Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Ratings971
Average rating4.2
Educational history book that reads like a novel. I loved it and have been recommending it to anyone who will listen.
Interesting ideas, starts out with some popular theories.
By the end which devolves into wild speculation.
Enjoyable read nonetheless.
Wel aardig, beschrijft hoe de mensheid door een aantal revoluties heen is geevolueerd (cognitie, landbouw, wetenschap) met een kijkje op wat ons mogelijk nog te wachten staat. Taalgebruik was me soms te populair, en met enige regelmaat had ik zoiets van “dat weten we nou wel”.
Sweeping statements about history, evolution, and the meaning of life from a guy who is loved by Silicon Valley get my back up a bit. But the book does provide usable perspectives and I like the question her ends with: what do we want to want?
Who would have thought that a synopsis of human evolution could have been so riveting? An excellent telling of our history as a species that was entertaining while informative. I was especially enthused by the connections drawn between our evolution, environment, societal norms, etc. I do not doubt that many facts and "truths" were stretched to fit the narrative that Harari was developing, but I have not heard many sources outright contest the validity of his book in entirety. It has been some time since I read this, but now that I am writing this review, I am tempted to revisit it or explore his and other works.
Very interesting and easy read. One of those books that makes you feel smart and dumb at the same time.
One advice though: If you are going to read other Harari's work, be ready to read what you have already read in this book.
Cheers.
A very informative read about humans' history and future. It is still relevant, though the book was published 10 years ago.
So, I just finished “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari, and honestly, it was a bit of a slog. Don't get me wrong, I can see why people rave about it, but it just wasn't my cup of tea.
First off, this book is looong. Like, way too long. 450 pages? Come on, Harari, ever heard of editing? It could've easily been trimmed down to 300 pages without losing much. There were times I seriously considered giving up, but I pushed through because of all the hype.
The amount of detail in this book is overwhelming. Maybe I'm not the target audience, but there's so much information that I found myself not really caring about. It gets repetitive too, with some points being hammered home over and over.
I've got some beef with some of Harari's takes. Like, claiming the British Empire peacefully gave independence to its colonies? That's a bit of a stretch. And comparing violence levels between eras by just looking at numbers? It feels like it's disregarding the value of individual lives in the past.
To be fair, the book is packed with information, and I can see how history buffs or anthropology enthusiasts might love it. But for me, right now, it was just too much. Maybe I'll give it another shot in a few years when I'm in a different headspace.
If you're super into this kind of deep dive into human history and don't mind a hefty read, you might want to check it out. But if you're looking for a light, breezy read about human history, this ain't it.
For now, I'm chalking this up as “not for me” and moving on to something a bit more my speed. Maybe I'll revisit it someday, but for now, it's a 2 out of 5 for me.
This book delivers exactly what it promised in the title, A brief history of Humankind. Yuval takes us through (almost) all of the pivotal moments in history (cognitive revolution, agricultural revolution, and scientific revolution) that lead us to our current society. Would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a history 101 on Homo Sapiens.
I've been a slower reader than usual but it looks like I'm back!! Yesterday was a very heavy errand day (and I took a long walk!) so I finished this all in 2 days. I thought it was really good, interesting, and thought provoking. I read a decent amount of non fiction and this was very well written and flowed well. Impressed with the authors writing style.
really interesting book. Yuval is clearly weak on economics and he got Capitalism quite a bit wrong, but other than that I really enjoyed it.
Capitalism is an economic system, yet he compares it to communism which is a political AND an economic system. Capitalism per say is not to blame for much slavery, like he seems to do, that is up to the political and moral-cultural systems that were present at the time.
The critique often made by historians and social scientists, including Yuval Noah Harari, is that certain aspects of early capitalist economies utilized, perpetuated, or were complicit in systems of slavery, particularly in the context of the transatlantic slave trade and colonial plantations.
This critique can be applied to the wheel just as much as capitalism. It's a nonsensical argument. The moral and ethical implications of a tool or system are largely determined by the ways in which they are employed by humans, rather than inherent characteristics of the tools or systems themselves.
While I found the writing style a bit ranty and long-winded for me at times, there was still plenty of information here.
What can I say about this book that has not been said already? Barack Obama calls it Provocative, and Chris Evans thinks it is the greatest book he has ever read. I have to agree with both of these two fellows. Of all the books I have read during my lifetime, this one has done the most to expand my mind to some of the greatest questions we all ask ourselves.
Yuval touches on everything from the development of different species of Humans seventy thousand years ago to the SuperHuman of the future and everything in between, like the happiness Sapiens experienced in the 1500s to today's GenZ. Yuval also exposes and explains the flaws of our social and political systems in a really thought-provoking way.
This is an incredible book and a must-read as it really puts into perspective our individual lives in the great experiment of humanity. Get it and Read it - it does not disappoint.
Wow, what a ride!
Yuval Noah Harari questions everything. EVERY F-ING THING!
I have always said “Question everything, verify everything”, and now I realize I've only questioned new things. There's an ocean of things I have never questioned, just taken as obvious.
Very interesting book, loved most of it very much.
The only thing that kind of bothered me is that then author comes across as both incredibly nihilistic and deterministic of how the world works. Kind of confusing. For all the nuance he brings in certain areas he is very adamant about his perception on what the myths are we build our lives around.
Anyways.. A good read.
SAPIENS was disappointing. Of course, to even attempt to provide an accurate or somewhat comprehensive history of the species is a mountainous task, and that can be applauded.
But.
Harari's choices in this novel struck me as incredibly biased and, frankly, patriarchal and hegemonic. When understanding that he is a History scholar, this makes some sense - he is focusing on what the victors have focused on! But, as he posits the history of Sapiens (at least early stages) to basically be about and determined by biology, his choices to skim over historical systems of oppression aree shown to be problematic.
I was hoping throughout the book that there would be refutations of pseudo-science and fake evolutionary biology (aka eugenics), or at the very least, recognition of the biases that lead to racist and sexist policies, but Harari only included analysis of theories when he clearly disagreed with them, such as around the Agricultural Revolution.
There are interesting parts in this book, and as a very high level view of evolutionary understanding of the human species and history, I found some value in it. But the number of times that this book made me laugh or fume or roll my eyes greatly outweighed the appreciation that I have for it. If I want to have human history and biology mansplained to me by someone who is not an expert in either, I'll go to a local undergraduate class.
creo q es el libro, por lo menos antropologicamente, más life-changing d todos (no ha leído otro d antropología ever) pero bueno !!! este es perfecto para empezar a adentrarse en el mundo d los nonfiction science books sobre todo x la manera d recopilar TUUUda la info revelante since the beginning of humankind es tan refreshing y feels so novel q parece escrito x un gen z
d pana q este libro cambió mi worldview irremediablemente forever !! además tiene un subtle comedic writing q mencanta
(o sea no es pa reirse pero habla sin nada d filtro y con comparaciones tan remotas q x lo menos a mí m da risa)
x ejemplo:
q el nazismo es una religión (and it's true)
q el trigo es nuestro mayor enemigo (also true)
vainas así absurdas q no damos x sentado y pues q han moldeado nuestra percepción d los humanos
el pasado m lo cambió todo, pero las preguntas q casi nadie se atrevía a hacer con respecto a futuro m dejaron perplejo wondering about what's going to happen
Life is tough, but I'd say life now is much better than being a hunter gatherer. Slaving away at a mundane, low-paying job could be seen as a personal hell, but self awareness is possible with some luck. Harari talks about a modern Chinese citizen working at a sweatshop, and compares it to life as a hunter gatherer, saying that the hunter gatherer's life is more fulfilling. How would it be possible to know how that life is better without having the perspective that we do now as a modern society? I mean, I'm typing this as a citizen in one of the most powerful and prosperous nations to ever exist, and I can thank my farming ancestors for allowing me to do this. “We didn't domesticate wheat, wheat domesticated us.”
I liked the first chapters of the book and the ideas of our development as the top dog, but it just felt so redundant and preachy toward the end. It didn't feel super insightful and as I kept reading I only felt like I wanted to read more in depth works (which is a good thing the book has brought me). It didn't feel like there were any new ideas and it felt very watered down. I guess what can I expect from a 400 page book on all of human history.
I feel like the last section could be summed:“Capitalism and imperialism bad, but without it there are no scientific improvements”. He teeters back and forth between if we are really happy in our day and age or not, constantly retracting his main thesis of our revolutions being bad for the individual human. I agree that we are more complicated individually, but I believe that we can have a more fulfilling life if we so choose.
Overall, it was a good book to refresh my memory about parts of human history and why we are the way we are currently. It's always good to think about our species objectively as I don't think we get enough of that day to day when we're constantly in our bubbles and stuck in our stimulation loops. Hunter gatherers couldn't afford to lay in bed for 6 hours doom scrolling on instagram shorts...
Key takeaways:
- I didn't have many ‘takeaways' from this book, but enjoyed the way human history was nicely summarized, touching on some of the more important moments.
- My favorite part was the discussion of the future. I thoroughly enjoy technology, and the thought of being a cyborg one day was highly engaging for me.
Pretty good first half; rather iffy in parts of the second half.
3.5 stars.
Probably the best collective autobiography ever written. Our universal search for purpose can be summarized with the question “Why are we here?”. This book answers another, equally important, question: “How are we here?”.
I would describe this book as philosophical speculation at its best, and biased pessimistic summaries at its worst. It's format and topics make you think “textbook”, but in reality the bulk of his chapters are his own summary of what those facts mean in the scope of human history, regardless of how many scientific findings he includes. This doesn't mean the book is poorly written or not interesting. If I'm rating this book solely on enjoyment and how interesting it was, I would give it a solid 4.5 stars. However, there are some hot takes in here that I can't get on board with. From the glorification of foraging society to stating that religion is no more than collective imagination, there are too many of the author's biases bleeding into his insanely depressing view of humanity. I also say this knowing full well that my own biases (a Christian worldview being my primary), will impact my opinion on any book.
I rate my books on the following scale:
1 star - would not recommend, would not re-read
2 star - might recommend to the right person, would not re-read
3star - would recommend to the right person, probably would not re-read
4 star - would recommend to most people, but might not re-read
5 star - would recommend to almost anyone and would re-read
With that in mind, I'm rating this 3-stars because, while I wish more people would read books like this and be able to discern the biases, many people will read this book and take it as fact. I also would not re-read this book specifically, but will continue to read books in the topic of human history to continue to round out my understanding of homo sapiens and how we have adapted to our every-changing world.
DNF. It made me depressed thinking that everything in life is a shared myth. Put it down for the sake of my sanity.