One hundred thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was one of at least six human species that walked this planet—an unremarkable animal that played no more a role in the ecosystem than gorillas, fireflies, or jellyfish. But about seventy thousand years ago, a mysterious change in Homo sapiens' cognitive abilities turned it into the master of the planet and the nightmare of the ecosystem. How did Homo sapiens conquer the world? What happened to the other human species? When and why did money, governments, and religion appear? How did empires rise and fall? Why have almost all societies valued women inferior to men? How did science and capitalism become the dominant faiths of the modern era? Have people become happier over time? What future awaits us? Yuval Harari shows how the course of history has shaped human society and the reality around it. His book traces the connection between the events of the past and the problems of the present day and forces the reader to reconsider all established ideas about the world around them.