according to Buddhism, is that our feelings are 
+no more than eeting vibrations, changing every moment, 
+like the ocean waves. If ve minutes ago I felt joyful and 
+purposeful, now these feelings are gone, and I might well 
+feel sad and dejected. So if I want to experience pleasant 
+feelings, I have to constantly chase them, while driving 
+away the unpleasant feelings. Even if I succeed, I 
+immediately have to start all over again, without ever 
+getting any lasting reward for my troubles. 
+
+What is so important about obtaining such ephemeral 
+prizes? Why struggle so hard to achieve something that 
+disappears almost as soon as it arises? According to 
+Buddhism, the root of su ering is neither the feeling of pain 
+nor of sadness nor even of meaninglessness. Rather, the real 
+root of su ering is this never-ending and pointless pursuit of 
+ephemeral feelings, which causes us to be in a constant 
+state of tension, restlessness and dissatisfaction. Due to this 
+pursuit, the mind is never satis ed. Even when experiencing 
+pleasure, it is not content, because it fears this feeling might 
+soon disappear, and craves that this feeling should stay and 
+intensify. 
+
+People are liberated from su ering not when they experience 
+this or that eeting pleasure, but rather when they 
+understand the impermanent nature of all their feelings, and 
+stop craving them. This is the aim of Buddhist meditation 
+practices. In meditation, you are supposed to closely 
+
+
+
+observe your mind and body, witness the ceaseless arising 
+and passing of all your feelings, and realise how pointless it 
+is to pursue them. When the pursuit stops, the mind 
+becomes very relaxed, clear and satis ed. All kinds of 
+feelings go on arising and passing - joy, anger, boredom, 
+lust - but once you stop craving particular feelings, you can 
+just accept them for what they are. You live in the present 
+moment instead of fantasising about what might have been. 
+
+The resulting serenity is so profound that those who spend 
+their lives in the frenzied pursuit of pleasant feelings can 
+hardly imagine it. It is like a man standing for decades on 
+the seashore, embracing certain 'good' waves and trying to 
+prevent them from disintegrating, while simultaneously 
+pushing back 'bad' 
+
+waves to prevent them from getting near him. Day in, day 
+out, the man stands on the beach, driving himself crazy with 
+this fruitless exercise. Eventually, he sits down on the sand 
+and just allows the waves to come and go as they please. 
+How peaceful! 
+
+This idea is so alien to modern liberal culture that when 
+Western New Age movements encountered Buddhist 
+insights, they translated them into liberal terms, thereby 
+turning them on their head. New Age cults frequently argue: 
+'Happiness 
+
+does not depend on external conditions. It depends only on 
+what we feel inside. 
+
+People should stop pursuing external achievements such as 
+wealth and status, and connect instead with their inner 
+feelings.' Or more succinctly, 'Happiness Begins Within.' 
+
+This is exactly what biologists argue, but more or less the 
+opposite of what Buddha said. 
+
+
+
+Buddha agreed with modern biology and New Age 
+movements that happiness is 
+
+independent of external conditions. Yet his more important 
+and far more profound insight was that true happiness is 
+also independent of our inner feelings. 
+
+Indeed, the more signi cance we give our feelings, the more 
+we crave them, and the more we su er. Buddha's 
+recommendation was to stop not only the pursuit of external 
+achievements, but also the pursuit of inner feelings. 
+
+To sum up, subjective well-being questionnaires identify our 
+well-being with our subjective feelings, and identify the 
+pursuit of happiness with the pursuit of particular emotional 
+states. In contrast, for many traditional philosophies and 
+religions, such as Buddhism, the key to happiness is to know 
+the truth about yourself - to understand who, or what, you 
+really are. Most people wrongly identify themselves with 
+their feelings, thoughts, likes and dislikes. When they feel 
+anger, they think, 'I am angry. This is my anger.' They 
+consequently spend their life avoiding some kinds of 
+feelings and pursuing others. They never realise that they 
+are not their feelings, and that the relentless pursuit of 
+particular feelings just traps them in misery. 
+
+If this is so, then our entire understanding of the history of 
+happiness might be misguided. Maybe it isn't so important 
+whether people's expectations are ful lied and whether they 
+enjoy pleasant feelings. The main question is whether 
+people know the truth about themselves. What evidence do 
+we have that people today understand this truth any better 
+than ancient foragers or medieval peasants? 
+
+Scholars began to study the history of happiness only a few 
+years ago, and we are still formulating initial hypotheses 
+
+
+
+and searching for appropriate research methods. It's much 
+too early to adopt rigid conclusions and end a debate that's 
+hardly yet begun. What is important is to get to know as 
+many di erent approaches as possible and to ask the right 
+questions. 
+
+Most history books focus on the ideas of great thinkers, the 
+bravery of warriors, the charity of saints and the creativity of 
+artists. They have much to tell about the weaving and 
+unravelling of social structures, about the rise and fall of 
+empires, about the discovery and spread of technologies. Yet 
+they say nothing about how all this in uenced the happiness 
+and su ering of individuals. This is the biggest lacuna in our 
+understanding of history. We had better start filling it. 
+
+^Paradoxical y, while psychological studies of subjective wel 
+-being rely on people's ability to diagnose their 
+
+happiness correctly, the basic raison d'etre of 
+psychotherapy is that people don't real y know themselves 
+and that they sometimes need professional help to free 
+themselves of self-destructive behaviours. 
+
+20 
+
+The End of Homo Sapiens 
+
+THIS BOOK BEGAN BY PRESENTING HISTORY as the next 
+stage in the continuum 
+
+of physics to chemistry to biology. Sapiens are subject to the 
+same physical forces, chemical reactions and natural- 
+selection processes that govern all living beings. 
+
+Natural selection may have provided Homo sapiens with a 
+much larger playing eld than it has given to any other 
+organism, but the eld has still had its boundaries. The 
+
+
+implication has been that, no matter what their e orts and 
+achievements, Sapiens are incapable of breaking free of 
+their biologically determined limits. 
+
+But at the dawn of the twenty- rst century, this is no longer 
+true: Homo sapiens is transcending those limits. It is now 
+beginning to break the laws of natural selection, replacing 
+them with the laws of intelligent design. 
+
+For close to 4 billion years, every single organism on the 
+planet evolved subject to natural selection. Not even one 
+was designed by an intelligent creator. The gira e, for 
+example, got its long neck thanks to competition between 
+archaic gira es rather than to the whims of a super- 
+intelligent being. Proto-gira es who had longer necks had 
+access to more food and consequently produced more o 
+spring than did those with shorter necks. Nobody, certainly 
+not the gira es, said, 'A long neck would enable gira es to 
+munch leaves o the treetops. Let's extend it.' The beauty of 
+Darwin's theory is that it does not need to assume an 
+intelligent designer to explain how giraffes ended up with 
+long necks. 
+
+For billions of years, intelligent design was not even an 
+option, because there was no intelligence which could 
+design things. Microorganisms, which until quite recently 
+were the only living things around, are capable of amazing 
+feats. A microorganism belonging to one species can 
+incorporate genetic codes from a completely di erent species 
+into its cell and thereby gain new capabilities, such as 
+resistance to antibiotics. Yet, as best we know, 
+microorganisms have no consciousness, no aims in life, and 
+no ability to plan ahead. 
+
+At some stage organisms such as gira es, dolphins, 
+chimpanzees and Neanderthals evolved consciousness and 
+
+
+
+the ability to plan ahead. But even if a Neanderthal 
+fantasised about fowls so fat and slow-moving that he could 
+just scoop them up whenever he was hungry, he had no way 
+of turning that fantasy 
+
+into reality. He had to hunt the birds that had been naturally 
+selected. 
+
+The rst crack in the old regime appeared about 10,000 years 
+ago, during the Agricultural Revolution. Sapiens who 
+dreamed of fat, slow-moving chickens discovered that if they 
+mated the fattest hen with the slowest cock, some of their o 
+spring would be both fat and slow. If you mated those o 
+spring with each other, you could produce a line of fat, slow 
+birds. It was a race of chickens unknown to nature, produced 
+by the intelligent design not of a god but of a human. 
+
+Still, compared to an all-powerful deity, Homo sapiens had 
+limited design skills. 
+
+Sapiens could use selective breeding to detour around and 
+accelerate the natural-selection processes that normally a 
+ected chickens, but they could not introduce completely 
+new characteristics that were absent from the genetic pool 
+of wild chickens. In a way, the relationship between Homo 
+sapiens and chickens was similar to many other symbiotic 
+relationships that have so often arisen on their own in 
+nature. Sapiens exerted peculiar selective pressures on 
+chickens that caused the fat and slow ones to proliferate, 
+just as pollinating bees select owers, causing the bright 
+colourful ones to proliferate. 
+
+Today, the 4-billion-year-old regime of natural selection is 
+facing a completely di erent challenge. In laboratories 
+throughout the world, scientists are engineering living 
+beings. They break the laws of natural selection with 
+
+
+
+impunity, unbridled even by an organisms original 
+characteristics. Eduardo Kac, a Brazilian bio-artist, decided 
+in 2000 to create a new work of art: a uorescent green 
+rabbit. 
+
+Kac contacted a French laboratory and o ered it a fee to 
+engineer a radiant bunny according to his speci cations. The 
+French scientists took a run-of-the-mill white rabbit embryo, 
+implanted in its DNA a gene taken from a green uorescent 
+jelly sh, and voila\ One green uorescent rabbit for le 
+monsieur. Kac named the rabbit Alba. 
+
+It is impossible to explain the existence of Alba through the 
+laws of natural selection. She is the product of intelligent 
+design. She is also a harbinger of things to come. If the 
+potential Alba signi es is realised in full - and if humankind 
+doesn't annihilate itself meanwhile - the Scienti c 
+Revolution might prove itself far greater than a mere 
+historical revolution. It may turn out to be the most 
+important biological revolution since the appearance of life 
+on earth. After 4 
+
+billion years of natural selection, Alba stands at the dawn of 
+a new cosmic era, in which life will be ruled by intelligent 
+design. If this happens, the whole of human history up to 
+that point might, with hindsight, be reinterpreted as a 
+process of experimentation and apprenticeship that 
+revolutionised the game of life. Such a process should be 
+understood from a cosmic perspective of billions of years, 
+rather than from a human perspective of millennia. 
+
+Biologists the world over are locked in battle with the 
+intelligent-design 
+
+movement, which opposes the teaching of Darwinian 
+evolution in schools and claims that biological complexity 
+
+
+
+proves there must be a creator who thought out all 
+biological details in advance. The biologists are right about 
+the past, but the proponents of intelligent design might, 
+ironically, be right about the future. 
+
+At the time of writing, the replacement of natural selection 
+by intelligent design could happen in any of three ways: 
+through biological engineering, cyborg engineering (cyborgs 
+are beings that combine organic with non-organic parts) or 
+the engineering of inorganic life. 
+
+Of Mice and Men 
+
+Biological engineering is deliberate human intervention on 
+the biological level (e.g. implanting a gene) aimed at 
+modifying an organisms shape, capabilities, needs or 
+desires, in order to realize some preconceived cultural idea, 
+such as the artistic predilections of Eduardo Kac. 
+
+There is nothing new about biological engineering, per se. 
+People have been using it for millennia in order to reshape 
+themselves and other organisms. A simple example is 
+castration. Humans have been castrating bulls for perhaps 
+10,000 years in order to create oxen. Oxen are less 
+aggressive, and are thus easier to train to pull ploughs. 
+Humans also castrated their own young males to create 
+soprano singers with enchanting voices and eunuchs who 
+could safely be entrusted with overseeing the sultans 
+harem. 
+
+But recent advances in our understanding of how organisms 
+work, down to the cellular and nuclear levels, have opened 
+up previously unimaginable possibilities. 
+
+For instance, we can today not merely castrate a man, but 
+also change his sex through surgical and hormonal 
+treatments. But that's not all. Consider the surprise, disgust 
+
+
+
+and consternation that ensued when, in 1996, the following 
+photograph appeared in newspapers and on television: 
+
+
+
+46. A mouse on whose back scientists grew an 'ear' 
+made of cattle cartilage cells. It is an eerie echo of 
+the lion-man statue from the Stadel Cave. Thirty 
+thousand years ago, humans were already 
+fantasising about combining different species. Today, 
+they can actually produce such chimeras. 
+
+No, Photoshop was not involved. It's an untouched photo of 
+a real mouse on whose back scientists implanted cattle 
+cartilage cells. The scientists were able to control the growth 
+of the new tissue, shaping it in this case into something that 
+looks like a human ear. The process may soon enable 
+scientists to manufacture artificial ears, which could then be 
+implanted in humans. 1 
+
+Even more remarkable wonders can be performed with 
+genetic engineering, which is why it raises a host of ethical, 
+political and ideological issues. And it's not just pious 
+monotheists who object that man should not usurp God's 
+
+
+
+role. Many con rmed atheists are no less shocked by the idea 
+that scientists are stepping into nature's shoes. Animal- 
+rights activists decry the su ering caused to lab animals in 
+genetic engineering experiments, and to the farmyard 
+animals that are engineered in complete disregard of their 
+needs and desires. Human-rights activists are afraid that 
+genetic engineering might be used to create supermen who 
+will make serfs of the rest of us. Jeremiahs o er apocalyptic 
+visions of bio-dictatorships that will clone fearless soldiers 
+and obedient workers. The prevailing feeling is that too 
+many opportunities are opening too quickly and that our 
+ability to modify genes is outpacing our capacity for making 
+wise and far-sighted use of the skill. 
+
+The result is that we're at present using only a fraction of the 
+potential of genetic engineering. Most of the organisms now 
+being engineered are those with the weakest political 
+lobbies - plants, fungi, bacteria and insects. For example, 
+lines of E. coli, a bacterium that lives symbiotically in the 
+human gut (and which makes headlines when it gets out of 
+the gut and causes deadly infections), have 
+
+been genetically engineered to produce biofuel. 2_E. coli and 
+several species of fungi have also been engineered to 
+produce insulin, thereby lowering the cost of diabetes 
+treatment. 3_A gene extracted from an Arctic sh has been 
+inserted into potatoes, making the plants more frost- 
+resistant. 4 
+
+A few mammals have also been subject to genetic 
+engineering. Every year the dairy industry su ers billions of 
+dollars in damages due to mastitis, a disease that strikes 
+dairy-cow udders. Scientists are currently experimenting 
+with genetically engineered cows whose milk contains 
+lysostaphin, a biochemical that attacks the bacteria 
+responsible for the disease. 5 The pork industry, which has 
+
+
+su ered from falling sales because consumers are wary of the 
+unhealthy fats in ham and bacon, has hopes for a still- 
+experimental line of pigs implanted with genetic material 
+from a worm. The new genes cause the pigs to turn bad 
+omega 6 fatty acid into its healthy cousin, omega 3. 6 
+
+The next generation of genetic engineering will make pigs 
+with good fat look like child's play. Geneticists have 
+managed not merely to extend sixfold the average life 
+expectancy of worms, but also to engineer genius mice that 
+display much-improved memory and learning skills. 7_Voles 
+are small, stout rodents resembling mice, and most varieties 
+of voles are promiscuous. But there is one species in which 
+boy and girl voles form lasting and monogamous 
+relationships. 
+
+Geneticists claim to have isolated the genes responsible for 
+vole monogamy. If the addition of a gene can turn a vole 
+Don Juan into a loyal and loving husband, are we far o from 
+being able to genetically engineer not only the individual 
+abilities of rodents (and humans), but also their social 
+structures? 8 
+
+The Return of the Neanderthals 
+
+But geneticists do not only want to transform living lineages. 
+They aim to revive extinct creatures as well. And not just 
+dinosaurs, as in Jurassic Park. A team of Russian, Japanese 
+and Korean scientists has recently mapped the genome of 
+ancient mammoths, found frozen in the Siberian ice. They 
+now plan to take a fertilised egg-cell of a present-day 
+elephant, replace the elephantine DNA with a reconstructed 
+mammoth DNA, and implant the egg in the womb of an 
+elephant. 
+
+
+After about twenty-two months, they expect the rst 
+mammoth in 5,000 years to be born. 9 
+
+But why stop at mammoths? Professor George Church of 
+Harvard University recently suggested that, with the 
+completion of the Neanderthal Genome Project, we can now 
+implant reconstructed Neanderthal DNA into a Sapiens 
+ovum, thus producing the rst Neanderthal child in 30,000 
+years. Church claimed that he 
+
+could do the job for a paltry $30 million. Several women 
+have already volunteered to serve as surrogate mothers. 10 
+
+What do we need Neanderthals for? Some argue that if we 
+could study live Neanderthals, we could answer some of the 
+most nagging questions about the origins and uniqueness of 
+Homo sapiens. By comparing a Neanderthal to a Homo 
+sapiens brain, and mapping out where their structures di er, 
+perhaps we could identify what biological change produced 
+consciousness as we experience it. 
+
+There's an ethical reason, too - some have argued that if 
+Homo sapiens was responsible for the extinction of the 
+Neanderthals, it has a moral duty to resurrect them. And 
+having some Neanderthals around might be useful. Lots of 
+industrialists would be glad to pay one Neanderthal to do 
+the menial work of two Sapiens. 
+
+But why stop even at Neanderthals? Why not go back to 
+God's drawing board 
+
+and design a better Sapiens? The abilities, needs and 
+desires of Homo sapiens have a genetic basis, and the 
+Sapiens genome is no more complex than that of voles and 
+mice. (The mouse genome contains about 2.5 billion 
+nucleobases, the Sapiens genome about 2.9 billion bases - 
+meaning the latter is only 14 per cent larger.)ll 
+
+
+In the medium range - perhaps in a few decades - genetic 
+engineering and other forms of biological engineering might 
+enable us to make far-reaching alterations not only to our 
+physiology, immune system and life expectancy, but also to 
+our intellectual and emotional capacities. If genetic 
+engineering can create genius mice, why not genius 
+humans? If it can create monogamous voles, why not 
+humans hard-wired to remain faithful to their partners? 
+
+The Cognitive Revolution that turned Homo sapiens from an 
+insigni cant ape into the master of the world did not require 
+any noticeable change in physiology or even in the size and 
+external shape of the Sapiens brain. It apparently involved 
+no more than a few small changes to internal brain 
+structure. Perhaps another small change would be enough to 
+ignite a Second Cognitive Revolution, create a completely 
+new type of consciousness, and transform Homo sapiens 
+into something altogether different. 
+
+True, we still don't have the acumen to achieve this, but 
+there seems to be no insurmountable technical barrier 
+preventing us from producing superhumans. The main 
+obstacles are the ethical and political objections that have 
+slowed down research on humans. And no matter how 
+convincing the ethical arguments may be, it is hard to see 
+how they can hold back the next step for long, especially if 
+what is at stake is the possibility of prolonging human life 
+inde nitely, conquering incurable diseases, and upgrading 
+our cognitive and emotional abilities. 
+
+What would happen, for example, if we developed a cure for 
+Alzheimer's disease that, as a side benefit, could 
+dramatically improve the memories of healthy people? 
+
+Would anyone be able to halt the relevant research? And 
+when the cure is 
+
+
+
+developed, could any law enforcement agency limit it to 
+Alzheimer's patients and prevent healthy people from using 
+it to acquire super-memories? 
+
+It's unclear whether bioengineering could really resurrect 
+the Neanderthals, but it would very likely bring down the 
+curtain on Homo sapiens. Tinkering with our genes won't 
+necessarily kill us. But we might ddle with Homo sapiens to 
+such an extent that we would no longer be Homo sapiens. 
+
+Bionic Life 
+
+There is another new technology which could change the 
+laws of life: cyborg engineering. Cyborgs are beings which 
+combine organic and inorganic parts, such as a human with 
+bionic hands. In a sense, nearly all of us are bionic these 
+days, since our natural senses and functions are 
+supplemented by devices such as eyeglasses, pacemakers, 
+orthotics, and even computers and mobile phones (which 
+relieve our brains of some of their data storage and 
+processing burdens). We stand poised on the brink of 
+becoming true cyborgs, of having inorganic features that are 
+inseparable from our bodies, features that modify our 
+abilities, desires, personalities and identities. 
+
+The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a 
+US military research agency, is developing cyborgs out of 
+insects. The idea is to implant electronic chips, detectors 
+and processors in the body of a y or cockroach, which will 
+enable either a human or an automatic operator to control 
+the insect's movements remotely and to absorb and transmit 
+information. Such a y could be sitting on the wall at enemy 
+headquarters, eavesdrop on the most secret conversations, 
+and if it isn't caught rst by a spider, could inform us exactly 
+what the enemy is planning. 12_ln 2006 the US Naval 
+Undersea Warfare Center reported its intention to develop 
+
+
+cyborg sharks, declaring, 'NUWC is developing a sh tag 
+whose goal is behaviour control of host animals via neural 
+implants.' The developers hope to identify underwater 
+electromagnetic elds made by submarines and mines, by 
+exploiting the natural magnetic detecting capabilities of 
+sharks, which are superior to those of any man-made 
+detectors. 13 
+
+Sapiens, too, are being turned into cyborgs. The newest 
+generation of hearing aids are sometimes referred to as 
+'bionic ears'. The device consists of an implant that absorbs 
+sound through a microphone located in the outer part of the 
+ear. The implant Iters the sounds, identi es human voices, 
+and translates them into electric signals that are sent 
+directly to the central auditory nerve and from there to the 
+brain. 14 
+
+Retina Implant, a government-sponsored German company, 
+is developing a 
+
+
+
+retinal prosthesis that may allow blind people to gain partial 
+vision. It involves implanting a small microchip inside the 
+
+
+
+patient's eye. Photocells absorb light falling on the eye and 
+transform it into electrical energy, which stimulates the 
+intact nerve cells in the retina. The nervous impulses from 
+these cells stimulate the brain, where they are translated 
+into sight. At present the technology allows patients to 
+orientate themselves in space, identify letters, and even 
+recognise faces. 15 
+
+Jesse Sullivan, an American electrician, lost both arms up to 
+the shoulder in a 2001 accident. Today he uses two bionic 
+arms, courtesy of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. The 
+special feature of Jesse's new arms is that they are operated 
+by thought alone. Neural signals arriving from Jesse's brain 
+are translated by micro-computers into electrical commands, 
+and the arms move. 
+
+When Jesse wants to raise his arm, he does what any normal 
+person unconsciously does - and the arm rises. These arms 
+can perform a much more limited range of movements than 
+organic arms, but they enable Jesse to carry out simple daily 
+functions. A similar bionic arm has recently been out tted for 
+Claudia Mitchell, an American soldier who lost her arm in a 
+motorcycle accident. Scientists believe that we will soon 
+have bionic arms that will not only move when willed to 
+move, but will also be able to transmit signals back to the 
+brain, thereby enabling amputees to regain even the 
+sensation of touch! 16 
+
+47. l esse Sullivan and Claudia Mitchell holding 
+hands. The amazing thing about their bionic arms is 
+that they are operated by thought. 
+
+At present these bionic arms are a poor replacement for our 
+organic originals, but they have the potential for unlimited 
+development. Bionic arms, for example, 
+
+
+
+can be made far more powerful than their organic kin, 
+making even a boxing champion feel like a weakling. 
+Moreover, bionic arms have the advantage that they can be 
+replaced every few years, or detached from the body and 
+operated at a distance. 
+
+Scientists at Duke University in North Carolina have recently 
+demonstrated this with rhesus monkeys whose brains have 
+been implanted with electrodes. The electrodes gather 
+signals from the brain and transmit them to external 
+devices. 
+
+The monkeys have been trained to control detached bionic 
+arms and legs through thought alone. One monkey, named 
+Aurora, learned to thought-control a detached bionic arm 
+while simultaneously moving her two organic arms. Like 
+some Hindu goddess, Aurora now has three arms, and her 
+arms can be located in di erent rooms - or even cities. She 
+can sit in her North Carolina lab, scratch her back with one 
+hand, scratch her head with a second hand, and 
+simultaneously steal a banana in New York (although the 
+ability to eat a purloined fruit at a distance remains a 
+dream). Another rhesus monkey, Idoya, won world fame in 
+2008 when she thought-controlled a pair of bionic legs in 
+Kyoto, Japan, from her North Carolina chair. The legs were 
+twenty times Idoya's weight. 17 
+
+Locked-in syndrome is a condition in which a person loses all 
+or nearly all her ability to move any part of her body, while 
+her cognitive abilities remain intact. 
+
+Patients su ering from the syndrome have up till now been 
+able to communicate with the outside world only through 
+small eye movements. However, a few patients have had 
+brain-signal-gathering electrodes implanted in their brains. 
+
+
+E orts are being made to translate such signals not merely 
+into movements but also into words. If the experiments 
+succeed, locked-in patients could nally speak directly with 
+the outside world, and we might eventually be able to use 
+the technology to read other peoples minds. 18 
+
+Yet of all the projects currently under development, the most 
+revolutionary is the attempt to devise a direct two-way 
+brain-computer interface that will allow computers to read 
+the electrical signals of a human brain, simultaneously 
+transmitting signals that the brain can read in turn. What if 
+such interfaces are used to directly link a brain to the 
+Internet, or to directly link several brains to each other, 
+thereby creating a sort of Inter-brain-net? What might 
+happen to human memory, human consciousness and 
+human identity if the brain has direct access to a collective 
+memory bank? In such a situation, one cyborg could, for 
+example, retrieve the memories of another - not hear about 
+them, not read about them in an autobiography, not imagine 
+them, but directly remember them as if they were his own. 
+
+Or her own. What happens to concepts such as the self and 
+gender identity when minds become collective? How could 
+you know thyself or follow your dream if the dream is not in 
+your mind but in some collective reservoir of aspirations? 
+
+Such a cyborg would no longer be human, or even organic. It 
+would be something completely di erent. It would be so 
+fundamentally another kind of being that we cannot even 
+grasp the philosophical, psychological or political 
+implications. 
+
+Another Life 
+
+The third way to change the laws of life is to engineer 
+completely inorganic beings. The most obvious examples 
+
+
+are computer programs and computer viruses that can 
+undergo independent evolution. 
+
+The eld of genetic programming is today one of the most 
+interesting spots in the computer science world. It tries to 
+emulate the methods of genetic evolution. 
+
+Many programmers dream of creating a program that could 
+learn and evolve completely independently of its creator. In 
+this case, the programmer would be a primum mobile, a rst 
+mover, but his creation would be free to evolve in directions 
+neither its maker nor any other human could ever have 
+envisaged. 
+
+A prototype for such a program already exists - it's called a 
+computer virus. As it spreads through the Internet, the virus 
+replicates itself millions upon millions of times, all the while 
+being chased by predatory antivirus programs and 
+competing with other viruses for a place in cyberspace. One 
+day when the virus replicates itself a mistake occurs - a 
+computerised mutation. Perhaps the mutation occurs 
+because the human engineer programmed the virus to make 
+occasional random replication mistakes. Perhaps the 
+mutation was due to a random error. If, by chance, the modi 
+ed virus is better at evading antivirus programs without 
+losing its ability to invade other computers, it will spread 
+through cyberspace. If so, the mutants will survive and 
+reproduce. As time goes by, cyberspace would be full of new 
+viruses that nobody engineered, and that undergo non- 
+organic evolution. 
+
+Are these living creatures? It depends on what you mean by 
+'living creatures'. 
+
+They have certainly been produced by a new evolutionary 
+process, completely independent of the laws and limitations 
+
+
+
+of organic evolution. 
+
+Imagine another possibility - suppose you could back up 
+your brain to a portable hard drive and then run it on your 
+laptop. Would your laptop be able to think and feel just like 
+a Sapiens? If so, would it be you or someone else? What if 
+computer programmers could create an entirely new but 
+digital mind, composed of computer code, complete with a 
+sense of self, consciousness and memory? If you ran the 
+program on your computer, would it be a person? If you 
+deleted it could you be charged with murder? 
+
+We might soon have the answer to such questions. The 
+Human Brain Project, 
+
+founded in 2005, hopes to recreate a complete human brain 
+inside a computer, with electronic circuits in the computer 
+emulating neural networks in the brain. 
+
+The projects director has claimed that, if funded properly, 
+within a decade or two we could have an arti cial human 
+brain inside a computer that could talk and behave very 
+much as a human does. If successful, that would mean that 
+after 4 
+
+billion years of milling around inside the small world of 
+organic compounds, life will suddenly break out into the 
+vastness of the inorganic realm, ready to take up shapes 
+beyond our wildest dreams. Not all scholars agree that the 
+mind works in a manner analogous to today's digital 
+computers - and if it doesn't, present-day computers would 
+not be able to simulate it. Yet it would be foolish to 
+categorically dismiss the possibility before giving it a try. In 
+2013 the project received a grant of €1 billion from the 
+European Union. 19 
+
+
+The Singularity 
+
+
+Presently, only a tiny fraction of these new opportunities 
+have been realised. Yet the world of 2014 is already a world 
+in which culture is releasing itself from the shackles of 
+biology. Our ability to engineer not merely the world around 
+us, but above all the world inside our bodies and minds, is 
+developing at breakneck speed. More and more spheres of 
+activity are being shaken out of their complacent ways. 
+Lawyers need to rethink issues of privacy and identity; 
+governments are faced with rethinking matters of health 
+care and equality; sports associations and educational 
+institutions need to rede ne fair play and achievement; 
+pension funds and labour markets should readjust to a world 
+in which sixty might be the new thirty. They must all deal 
+with the conundrums of bioengineering, cyborgs and 
+inorganic life. 
+
+Mapping the rst human genome required fteen years and $3 
+billion. Today 
+
+you can map a person's DNA within a few weeks and at the 
+cost of a few hundred dollars. 20 The era of personalized 
+medicine - medicine that matches treatment to DNA - has 
+begun. The family doctor could soon tell you with greater 
+certainty that you face high risks of liver cancer, whereas 
+you needn't worry too much about heart attacks. She could 
+determine that a popular medication that helps 92 per cent 
+of people is useless to you, and you should instead take 
+another pill, fatal to many people but just right for you. The 
+road to near-perfect medicine stands before us. 
+
+However, with improvements in medical knowledge will 
+come new ethical conundrums. Ethicists and legal experts 
+are already wrestling with the thorny issue of privacy as it 
+relates to DNA. Would insurance companies be entitled to 
+ask 
+
+
+
+for our DNA scans and to raise premiums if they discover a 
+genetic tendency to reckless behaviour? Would we be 
+required to fax our DNA, rather than our CV, to potential 
+employers? Could an employer favour a candidate because 
+his DNA looks better? Or could we sue in such cases for 
+'genetic discrimination'? Could a company that develops a 
+new creature or a new organ register a patent on its DNA 
+sequences? It is obvious that one can own a particular 
+chicken, but can one own an entire species? 
+
+Such dilemmas are dwarfed by the ethical, social and 
+political implications of the Gilgamesh Project and of our 
+potential new abilities to create superhumans. 
+
+The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, government 
+medical programmes throughout the world, national health 
+insurance programmes and national constitutions worldwide 
+recognise that a humane society ought to give all its 
+members fair medical treatment and keep them in relatively 
+good health. That was all well and good as long as medicine 
+was chie y concerned with preventing illness and healing 
+the sick. What might happen once medicine becomes 
+preoccupied with enhancing human abilities? Would all 
+humans be entitled to such enhanced abilities, or would 
+there be a new superhuman elite? 
+
+Our late modern world prides itself on recognising, for the 
+rst time in history, the basic equality of all humans, yet it 
+might be poised to create the most unequal of all societies. 
+Throughout history, the upper classes always claimed to be 
+smarter, stronger and generally better than the underclass. 
+They were usually deluding themselves. A baby born to a 
+poor peasant family was likely to be as intelligent as the 
+crown prince. With the help of new medical capabilities, the 
+pretensions of the upper classes might soon become an 
+objective reality. 
+
+
+
+This is not science ction. Most science- ction plots describe a 
+world in which Sapiens - identical to us - enjoy superior 
+technology such as light-speed spaceships and laser guns. 
+The ethical and political dilemmas central to these plots are 
+taken from our own world, and they merely recreate our 
+emotional and social tensions against a futuristic backdrop. 
+Yet the real potential of future technologies is to change 
+Homo sapiens itself, including our emotions and desires, and 
+not merely our vehicles and weapons. What is a spaceship 
+compared to an eternally young cyborg who does not breed 
+and has no sexuality, who can share thoughts directly with 
+other beings, whose abilities to focus and remember are a 
+thousand times greater than our own, and who is never 
+angry or sad, but has emotions and desires that we cannot 
+begin to imagine? 
+
+Science ction rarely describes such a future, because an 
+accurate description is by de nition incomprehensible. 
+Producing a Im about the life of some super-cyborg is akin to 
+producing Hamlet for an audience of Neanderthals. Indeed, 
+the future masters of the world will probably be more di 
+erent from us than we are from Neanderthals. Whereas we 
+and the Neanderthals are at least human, our 
+
+inheritors will be godlike. 
+
+Physicists de ne the Big Bang as a singularity. It is a point at 
+which all the known laws of nature did not exist. Time too 
+did not exist. It is thus meaningless to say that anything 
+existed 'before' the Big Bang. We may be fast approaching a 
+new singularity, when all the concepts that give meaning to 
+our world - me, you, men, women, love and hate - will 
+become irrelevant. Anything happening beyond that point is 
+meaningless to us. 
+
+
+The Frankenstein Prophecy 
+
+
+
+In 1818 Mary Shelley published Frankenstein, the story of a 
+scientist who creates an arti cial being that goes out of 
+control and wreaks havoc. In the last two centuries, the 
+same story has been told over and over again in countless 
+versions. 
+
+It has become a central pillar of our new scienti c mythology. 
+At rst sight, the Frankenstein story appears to warn us that if 
+we try to play God and engineer life we will be punished 
+severely. Yet the story has a deeper meaning. 
+
+The Frankenstein myth confronts Homo sapiens with the fact 
+that the last days are fast approaching. Unless some nuclear 
+or ecological catastrophe intervenes, so goes the story, the 
+pace of technological development will soon lead to the 
+replacement of Homo sapiens by completely di erent beings 
+who possess not only di erent physiques, but also very di 
+erent cognitive and emotional worlds. This is something 
+most Sapiens nd extremely disconcerting. We like to believe 
+that in the future people just like us will travel from planet to 
+planet in fast spaceships. 
+
+We don't like to contemplate the possibility that in the 
+future, beings with emotions and identities like ours will no 
+longer exist, and our place will be taken by alien life forms 
+whose abilities dwarf our own. 
+
+We somehow nd comfort in the idea that Dr Frankenstein 
+created a terrible monster, whom we had to destroy in order 
+to save ourselves. We like to tell the story that way because 
+it implies that we are the best of all beings, that there never 
+was and never will be something better than us. Any 
+attempt to improve us will inevitably fail, because even if 
+our bodies might be improved, you cannot touch the human 
+spirit. 
+
+
+
+We would have a hard time swallowing the fact that 
+scientists could engineer spirits as well as bodies, and that 
+future Dr Frankensteins could therefore create something 
+truly superior to us, something that will look at us as 
+condescendingly as we look at the Neanderthals. 
+
+We cannot be certain whether today's Frankensteins will 
+indeed ful I this 
+
+prophecy. The future is unknown, and it would be surprising 
+if the forecasts of the last few pages were realised in full. 
+History teaches us that what seems to be just around the 
+corner may never materialise due to unforeseen barriers, 
+and that other unimagined scenarios will in fact come to 
+pass. When the nuclear age erupted in the 1940S, many 
+forecasts were made about the future nuclear world of the 
+year 2000. When sputnik and Apol o 11 red the imagination 
+of the world, everyone began predicting that by the end of 
+the century, people would be living in space colonies on 
+Mars and Pluto. Few of these forecasts came true. On the 
+other hand, nobody foresaw the Internet. 
+
+So don't go out just yet to buy liability insurance to 
+indemnify you against lawsuits led by digital beings. The 
+above fantasies - or nightmares - are just stimulants for your 
+imagination. What we should take seriously is the idea that 
+the next stage of history will include not only technological 
+and organisational transformations, but also fundamental 
+transformations in human consciousness and identity. And 
+these could be transformations so fundamental that they will 
+call the very term 'human' into question. How long do we 
+have? No one really knows. As already mentioned, some say 
+that by 2050 a few humans will already be a-mortal. Less 
+radical forecasts speak of the next century, or the next 
+millennium. Yet from the perspective of 70,000 years of 
+Sapiens history, what are a few millennia? 
+
+
+
+If the curtain is indeed about to drop on Sapiens history, we 
+members of one of its final generations should devote some 
+time to answering one last question: what do we want to 
+become? This question, sometimes known as the Human 
+Enhancement question, dwarfs the debates that currently 
+preoccupy politicians, philosophers, scholars and ordinary 
+people. After all, today's debate between today's religions, 
+ideologies, nations and classes will in all likelihood 
+disappear along with Homo sapiens. If our successors indeed 
+function on a di erent level of consciousness (or perhaps 
+possess something beyond consciousness that we cannot 
+even conceive), it seems doubtful that Christianity or Islam 
+will be of interest to them, that their social organisation 
+could be Communist or capitalist, or that their genders could 
+be male or female. 
+
+And yet the great debates of history are important because 
+at least the rst generation of these gods would be shaped by 
+the cultural ideas of their human designers. Would they be 
+created in the image of capitalism, of Islam, or of feminism? 
+The answer to this question might send them careening in 
+entirely different directions. 
+
+Most people prefer not to think about it. Even the eld of 
+bioethics prefers to address another question, 'What is it 
+forbidden to do?' Is it acceptable to carry out genetic 
+experiments on living human beings? On aborted fetuses? 
+On stem cells? 
+
+Is it ethical to clone sheep? And chimpanzees? And what 
+about humans? All of 
+
+these are important questions, but it is naive to imagine that 
+we might simply hit the brakes and stop the scienti c 
+projects that are upgrading Homo sapiens into a di erent 
+kind of being. For these projects are inextricably meshed 
+
+
+
+together with the Gilgamesh Project. Ask scientists why they 
+study the genome, or try to connect a brain to a computer, 
+or try to create a mind inside a computer. Nine out of ten 
+times you'll get the same standard answer: we are doing it 
+to cure diseases and save human lives. Even though the 
+implications of creating a mind inside a computer are far 
+more dramatic than curing psychiatric illnesses, this is the 
+standard justi cation given, because nobody can argue with 
+it. This is why the Gilgamesh Project is the agship of science. 
+It serves to justify everything science does. Dr Frankenstein 
+piggybacks on the shoulders of Gilgamesh. Since it is 
+impossible to stop Gilgamesh, it is also impossible to stop Dr 
+Frankenstein. 
+
+The only thing we can try to do is to in uence the direction 
+scientists are taking. Since we might soon be able to 
+engineer our desires too, perhaps the real question facing us 
+is not 'What do we want to become?', but 'What do we want 
+to want?' Those who are not spooked by this question 
+probably haven't given it enough thought. 
+
+Afterword: 
+
+The Animal that Became a God 
+
+SEVENTY THOUSAND YEARS AGO, HOMO sapiens was still 
+an insigni cant animal minding its own business in a corner 
+of Africa. In the following millennia it transformed itself into 
+the master of the entire planet and the terror of the 
+ecosystem. Today it stands on the verge of becoming a god, 
+poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine 
+abilities of creation and destruction. 
+
+Unfortunately, the Sapiens regime on earth has so far 
+produced little that we can be proud of. We have mastered 
+our surroundings, increased food production, built cities, 
+
+
+
+established empires and created far- ung trade networks. 
+
+But did we decrease the amount of su ering in the world? 
+Time and again, massive increases in human power did not 
+necessarily improve the well-being of individual Sapiens, 
+and usually caused immense misery to other animals. 
+
+In the last few decades we have at last made some real 
+progress as far as the human condition is concerned, with 
+the reduction of famine, plague and war. Yet the situation of 
+other animals is deteriorating more rapidly than ever before, 
+and the improvement in the lot of humanity is too recent 
+and fragile to be certain of. 
+
+Moreover, despite the astonishing things that humans are 
+capable of doing, we remain unsure of our goals and we 
+seem to be as discontented as ever. We have advanced from 
+canoes to galleys to steamships to space shuttles - but 
+nobody knows where we're going. We are more powerful 
+than ever before, but have very little idea what to do with all 
+that power. Worse still, humans seem to be more 
+irresponsible than ever. Self-made gods with only the laws of 
+physics to keep us company, we are accountable to no one. 
+We are consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow animals 
+and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than 
+our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding 
+satisfaction. 
+
+Is there anything more dangerous than dissatis ed and 
+irresponsible gods who don't know what they want? 
+
+Notes 
+
+1 An Animal of No Significance 
+
+l_Ann Gibbons, 'Food for Thought: Did the First Cooked 
+Meals Help Fuel the Dramatic Evolutionary Expansion of the 
+Fluman Brain?', Science 316:5831 (2007), 1,558-60. 
+
+
+2 The Tree of Knowledge 
+
+l_Robin Dunbar, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of 
+Language (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 
+1998). “ 
+
+2_Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among 
+Apes (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); 
+
+Frans de Waal, Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist 
+Explains Why We Are Who We Are (New York: Riverhead 
+Books, 2005); Michael L. Wilson and Richard W. Wrangham, 
+'Intergroup Relations in Chimpanzees', Annual Review of 
+Anthropology 32 (2003), 363-92; M. McFarland Symington, 
+'Fission-Fusion Social Organization in Ateles and Pan, 
+International Journal of Primatology 11:1 (1990), 49; Colin A. 
+Chapman and Lauren J. Chapman, 
+
+'Determinants of Groups Size in Primates: The Importance of 
+Travel Costs', in On the Move: How and Why Animals Travel 
+in Groups , ed. Sue Boinsky and Paul A. Garber (Chicago: 
+University of Chicago Press, 2000), 26. 
+
+3_Dunbar, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, 
+69-79; Leslie C. Aiel o and R. I. M. Dunbar, 'Neocortex Size, 
+Group Size, and the Evolution of Language', Current 
+Anthropology 34:2 (1993), 189. For criticism of this 
+approach see: Christopher McCarthy et al., 'Comparing Two 
+Methods for Estimating Network Size', Human Organization 
+60:1 (2001), 32; R. A. Hil and R. I. M. Dunbar, 'Social 
+Network Size in Humans', Human Nature 14:1 
+
+(2003), 65. 
+
+4_Yvette Taborin, 'Shel s of the French Aurignacian and 
+Perigordian', in Before Lascaux: The Complete Record of the 
+Early Upper Paleolithic, ed. Heidi Knecht, Anne Pike-Tay and 
+Randal White (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 1993), 211-28. 
+
+
+5_G. R. Summerhayes, 'Application of PIXE-PIGME to 
+Archaeological Analysis of Changing Patterns of Obsidian 
+Use in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea', in 
+Archaeological Obsidian Studies: Method and Theory, ed. 
+Steven M. Shackley (New York: Plenum Press, 1998), 129-58. 
+
+3 A Day in the Life of Adam and Eve 
+
+l_Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha, Sex at Dawn: The 
+Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality (New York: 
+
+Harper, 2010); S. Beckerman and P. Valentine (eds.), 
+
+Cultures of Multiple Fathers. The Theory and Practice of 
+Partible Paternity in Lowland South America (Gainesvil e: 
+University Press of Florida, 2002). 
+
+2_Noel G. Butlin, Economics and the Dreamtime: A 
+Hypothetical History (Cambridge: Cambridge University 
+Press, 1993), 98-101; Richard Broome, Aboriginal 
+AustraHans (Sydney: Al en & Unwin, 2002), 15; Wil iam 
+Howel Edwards, An Introduction to Aboriginal Societies 
+(Wentworth Fal s, NSW: Social Science Press, 1988), 52. 
+
+3_Fekri A. Hassan, Demographic Archaeology (New York: 
+Academic Press, 1981), 196-9; Lewis Robert Binford, 
+Constructing Frames of Reference: An Analytical Method for 
+Archaeological Theory Building Using Hunter-Gatherer and 
+Environmental Data Sets (Berkeley: University of California 
+Press, 2001), 143. 
+
+4_Brian Hare, The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter 
+Than You Think (Dutton: Penguin Group, 2013). 
+
+5_Christopher B. Ru , Erik Trinkaus and Trenton W. Hoi iday, 
+'Body Mass and Encephalization in Pleistocene Homo', 
+Nature 387 (1997), 173-6; M. Henneberg and M. Steyn, 
+'Trends in Cranial Capacity and Cranial Index in Subsaharan 
+
+
+Africa During the Holocene', American Journal of Human 
+Biology 5:4 (1993): 473-9; Drew H. Bailey and David C. 
+Geary, 'Hominid Brain Evolution: Testing Climatic, Ecological 
+and Social Competition Models', Human Nature 20 (2009): 
+67-79; Daniel J. Wescott and Richard L. Jantz, 'Assessing 
+Craniofacial Secular Change in American Blacks and Whites 
+Using Geometric Morphometry', in Modern Morphometries in 
+Physical Anthropology: Developments in Primatology: 
+Progress and Prospects , ed. Dennis E. Slice (New York: 
+Plenum Publishers, 2005), 231-45. 
+
+6_Nicholas G. Blurton Jones et al., 'Antiquity of 
+Postreproductive Life: Are There Modern Impacts on Hunter- 
+Gatherer Postreproductive Life Spans?', American Journal of 
+Human Biology 14 (2002), 184-205. 
+
+
+7_Kim Hil and A. Magdalena Hurtado, Ache Life History: The 
+Ecology and Demography of a Foraging People (New York: 
+Aldine de Gruyter, 1996), 164, 236. 
+
+8_lbid., 78. 
+
+9_Vincenzo Formicola and Alexandra P. Buzhilova, 'Double 
+Child Burial from Sunghir (Russia): Pathology and Inferences 
+for Upper Paleolithic Funerary Practices', American Journal of 
+Physical Anthropology 124:3 (2004), 189-98; Giacomo 
+Giacobini, 'Richness and Diversity of Burial Rituals in the 
+Upper Paleolithic', Diogenes 54:2 
+
+(2007), 19-39. 
+
+10 I. J. N. Thorpe, 'Anthropology, Archaeology and the Origin 
+of Warfare', World Archaeology 35:1 (2003), 145- 
+
+65; Raymond C. Kel y, Warless Societies and the Origin of 
+War{Ar\r\ Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000); Azar 
+Gat, War in Human Civilization (Oxford: Oxford University 
+
+
+
+Press, 2006); Lawrence H. Keeley, War before Civilization: 
+The Myth of the Peaceful Savage (Oxford: Oxford University 
+Press, 1996); Slavomil Vend, 'Stone Age Warfare', in Ancient 
+Warfare: Archaeological Perspectives , ed. John Carman and 
+Anthony Harding (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1999), 57-73. 
+
+4 The Flood 
+
+ljames F. O'Connel and Jim Al en, 'Pre-LGM Sahul 
+(Pleistocene Australia - New Guinea) and the Archaeology of 
+Early Modern Humans', in Rethinking the Human Revolution: 
+New Behavioural and Biological Perspectives on the Origin 
+and Dispersal of Modern Humans , ed. Paul Mel ars, Ofer Bar- 
+Yosef, Katie Boyle (Cambridge: McDonald 
+
+Institute for Archaeological Research, 2007), 395-410; 
+
+James F. O'Connel and Jim Al en, 'When Did Humans First 
+Arrive in Greater Australia and Why is it Important to 
+Know?', Evolutionary Anthropology 6:4 (1998), 132-46; 
+James F. O'Connel and Jim Al en, 'Dating the Colonization of 
+Sahul (Pleistocene Australia - New Guinea): A Review of 
+Recent Research', Journal of Radiological Science 31:6 
+(2004), 835-53; Jon M. Erlandson, 'Anatomical y Modern 
+Humans, Maritime Voyaging and the Pleistocene 
+Colonization of the Americas', in The First Americans: The 
+Pleistocene Colonization of the New World, ed. Nina G. 
+Jablonski (San Francisco: University of California Press, 
+2002), 59-60, 63-4; Jon M. Erlandson and Torben C. Rick, 
+'Archaeology Meets Marine Ecology: The Antiquity of 
+Maritime Cultures and Human Impacts on Marine Fisheries 
+and Ecosystems', Annual Review of Marine Science 2 
+
+(2010), 231-51; Athol Anderson, 'Slow Boats from China: 
+Issues in the Prehistory of Indo-China Seafaring', Modern 
+Quaternary Research in Southeast Asia 16 (2000), 13-50; 
+Robert G. Bednarik, 'Maritime Navigation in the Lower and 
+
+
+Middle Paleolithic', Earth and Planetary Sciences 328 
+(1999), 559-60; Robert G. Bednarik, 'Seafaring in the 
+Pleistocene', Cambridge Archaeological Journal 13:1 (2003), 
+41-66. 
+
+2_Timothy F. Flannery, The Future Eaters: An Ecological 
+History of the Australasian Lands and Peoples (Port 
+Melbourne: Reed Books Australia, 1994); Anthony D. 
+Barnosky et al., 'Assessing the Causes of Late Pleistocene 
+Extinctions on the Continents', Science 306:5693 (2004): 
+70-5; Barry W. Brook and David M. J. S. Bowman, 'The 
+Uncertain Blitzkrieg of Pleistocene Megafauna '.Journal of 
+Biogeography 31:4 (2004), 517-23; Gi ord H. Mil er et al., 
+'Ecosystem Col apse in Pleistocene Australia and a Human 
+Role in Megafaunal Extinction', Science 309:5732 
+
+(2005), 287-90; Richard G. Roberts et al., 'New Ages for the 
+Last Australian Megafauna: Continent Wide Extinction about 
+46,000 Years Ago', Science 292:5523 (2001), 1,888-92. 
+
+3_Stephen Wroe and Judith Field, 'A Review of Evidence for a 
+Human Role in the Extinction of Australian Megafauna and 
+an Alternative Explanation', Quaternary Science Reviews 
+25:21-2 (2006), 2,692-703; Barry W. 
+
+Brook et al., 'Would the Australian Megafauna Have Become 
+Extinct if Humans Had Never Colonised the Continent? 
+Comments on "A Review of the Evidence for a Human Role in 
+the Extinction of Australian Megafauna and an Alternative 
+Explanation'' by S. Wroe and J. Field', Quaternary Science 
+Reviews 26:3-4 (2007), 560-4; Chris S. M. Turney et al., 
+'Late-Surviving Megafauna in Tasmania, Australia, Implicate 
+Human Involvement in their Extinction', Proceedings of the 
+National Academy of Sciences 105:34 (2008), 12,150-3. 
+
+
+4John Alroy, 'A Multispecies Overkil Simulation of the End- 
+Pleistocene Megafaunal Mass Extinction, Science, 292:5523 
+(2001), 1,893-6; O'Connel and Al en, 'Pre-LGM Sahul', 400- 
+1 . 
+
+5_L. H. Keeley, 'Proto-Agricultural Practices Among Hunter- 
+Gatherers: A Cross-Cultural Survey', in Last Hunters, First 
+Farmers: New Perspectives on the Prehistoric Transition to 
+Agriculture, ed. T. Douglas Price and Anne Birgitte Gebauer 
+(Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1995), 243- 
+72; R. Jones, 'Firestick Farming', Australian Natural History 
+16 (1969), 224-8. 
+
+6_David J. Meitzer, First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing 
+Ice Age America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 
+2009). 
+
+7_Paul L. Koch and Anthony D. Barnosky, 'Late Quaternary 
+Extinctions: State of the Debate', Annual Review of Ecology, 
+Evolution, and Systematics 37 (2006), 215-50; Anthony D. 
+Barnosky et al., 'Assessing the Causes of Late Pleistocene 
+Extinctions on the Continents', 70-5. 
+
+5 History's Biggest Fraud 
+
+l_The map is based mainly on: Peter Bel wood, First Farmers: 
+The Origins of Agricultural Societies (Malden: Blackwel 
+Publishing, 2005). 
+
+2Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of 
+Human Societies (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997). 
+
+3_Gat, War in Human Civilization, 130-1; Robert S. Walker 
+and Drew H. Bailey, 'Body Counts in Lowland South 
+American Violence', Evolution and Human Behavior34 
+(2013), 29-34. 
+
+
+4_ Katherine A. Spielmann, 'A Review: Dietary Restriction on 
+Hunter-Gatherer Women and the Implications for Fertility 
+and Infant Mortality', Human Ecology 17:3 (1989), 321-45. 
+See also: Bruce Winterhalder and Eric Alder Smith, 
+'Analyzing Adaptive Strategies: Human Behavioral Ecology 
+at Twenty-Five', Evolutionary Anthropology 9:2 
+
+(2000), 51-72. 
+
+5_Alain Bideau, Bertrand Desjardins and Hector Perez- 
+Brignoli (eds.), Infant and Child Mortality in the Past{ Oxford: 
+Clarendon Press, 1997); Edward Anthony Wrigley et al., 
+English Population History from Family Reconstitution, 1580- 
+1837 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 295- 
+6, 303. 
+
+6_Manfred Heun et al., 'Site of Einkorn Wheat Domestication 
+Identi ed by DNA Fingerprints', Science 278:5341 
+
+(1997), 1,312-14. 
+
+7_Charles Patterson, Eternal Trebiinka: Our Treatment of 
+Animals and the Holocaust (New York: Lantern Books, 2002), 
+9-10; PeterJ. Ucko and G. W. Dimbleby (eds.), The 
+Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals 
+(London: Duckworth, 1969), 259. 
+
+8_Avi Pinkas (ed.), Farmyard Animals in Israel - Research, 
+Humanism and Activity (Rishon Le-Ziyyon: The Association 
+for Farmyard Animals, 2009 [Hebrew]), 169-99; "Milk 
+Production - the Cow' [Hebrew], The Dairy 
+
+Council . 
+
+accessed 
+
+
+22 
+
+
+
+
+
+March 
+
+
+2012 . http://www.milk.or a .il/c a i-webaxv/sal/sal.Dl? 
+
+lan o = he&iD=645G57 milk&act=show&dbid = katavot&data[ 
+
+d=cow.htm. 
+
+
+9_Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer: A Description of 
+the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic 
+People (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969); E. C. 
+Amoroso and P. A. Jewel , The Exploitation of the Milk- 
+Ejection Re ex by Primitive People', in Man and Cattle: 
+Proceedings of the Symposium on Domestication at the 
+Royal Anthropological Institute, 24-26 May I960, ed. A. E. 
+Mourant and F. E. Zeuner (London: The Royal 
+Anthropological Institute, 1963), 129-34. 
+
+10 l ohannes Nicolaisen, Ecology and Culture of the Pastoral 
+Tuareg (Copenhagen: National Museum, 1963), 63. 
+
+6 Building Pyramids 
+
+l_Angus Maddison, The World Economy, vol. 2 (Paris: 
+Development Centre of the Organization of Economic 
+Cooperation and Development, 2006), 636; 'Historical 
+Estimates of World Population', U.S. Census Bureau, 
+accessed 10 December 2010, 
+http://www.census. a ov/iDC/www/worldhis.html. 
+
+2_Robert B. Mark, The Origins of the Modern World: A Global 
+and Ecological Narrative (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield 
+Publishers, 2002), 24. 
+
+3_Raymond Westbrook, 'Old Babylonian Period', in A History 
+of Ancient Near Eastern Law, vol. 1, ed. Raymond Westbrook 
+(Leiden: Bril , 2003), 361-430; Martha T. Roth, Law Col 
+ections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd edn (Atlanta: 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Scholars Press, 1997), 71-142; M. E. J. Richardson, 
+Hammurabi's Laws: Text, Translation and Glossary (London: 
+
+T & T Clark International, 2000). 
+
+4_Roth, Law Col ections from Mesopotamia , 76. 
+
+5_lbid., 121. 
+
+6_lbid., 122-3. 
+
+7_lbid., 133-3. 
+
+8_Constance Brittaine Bouchard, Strong of Body, Brave and 
+Noble: Chivalry and Society in Medieval France (New York: 
+Cornel University Press, 1998), 99; Mary Martin McLaughlin, 
+'Survivors and Surrogates: Children and Parents from the 
+Ninth to Thirteenth Centuries', in Medieval Families: 
+Perspectives on Marriage, Household and Children, ed. Carol 
+Neel (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 81 n.; Lise 
+E. Hul , Britain's Medieval Castles (Westport: Praeger, 2006), 
+144. 
+
+7 Memory Overload 
+
+l_Andrew Robinson, The Story of Writing ( New York : Thames 
+and Hudson, 1995), 63; HansJ. Nissen, Peter Damerow and 
+Robert K. Englung, Archaic Bookkeeping: Writing and 
+Techniques of Economic Administration in the Ancient Near 
+East (Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press, 
+1993), 36. 
+
+2_Marcia and Robert Ascher, Mathematics of the Incas - 
+Code of the Quipu (New York: Dover Publications, 1981). 
+
+3_Gary Urton, Signs of the Inka Khipu (Austin: University of 
+Texas Press, 2003); Galen Brokaw, A History of the Khipu 
+(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 
+
+
+4_Stephen D. Houston (ed.), The First Writing: Script 
+Invention as History and Process (Cambridge: Cambridge 
+University Press, 2004), 222. 
+
+8 There is No Justice in History 
+
+l_Sheldon Pol ock, 'Axialism and Empire', in Axial 
+Civilizations and World History, ed. Johann P. Arnason, S. N. 
+
+Eisenstadt and Bjorn Wittrock (Leiden: Bril , 2005), 397-451. 
+
+2_Harold M. Tanner, China: A History (Indianapolis: Hackett 
+Pub. Co., 2009), 34. 
+
+3_Ramesh Chandra, Identity and Genesis of Caste System in 
+India [ Delhi: Kalpaz Publications, 2005); Michael Bamshad et 
+al., 'Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste 
+Population', Genome Research 11 (2001): 904- 
+
+1,004; Susan Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics in India from 
+the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age (Cambridge: 
+Cambridge University Press, 1999). 
+
+4_Houston, First Writing, 196. 
+
+5_The secretary general, United Nations, Report of the 
+Secretary General on the In-depth Study on Al Forms of 
+Violence Against Women, delivered to the General 
+Assembly, UN Doc. A/16/122/Add. 1 (6 July 2006), 89. 
+
+6_Sue Blundel , Women in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 
+
+Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995). 113-2.9.131-3. 
+
+10 The Scent of Money 
+
+l_Francisco Lopez de Gomara, Historia de la Conquista de 
+Mexico, vol. 1, ed. D. Joaquin Ramirez Cabanes (Mexico City: 
+
+
+Editorial Pedro Robredo, 1943), 106. 
+
+2_Andrew M. Watson, 'Back to Gold - and Silver', Economic 
+History Review 20:1 (1967), 11-12; Jasim Alubudi, 
+
+Repertorio Bibliografico del Islam (Madrid: Vision Libros, 
+2003), 194. 
+
+3_Watson, 'Back to Gold - and Silver', 17-18. 
+
+4_David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (Brooklyn, NY: 
+Melvil e House, 2011). 
+
+5_Glyn Davies, A History of Money: From Ancient Times to 
+the Present Day (Cardi : University of Wales Press, 1994), 15. 
+
+6_Szymon Laks, Music of Another World, trans. Chester A. 
+Kisiel (Evanston, II .: North-western University Press, 1989), 
+88-9. The Auschwitz 'market' was restricted to certain 
+classes of prisoners and conditions changed dramatical y 
+across time. 
+
+7_Nial Ferguson, The Ascent of Money (New York: The 
+Penguin Press, 2008), 4. 
+
+8_For information on barley money I have relied on an 
+unpublished PhD thesis: Refael Benvenisti, 'Economic 
+Institutions of Ancient Assyrian Trade in the Twentieth to 
+Eighteenth Centuries BC' (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 
+unpublished PhD thesis, 2011). See also Norman Yo ee, 'The 
+Economy of Ancient Western Asia', in Civilizations of the 
+Ancient Near East, vol. 1, ed. J. M. Sasson (New York: C. 
+Scribner's Sons, 1995), 1,387-99; R. K. 
+
+Englund, 'Proto-Cuneiform Account-Books and Journals', in 
+Creating Economic Order: Record-keeping, Standardization 
+and the Development of Accounting in the Ancient Near 
+East, ed. Michael Hudson and Cornelia Wunsch (Bethesda, 
+
+
+Md.: CDL Press, 2004), 21-46; Marvin A. Powel , 'A 
+Contribution to the History of Money in Mesopotamia Prior to 
+the Invention of Coinage', in Festschrift Lubor Matous, ed. B. 
+Hruska and G. Komoroczy (Budapest: Eotvos Lorand 
+Tudomanyegyetem, 1978), 211-43; Marvin A. Powel , 'Money 
+in Mesopotamia', Journal of the Economic and Social History 
+of the Orient 39:3 (1996), 224-42; John F. Robertson, The 
+Social and Economic Organization of Ancient Mesopotamian 
+Temples', in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. 1, ed. 
+Sasson, 443- 
+
+500; M. Silver, 'Modern Ancients', in Commerce and 
+Monetary Systems in the Ancient World: Means of 
+Transmission and Cultural Interaction, ed. R. Rol inger and U. 
+Christoph (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2004), 65-87; Daniel C. Snel , 
+
+'Methods of Exchange and Coinage in Ancient Western Asia', 
+in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. 1, ed. 
+
+Sasson, 1,487-97. 
+
+11 Imperial Visions 
+
+l_Nahum Megged, The Aztecs (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1999 
+[Hebrew]), 103. 
+
+2_Tacitus, Agricola, ch. 30 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard 
+University Press, 1958), 220-1. 
+
+3_A. Fienup-Riordan, The Nelson Island Eskimo: Social 
+Structure and Ritual Distribution (Anchorage: Alaska Paci c 
+
+University Press, 1983), 10. 
+
+4_Yuri Pines, 'Nation States, Globalization and a United 
+Empire - the Chinese Experience (third to fth centuries BC)', 
+Historia 15 (1995), 54 [Hebrew]. 
+
+
+5_Alexander Yakobson, 'Us and Them: Empire, Memory and 
+Identity in Claudius' Speech on Bringing Gauls into the 
+Roman Senate', in On Memory: An Interdisciplinary 
+Approach, ed. Doron Mendels (Oxford: Peter Land, 2007), 
+23-4. 
+
+12 The Law of Religion 
+
+1_W. H. C. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early 
+Church (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2008), 536-7. 
+
+2_Robert Jean Knecht, The Rise and Fal of Renaissance 
+France, 1483-1610 (London: Fontana Press, 1996), 424. 
+
+3_Marie Harm and Hermann Wiehle, Lebenskunde fuer 
+Mittelschulen - Fuenfter Teil. Klasse 5 fuerJungen (Hal e: 
+Hermann Schroedel Verlag, 1942), 152-7. 
+
+13 The Secret of Success 
+
+l_Susan Blackmore, The Meme Machine (Oxford: Oxford 
+University Press, 1999). 
+
+14 The Discovery of Ignorance 
+
+l_David Christian, Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big 
+Flistoryi Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 344- 
+5; Angus Maddison, The World Economy, vol. 2 (Paris: 
+Development Centre of the Organization of Economic Co�� 
+operation and Development, 2001), 636; 'Historical 
+Estimates of World Population', US Census Bureau, accessed 
+10 December 2010, 
+
+http://www.census. a ov/iPc/www/world his.html . 
+
+
+2_Maddison, The World Economy, vol. 1, 261. 
+
+
+
+
+
+3_'Gross Domestic Product 2009', the World Bank, Data and 
+Statistics, accessed 10 December 2010, 
+
+http://siteresources.worldbank.or a /DATASTATISTICS/Resourc 
+
+es/GDP.pdf. 
+
+4_Christian, Maps of Time, 141. 
+
+5_The largest contemporary cargo ship can carry about 
+100,000 tons. In 1470 al the world's eets could together 
+carry no more than 320,000 tons. By 1570 total global 
+tonnage was up to 730,000 tons (Maddison, The World 
+Economy, vol. 1, 97). 
+
+6_The world's largest bank - the Royal Bank of Scotland - 
+has reported in 2007 deposits worth $1.3 tril ion. That's ve 
+times the annual global production in 1500. See 'Annual 
+Report and Accounts 2008', the Royal Bank of Scotland, 
+
+35, 
+
+accessed 
+
+10 
+
+December 
+
+2010, 
+
+http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/RBS/626570033 10> 
+
+278481/eb7a003a-5c9b-41ef-bad3- 
+
+81fb98a6c823/RBS GRA 2008 09 03 09.pdf. 
+
+7_Ferguson, Ascent of Money, 185-98. 
+
+8_Maddison, The World Economy, vol. 1, 31; Wrigley, English 
+Population History, 295; Christian, Maps of Time, 450, 452; 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+'World Health Statistic Report 2009', 35-45, World Health 
+Organization, accessed 10 December 2010 
+
+http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/EN_WHS09_Ful .pdf. 
+
+9_Wrigley, English Population History, 296. 
+
+10 'England. Interim Life Tables, 1980-82 to 2007-09', O ce 
+for National Statistics, accessed 22 March 2012 
+
+http://www.ons. a ov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference- 
+tables.html?edition=tcm%3A7 7-61850 . 
+
+11 Michael Prestwich, Edward I (Berkeley: University of 
+California Press, 1988), 125-6. 
+
+12 l ennie B. Dorman et al., 'The age-1 and daf-2 Genes 
+Function in a Common Pathway to Control the Lifespan of 
+Caenorhabditis elegans', Genetics 141:4 (1995), 1,399-406; 
+Koen Houthoofd et al., 'Life Extension via Dietary Restriction 
+is Independent of the lns/IGF-1 Signal ing Pathway in 
+Caenorhabditis elegans', Experimental Gerontology 38:9 
+(2003), 947-54. 
+
+13 Shawn M. Douglas, Ido Bachelet and George M. Church, 
+
+'A Logic-Gated Nanorobot for Targeted Transport of Molecular 
+Payloads', Science 335:6070 (2012): 831-4; Dan Peer et al., 
+'Nanocarriers As An Emerging Platform for Cancer Therapy', 
+Nature Nanotechnology 2 (2007): 751-60; Dan Peer et al., 
+'Systemic Leukocyte-Directed siRNA Delivery Revealing 
+Cyclin Di as an Anti-Inflammatory Target', Science 319:5863 
+(2008): 627-30. 
+
+15 The Marriage of Science and Empire 
+
+l_Stephen R. Bown, Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner and a 
+Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+of Sail (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press, 
+2004); Kenneth John Carpenter, The History of Scurvy and 
+Vitamin C(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 
+
+2 James Cook, The Explorations of Captain James Cook in 
+the Pad c, as Told by Selections of his Own Journals 1768- 
+1779, ed. Archibald Grenfel Price (New York: Dover 
+Publications, 1971), 16-17; Gananath Obeyesekere, The 
+Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the 
+Pad c (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 5; J. C. 
+Beaglehole, ed., The Journals of Captain James Cook on His 
+Voyages of Discovery, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge 
+University Press, 1968), 588. 
+
+3_Mark, Origins of the Modern World, 81. 
+
+4_Christian, Maps of Time, 436. 
+
+5John Darwin, After Tamerlane: The Global History of 
+Empire Since 1405 (London: Al en Lane, 2007), 239. 
+
+6_Soli Shahvar, 'Railroads i. The First Railroad Built and 
+Operated in Persia', in the Online Edition of Encyclopaedia 
+Iranica, last modi ed 7 April 2008, 
+http://www.iranicaonline.or g /articles/railroads-i : Charles 
+Issawi, The Iranian Economy 1925-1975: Fifty Years of 
+Economic Development', in Iran under the Pahlavis, ed. 
+
+George Lenczowski (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 
+1978), 156. 
+
+7_Mark, Origins of the Modern World, 46. 
+
+8_Kirkpatrick Sale, Christopher Columbus and the Conquest 
+of Paradise (London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2006), 7-13. 
+
+
+
+
+9_Edward M. Spiers, The Army and Society: 1819-1914 
+(London: Longman, 1980), 121; Robin Moore, 'Imperial India, 
+1858-1914', in The Oxford History of the British Empire: The 
+Nineteenth Century, vol. 3, ed. Andrew Porter (New York: 
+Oxford University Press, 1999), 442. 
+
+10 Vinita Damodaran, 'Famine in Bengal: A Comparison of 
+the 1770 Famine in Bengal and the 1897 Famine in 
+Chotanagpur', The Medieval History Journal 10:1-2 (2007), 
+151. 
+
+16 The Capitalist Creed 
+
+l_Maddison, World Economy, vol. 1, 261, 264; 'Gross 
+National Income Per Capita 2009, Atlas Method and PPP', the 
+World 
+
+Bank, 
+
+accessed 
+
+10 
+
+December 
+
+2010, 
+
+http://siteresources.worldbank.or g /DATASTATISTICS/Resourc 
+
+es/GNIPC.pdf. 
+
+2_The mathematics of my bakery example are not as 
+accurate as they could be. Since banks are al owed to loan 
+$10 
+
+for every dol ar they keep in their possession, of every mil 
+ion dol ars deposited in the bank, the bank can loan out to 
+entrepreneurs only about $909,000 while keeping $91,000 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+in its vaults. But to make life easier for the readers I 
+preferred to work with round numbers. Besides, banks do not 
+always fol ow the rules. 
+
+3_Carl Trocki, Opium, Empire and the Global Political 
+Economy (New York: Routledge, 1999), 91. 
+
+^Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Congo from Leopold to 
+Kabila: A People's History \ London: Zed Books, 2002), 22. 
+
+17 The Wheels of Industry 
+
+l_Mark, Origins of the Modern World, 109. 
+
+2_Nathan S. Lewis and Daniel G. Nocera, 'Powering the 
+Planet: Chemical Chal enges in Solar Energy Utilization', 
+Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103:43 
+(2006), 15,731. 
+
+3_Kazuhisa Miyamoto (ed.), 'Renewable Biological Systems 
+for Alternative Sustainable Energy Production, FAO 
+
+Agricultural Services Bui etin 128 (Osaka: Osaka University, 
+1997), Chapter 2.1.1, accessed 10 December 2010, 
+
+http://www.fao.Or g /docrep/W7241E/w7241eo6.htm#2.l.lper 
+
+cent20solarpercent20ener av: 
+
+James 
+
+Barber, 
+
+'Biological Solar Energy', Philosophical Transactions of the 
+Royal Society A 365:1853 (2007), 1007. 
+
+4_'lnternational Energy Outlook 2010', US Energy 
+Information Administration, 9, accessed 10 December 2010, 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+http://www.eia ■doe. a ov/oiaf/ieo/pdf/Q484 ( 201Q ).pdf. 
+
+
+5_S. Venetsky, ' "Silver” frem Clay', Metal urgist 13:7 (1969), 
+451; Fred Aftalien, A History of the International Chemical 
+Industry (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 
+1991), 64; A. J. Downs, Chemistry of Aluminium, Gal ium, 
+Indium and That ium (Glasgow: Blackie Academic & 
+Professional, 1993), 15. 
+
+6J an Wil em Erisman et al., 'How a Century of Ammonia 
+Synthesis Changed the World', Nature Geoscience 1 
+
+(2008), 637. 
+
+7_G.J. Benson and B. E. Rol in (eds.), The Wei -being of Farm 
+Animals: Chat enges and Solutions (Ames, I A: Blackwel , 
+2004); M. C. Appleby, J. A. Mench and B. 0. Hughes, Poultry 
+Behaviour and Welfare (Wal ingford: CABI Publishing, 2004); 
+J. Webster, Animal Welfare: Limping Towards Eden (Oxford: 
+Blackwel Publishing, 2005); C. 
+
+Druce and P. Lymbery, Outlawed in Europe: How America is 
+Fal ing Behind Europe in Farm Animal Welfare (New York: 
+Archimedean Press, 2002). 
+
+8_Harry Harlow and Robert Zimmermann, 'A ectional 
+Responses in the Infant Monkey', Science 130:3373 (1959), 
+421-32; Harry Harlow, The Nature of Love', American 
+Psychologist 13 (1958), 673-85; Laurens D. Young et al., 
+
+'Early stress and later response to separation in rhesus 
+monkeys', American Journal of Psychiatry 130:4 (1973), 
+400-5; K. D. Broad, J. P. Curley and E. B. Keverne, 'Mother- 
+infant bonding and the evolution of mammalian social 
+relationships', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal 
+Society B 361:1476 (2006), 2,199-214; Florent Pittet et al., 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+'E ects of maternal experience on fearfulness and maternal 
+behaviour in a precocial bird', Animal Behaviour {March 
+
+2013), 
+
+In 
+
+Press 
+
+
+available 
+
+online 
+
+at: 
+
+http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S00033472 
+
+13000547 ). 
+
+9_'National Institute of Food and Agriculture', United States 
+Department of Agriculture, accessed 10 December 2010, 
+http://www.csrees.usda. a ov/alinks/extension.html. 
+
+18 A Permanent Revolution 
+
+l_Vaclav Smil, The Earth's Biosphere: Evolution, Dynamics 
+and Change (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002); Sarah 
+Catherine Walpole et al., The Weight of Nations: An 
+Estimation of Adult Human Biomass', BMC Public Health 
+12:439 (2012), http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471- 
+2458/12/439 . 
+
+2_Wil iam T. Jackman, The Development of Transportation in 
+Modern England (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1966), 324-7; H. 
+J. Dyos and D. H. Aid croft, British Transport-An Economic 
+Survey From the Seventeenth Century to the Twentieth 
+(Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1969), 124-31; 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The 
+Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century 
+(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). 
+
+3_Fora detailed discussion of the unprecedented 
+peacefulness of the last few decades, see in particular 
+Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why 
+Violence Has Declined (New York: Viking, 2011); Joshua S. 
+
+Goldstein, Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed 
+Con ict Worldwide (New York: Dutton, 2011); Gat, War in 
+Human Civilization . 
+
+4_'World Report on Violence and Health: Summary, Geneva 
+2002', World Health Organization, accessed 10 
+
+December 2010, 
+
+http://www.who.int/whr/2001/en/whr01 annex en.odf. For 
+mortality rates in previous eras see: Lawrence H. Keeley, War 
+before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage (New 
+York: Oxford University Press, 1996). 
+
+5 'World Health Report, 2004', World Health Organization, 
+124, accessed 10 December 2010, 
+
+http://www.who.int/whr/2004/en/reporto4 en.pdf. 
+
+6_Raymond C. Kel y, War less Societies and the Origin of War 
+(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 21. 
+
+See also Gat, War in Human Civilization, 129-31; Keeley, 
+
+War before Civilization. 
+
+7_Manuel Eisner, 'Modernization, Self-Control and Lethal 
+Violence', British Journal of Criminology 41:4 (2001), 618- 
+638; Manuel Eisner, 'Long-Term Historical Trends in Violent 
+Crime', Crime and Justice: A Review of Research 30 (2003), 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+83-142; 'World Report on Violence and Health: Summary, 
+Geneva 2002', World Health Organization, accessed 10 
+December 2010, 
+
+http://www.who.int/whr/2001/en/whr01 annex en.odf : 
+
+'World Health Report, 
+
+2004', 
+
+World 
+
+Health 
+
+Organization, 
+
+124, 
+
+accessed 
+
+10 
+
+December 
+
+2010, 
+
+http://www.who.int/whr/2004/en/reporto4 en.pdf. 
+
+8_Walker and Bailey, 'Body Counts in Lowland South 
+American Violence', 30. 
+
+19 And They Lived Happily Ever After 
+
+l_For both the psychology and biochemistry of happiness, 
+the fol owing are good starting points: Jonathan Haidt, The 
+Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient 
+Wisdom (New York: Basic Books, 2006); R. Wright, The Moral 
+Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life (New 
+York: Vintage Books, 1994); M. Csikszentmihalyi, 
+
+
+
+
+
+'If We Are So Rich, Why Aren't We Happy?', American 
+Psychologist 54:10 (1999): 821-7; F. A. Huppert, N. Baylis 
+and B. Keverne (eds.), The Science of Wei -Being (Oxford: 
+Oxford University Press, 2005); Michael Argyle, The 
+Psychology of Happiness, 2nd edition (New York: Routledge, 
+2001); Ed Diener (ed.), Assessing Wei -Being: The Col ected 
+Works of Ed Diener [ New York: Springer, 2009); Michael Eid 
+and Randy J. Larsen (eds.), The Science of Subjective Wei - 
+Being (New York: Guilford Press, 2008); Richard A. Easterlin 
+(ed.), Happiness in Economics [ Cheltenham: Edward Elgar 
+Publishing, 2002); Richard Layard, Happiness: Lessons from 
+a New Science (New York: Penguin, 2005). 
+
+2_Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: 
+Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011); Inglehart et al., 
+
+'Development, Freedom and Rising Happiness', 278-81. 
+
+3_D. M. McMahon, The Pursuit of Happiness: A History from 
+the Greeks to the Present (London: Al en Lane, 2006). 
+
+20 The End of Homo Sapiens 
+
+1_ Keith T. Paige et al., 'De Novo Cartilage Generation Using 
+Calcium Alginate-Chondrocyte Constructs', Plastic and 
+Reconstructive Surgery 97:1 (1996), 168-78. 
+
+2_David Biel o, 'Bacteria Transformed into Biofuels Re 
+neries', Scienti c American, 27 January 2010, accessed 10 
+
+December 2010, 
+
+http://www.sci entificamerican.com/article.cfm? id = bacteria- 
+
+transformed-into-biofuel-refineries. 
+
+
+3_Gary Walsh, 'Therapeutic Insulins and Their Large-Scale 
+Manufacture', Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology 67:2 
+(2005), 151-9. 
+
+
+
+
+4J ames G. Wal is et al., 'Expression of a Synthetic Antifreeze 
+Protein in Potato Reduces Electrolyte Release at Freezing 
+Temperatures', Plant Molecular Biology 35:3 (1997), 323-30. 
+
+5_Robert J. Wal et al., 'Genetical y Enhanced Cows Resist 
+Intramammary Staphylococcus Au re us Infection', Nature 
+Biotechnology 23:4 (2005), 445-51. 
+
+6 Liangxue Lai et al., 'Generation of Cloned Transgenic Pigs 
+Rich in Omega-3 Fatty Acids', Nature Biotechnology 24:4 
+(2006), 435-6. 
+
+7_Ya-Ping Tang et al., 'Genetic Enhancement of Learning and 
+Memory in Mice', Nature 401 (1999), 63-9. 
+
+8_Zoe R. Donaldson and Larry J. Young, 'Oxytocin, 
+
+Vasopressin and the Neurogenetics of Sociality', Science 
+322:5903 (2008), 900-904; Zoe R. Donaldson, 'Production of 
+Germline Transgenic Prairie Voles (Microtus 
+
+Ochrogaster) Using Lentiviral Vectors', Biology of 
+Reproduction 81:6 (2009), 1,189-95. 
+
+9_Terri Pous, 'Siberian Discovery Could Bring Scientists 
+Closer to Cloning Wool y Mammoth', Time , 17 September 
+2012, accessed 19 February 2013; Pasqualino Loi et al, 
+'Biological time machines: a realistic approach for cloning an 
+extinct mammal', Endangered Species Research 14 (2011), 
+227-33; Leon Huynen, Craig D. Mil arand David M. 
+
+Lambert, 'Resurrecting ancient animal genomes: The extinct 
+moa and more', Bioessays 34 (2012), 661-9. 
+
+10 Nicholas Wade, 'Scientists in Germany Draft Neanderthal 
+Genome', New York Times , 12 February 2009, 
+
+accessed 
+
+
+
+
+10 
+
+
+December 
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+
+Acknowledgements 
+
+For their advice and assistance, thanks to: Sarai Aharoni, 
+Dorit Aharonov, Amos Avisar, Tzafrir Barzilai, Noah Beninga, 
+Suzanne Dean, Caspian Dennis, Tirza Eisenberg, Amir Fink, 
+Sara Hoi oway, Benjamin Z. Kedar, Yossi Maurey, Eyal Mil er, 
+David Milner, John Purcel , Simon Rhodes, Shmuel Rosner, 
+Rami Rotholz, Michal Shavit, Michael Shenkar, Idan Sherer, 
+El ie Steel, Ofer Steinitz, Haim Watzman, Guy Zaslavsky and 
+al the teachers and students in the World History 
+programme of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 
+
+Special thanks to Jared Diamond, who taught me to see the 
+big picture; to Diego Olstein, who inspired me to write a 
+story; and to Itzik Yahav and Deborah Harris, who helped 
+spread the story around. 
+
+
+Image credits 
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+
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+
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+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+
+1. © ImageBank/Getty Images Israel. 
+
+2. © Visual/Corbis. 
+
+3. © Anthropologisches Institut und Museum, Universitat 
+Zurich. 
+
+^Photo: Thomas Stephan © Ulmer Museum. 
+
+5. © maa iccamics.co.uk. 
+
+6. © Andreas Sol a ro/AF P/Getty Images. 
+
+LPhoto: The Upper Galilee Museum of Prehistory. 
+
+8 . © Visual/Corbis. 
+
+9. © Visual/Corbis. 
+
+10. Poster: Waterhouse Hawkins, c.1862 © The Trustees of 
+the Natural History Museum. 
+
+11. © Visual/Corbis. 
+
+12. Photo: Karl G. Heider © President and Fel ows of Harvard 
+Col ege, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 
+PM# 2006.17.1.89.2 (digital file# 98770053). 
+
+13. Photos and © Deutsches Archaologisches Institut. 
+
+14. © Visual/Corbis. 
+
+15. Photo and © Anonymous for Animal Rights (Israel). 
+
+16. © De Agostini Picture Library/G. Dagli Orti/The 
+Bridgeman Art Library. 
+
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+
+
+17. Engraving: Wil iam J. Stone, 1823 © The Art 
+Archive/National Archives Washington DC (ref: AA399024). 
+
+18. © Adam Jones/Corbis. 
+
+19. © The Schoyen Col ection, Oslo and London, MS 1717. 
+http://www.schovencol ection.com/. 
+
+20. Manuscript: History of the Inca Kingdom, Nueva 
+Coronica y buen Gobierno, c.1587, il ustrations by Guarnan 
+Poma de Ayala, Peru © The Art Archive/Archaeological 
+Museum Lima/Gianni Dagli Orti (ref: AA365957). 
+
+21. Photo: Guy Til im/Africa Media Online, 1989 © 
+africanpictures/akg. 
+
+22. © Reunion des musees nationaux/Gerard Blot. 
+
+23. © Visual/Corbis. 
+
+24. © Visual/Corbis. 
+
+25. © Universal History Archive/UIG/The Bridgeman Art 
+Library. 
+
+26. II u strati on based on: Joe Crib b (ed.), Money: From 
+Cowrie SheI s to Credit Cards (London: Published for the 
+Trustees of the British Museum by British Museum 
+Publications, 1986), 27. 
+
+27. © akg/Bible Land Pictures. 
+
+28. © Stuart Black/Robert Harding World Imagery/Getty 
+Images. 
+
+29. © The Art Archive/Gianni Dagli Orti (ref: AA423796). 
+
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+
+30. Library of Congress, Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 
+United States Holocaust Memorial Museum © 
+
+courtesy of Roland Klemig. 
+
+31. Photo: Boaz Neumann. From Kladderadatsch 49 (1933), 
+7. 
+
+32. © Visual/Corbis. 
+
+33. © Ria Novosti/Science Photo Library. 
+
+34. Painting: Franklin's Experiment, June 1752, published by 
+Currier & Ives © Museum of the City of New York/Corbis. 
+
+35. Portrait: C. A. Wool ey, 1866, National Library of 
+Australia (ref: an23378504). 
+
+36. © British Library Board (shelfmark add. 11267). 
+
+37. © Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ms. Laur. 
+Med. Palat. 249 (mappa Salviati). 
+
+38. II ustration © Neil Gower. 
+
+
+39. Redraft of the Castel o Plan, John Wolcott Adams, 1916 
+© Col ection of the New-York Historical Society/The 
+Bridgeman Art Library. 
+
+40. Photo and © Anonymous for Animal Rights (Israel). 
+
+41. © Photo Researchers /Visual ohotos.com. 
+
+42. © Chaplin/United Artists/The Kobal Col ection/Max Munn 
+Autrey. 
+
+43. Lithograph from a photo by Fishbourne & Gow, San 
+Francisco, 1850s © Corbis. 
+
+
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+
+44. © Proehl Studios/Corbis. 
+
+
+45. Europa Press via Getty Images. 
+
+46. Photo and © Charles Vacanti. 
+
+47. © ImageBank/Getty Images Israel. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Document Outline 
+
+
+• Title Pa ge 
+
+• Copyright 
+
+• Dedication 
+
+• Contents 
+
+• Timeline of Histor y 
+
+• Part One: The Co g nitive Revolution 
+
+o 1: An Animal of No Si g nificance 
+o 2: The Tree of Knowled ge 
+o 3: A Dav in the Life of Adam and Eve 
+o 4: The Flood 
+
+• Part Two: The A g ricultural Revolution 
+
+o 5: History's Bi gg est Fraud 
+o 6: Buildin g P yramids 
+o 7: Memory Overload 
+o 8: There is No l ustice in Histor y 
+
+• Part Three: The Unification of Humankind 
+
+o 9: The Arrow of Histor y 
+o 10: The Scent of Mone y 
+o 11: Imperial Visions 
+o 12: The Law of Reli g ion 
+o 13: The Secret of Success 
+
+• Part Four: The Scientific Revolution 
+
+o 14: The Discovery of I g norance 
+o 15: The Marria g e of Science and Empire 
+o 16: The Capitalist Creed 
+o 17: The Wheels of Industr y 
+o 18: A Permanent Revolution 
+o 19: And They Lived Ha ppil y Ever After 
+o 20: The End of Homo Sapiens 
+
+• Afterword: The Animal that Became a God 
+
+• Notes 
+
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+
+Acknowled g ements 
+Ima g e credits 
+
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+