Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah HarariMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed reading this book and am looking forward to listening again to the audiobook version later. The author covers so much ground from all kinds of direction that I wish to contemplate some of the more controversial points again. There are statements made sometimes where you need to check whether it is merely Harari’s opinion or if there are facts or research behind those statements. At the start of the book there was a rather novel classification of our world’s timeline into the three disciplines we call Physics, Chemistry and Biology. He then describes the development of human cultures as history, with three significant sub-divisions, or Revolutions, that shaped that history: the Cognitive; the Agricultural and the Scientific Revolutions in that order. And then in fairly plain and simple, layman’s language most of the time, the author enlarges upon all of those categories in his own fascinating and engaging fashion.
The result is an intriguing and extremely readable history book, covering times, essentially, from the Big Bang to bionic life and artificial intelligence. At the end of the book there are many pages of notes and references so that the reader may check out some of the statements. It has to be the most interesting history book that I have ever read, if only because I am encouraged to discover more about many of the topics Harari covers, such as economics, religions, politics and the ancient tribe of Numantians! This for me is a truly remarkable feat of writing, all be it somewhat questionable in parts. The narrative throughout the book is understandably (in more ways than one!) appealing to anyone interested in the saga of humankind. This book is not an academic tome, which is difficult to penetrate, but a captivating tale of progress and failure, of the highs and lows, of human survival and endeavour; which sharply focusses now and then on the inevitable mistakes along the way.
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