Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

What if mankind could create robots so advanced, so hypersmart, that not only will they come up with their own wild definitions of intelligence and consciousness, but they actually make us humans end up feeling like we're worthless, meagre animals lacking ownership of all these updated faculties? Just, perhaps, as we view other animals now?

In this future the hierarchy of species has been shifted. Animals have been moved up to reap the benefits of humanism, whilst the humans have obtained god status. But in front of us, having skipped the evolutionary queue, loom these algorithmic entities that have now left us in dust as the Universe's new meaning-makers and trailblazers. They call the new aestheticians, the powerbrokers who define just about everything. Our historical, mythological rise to immortality has resulted in a boring, obsolete godhood.

As another reviewer has pointed out, Homo Deus is not a prophecy but an exploration. It is a cartographic meandering through the various scientific fronts that capture currently our futuristic interest, with some heady-yet-sobering potential apocalypses as their (largely) decorative outcome. It wouldn't really be fair to treat Homo Deus as a rigorous prediction of what our near or distant future will look like, and Harari even says as much. Rather, we're given a list of routes and destinations that our modern sciences can take us to, and the philosophical lemmas that march alongside them. The predictions in this book aren't always sensible, nor do they share a coherent time frame, nor do they really consider their own congruence. But, again, Harari is musing about the future, not prophetically foaming at the mouth, and that makes this book far more useful to us as the humans poised to receive our apotheosis. A rabid techno-Moses preaching the Grey Goo Gospel would have only earned him ridicule (though I guess radical students would love him).

This one took me a while to read because Jacob and I started as a “read out loud on road trips” book, but I ended up finishing it solo. I also feel a weird and complicated attachment to it, because my dad read almost exclusively non-fiction, and this was the next book on his reading list when he died. Anyway! I loved the first half of the book much more than the second, completely related to content. Hariri summarizes the origins of humanity in sweeping early chapters that feel dazzling, the way you want the best intro courses in college to feel. He excels at synthesizing huge swaths of information punctuated by witty asides, and it's just a fun read. The second half of the book, especially the fourth part, however, has chapters on science and empire, capitalism, industry, etc., and thus the tour continues with the various ways we have more recently exploited each other, other animals, and the earth itself at a scale never before seen. I took some solace in Hariri's obvious distaste for the current situation: the book ends with the question, “Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don't know what they want?” I sometimes hear people talk about the challenges humanity faces now as just another iteration of the challenges humanity has always faced. If there's anything Sapiens makes clear, however, it's that our ability to wreak havoc quickly is unprecedented in our history, and our now-vastly-interconnected species means that such havoc can spin out exponentially quickly, likely far faster than our ability to reverse course (ahem see climate change and nuclear war). I think the importance of reflecting on this reality is more important than whether I “liked” the book.

When I first picked up this book, I was mistaken. I thought that this was solely focused on the early homo adventure featuring Neanderthals and other early humans. I was wrong, whilst it does contain this, it spans all the way to modern day. When I realised this, I accepted it for what it was and was throughly intrigued. A good introduction to many things and a through reading list at the end to do a further delve into anything mentioned if you are interested. Overall, I thought this was a well written book with an interesting perspective on human history and I was fascinated.

This is a fascinating and enlightening book, and for the most part is brilliant. Although I've read about the origins of homo sapiens and human language, I've never thought of it quite as a “cognitive revolution” that separated us from other primates and animals. Still, the early part of the book–the pre-history–is necessarily speculative and is frustrating as a result. Maybe this, maybe that, and if we don't have any idea then what's the point of guessing? Similarly, the end of the book attempts to predict the future, with the same speculative and unsatisfying result. In the middle though . . . wow. Great stuff.

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.

Incredible, enagaging breakdown of human history in the tradition of Bill Bryson's “A Brief History of Nearly Everything”. Tribal law, Hammurabis' code–they all buck against modern ideals of right and wrong. The second half of the book really gains momentum with a stark explanation of religion throughout the ages and its part in war, famine, and soarinng empires. Wish there was a little more on the studies of happiness, but was portrayed was a nice take on chemic or biological happiness versus individual happiness. I am putting this one of the list of physical books to own just so I can write all over it!

A history book with a huge task at hand: to explain most of humankind's history in less than 500 pages. I've read some reviews that point out some things either left out or not particularly accurate, and while that can surely detract the impact of the book, I believe it accomplishes what it intends, which is to give a general idea of where we come from and how our modern world was formed. 

It gave me a sense of understanding in a greater scale aspects of humanity and humanity itself and I value that a lot. I would consider going deeper in those areas that caught my attention to get a bigger angle on them, but in way shape or form takes away from this book in my opinion.

Makes a few of fatphobic, classist and lowkey racist remarks in some places and smart, interesting notations on history in others. Made it a rollercoaster of a read. Also failed to recognize the israeli/british invasion of palestine. And completely ignores immigration and refuges in his analysis of peace. Also completely ignores the threat of climate change. These deliberately ignored subjects would give a more naunced take on his conclusions about the modern world.

The implications of the current pace of technology is presented in an interesting way. I kept thinking what would my reaction to such a sort of life would be. There are instances where you begin to question reality, free will and the mere essence of what means to be a human. If we are the dominant species, was it by our choice or it was coded within is, what if we go extinct, are we wholly responsible or does that just mean that our time is up. This book opens up your mind to a lot of questions and for the better.

My rating is 3.5 ⭐. I had quite a few disagreements with Harari's opinion which was written here. Also sometimes I didn't understand which party is supported by Harari because of his confusing lines and just like he mentioned that it is not always possible to consider them purely good or bad.
Despite all of these I have to say that this book made me think about many instances more deeply? More like with a different perspective. I thoroughly enjoyed binging it. I also found some books that were at Harari's footnotes to be very interesting (more books on my tbr.. yay). I would love to reread the parts I've enjoyed especially the polytheism and the ethics of AI part

I don't even know how to review this book without undermining its brilliance and/or dissuading any potential reader.
Also, this is a popular science/history/all-of-the-humanities-combined book. I do not know enough about the subject to write a detailed and objective review (there is nothing I dislike more than people misleading/misinforming others by making bold and unfounded claims on subjects they are not knowledgeable in).

It's hard to remember on a day to day basis that current life on planet earth is part of a much larger picture. Sapiens constantly expands the reader's perspective in a riveting account. Like a voice whispering “nothing is absolute” at the end of every page.  His ability to explain how we (homo sapiens) have found ourselves living in the world we do now, through an open minded, multifaceted approach and in well written prose blew me away. It was no surprise to me that it won a prize for its creativity and originality.

I don't want to refer to common criticisms I encountered while reading other goodreads reviews, partially because I am not an expert in the field (just as many of those people aren't, by the way) and also because no book is perfect. This one addresses huge themes, many of which are controversial (e.g. religion), thus tackling a large and difficult task. Opinions can and should be debated. Maybe I mostly loved this book because I constantly look at the world/life/everything through as openminded a perspective as possible. If you're not feeling openminded, you might want to leave it for later. In my view it's an incredibly intelligent effort to expand the minds of readers, and there is no way for me to convey the effect the book has. You just have to read it.

(P.S. I was finally convinced to read Sapiens after accidentally stumbling across SimonOxfPhys reviewing it on YouTube. More detailed, very enthusiastic).

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. 

[3.75] I'm torn. This book presents some interesting ideas; some I find compelling, some I don't. Harari is definitely a skilled writer, especially for general audiences. That being said he is also no doubt inspired by Jared Diamond, and Diamond is quite the controversial figure in academia. Like Diamond, Harari is (in my opinion) taking one theory and trying to apply it far too broadly. Any living species, especially humans, are far too complicated to be explained by one big idea. It really does feel like he sat in on a colleague's intro to anthropology class and was like “I've got it!”

Somewhere between a 4 and a 5. I think I got a bit bored partway through, and it took me a couple of months to come back and finish it off. Most interesting part for me was how a lot of things in human society are imaginary (like money, the concept of a company, etc) but we all buy into them being real, and so that's what makes it “real”.

This was, for me, a great introduction to human evolution and history. I see many comments about the accuracy of different parts of this book, and how it's too basic for people who know a lot about this subject. That may be, but for me, it was still a valuable resource for learning things which I perhaps should have already known, and it made boring subjects bearable. I find that to be a major quality, and thus ranks it high.