Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
By Yuval Noah Harari, trans. John Purcell, Haim Watzman
Publication Year: 2011
Type: Non-fiction
Genre: anthropology, science, history, philosophy
Read on 2018-07-02
View additional specs on this book in Muhan’s 2018 Reading Survey ➞
★★★☆☆
Got this on a 7-day rapid read loan from the library so I had to return it today with about 70 pages to go. It was getting really irritating towards the end though so I’m probably not gonna find another copy and finish it. Really loved the first third or so on the genus Homo, deconstructing our entrenched twenty-first century Sapiens beliefs on what it is to be human, etc, and how wheat actually domesticated us. Like I said the stuff towards the end seemed really overstretching the limits of simplified comparative world history - maybe that’s just because I’m more familiar with imperial histories/modern era stuff/capitalism but l just...didn’t care for it.
Cool read, when it’s well-written/thought out its incredible, does a good job spanning all of human history without getting bogged down but might feel repetitive in areas that your personally familiar with already.
