Many people that I meet from other states are amazed that an Oklahoman expresses my points of view. I am far from an anomaly even though we are in the minority. The following post was copied from the Facebook of my friend Sam McMichael who was once Oklahoma's Poet Laureate. He has been giving us a daily book review.Both the book and his analysis are fascinating to me.

"Sapiens: A brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari: Harper Perennial 2015
The book is organized by presenting the history of humankind as divided into four parts: the cognitive revolution, the agricultural revolution, the unification of humankind, and the scientific revolution. Yesterday I made a few remarks about the cognitive revolution.
Today I will try to give the flavor of Harari’s representation of the agricultural revolution. “History’s Biggest Fraud” is the title of the first subsection. One could surmise Harari’s attitude about the transition from hunting-gathering to farming from this title alone. He mentions the idea that the plants that came to be the staples of the world’s food supply domesticated man, rather than the other way around. Wheat, for instance, was confined to a small area of a few hundred square miles. Now it is spread all over the world. In a state of nature it had to compete with other species for fertile soil, water, and nutrients. Now it is weeded, fertilized,and protected from plant disease and insect attack. Wheat has taught humankind to take very good care of it indeed. Much the same could be said for oats, rice, corn, potatoes, apples, bananas, grapes, etc.
Next, he compares the lifestyles of farmers and hunter gatherers in terms of freedom of movement, health, amount of time spent on subsistence and decides in favor of the hunter-gatherer every time.
Agriculture was a disaster for the 90% of humankind who labored in the fields but provided a surplus that enabled power elites to flourish. Agriculture also resulted in a great wave of extinction.
Stay tuned for a short glimpse of t “The unification of humankind”, and “the scientific revolution,”