Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I was introduced to the ideas in the book during casual(and superficial) coffee or beer conversations with people who are generally not into reading. That actually got me interested. “What is so interesting about this book” is the reason I bought this book.
This is the first history book I have read and may probably be the last but it is well worth my time and attention. Every page was enjoyable and enriching. Will any of the knowledge or ideas conveyed by Harari be valuable to me? Probably not, but it certainly expanded my thinking and created new appreciation for the evolution of human beings from apes to modern man(or woman). More importantly, it changed my perspective of the significance(or insignificance) of life in general. Harari succeeds with Sapiens at many levels. Firstly, he makes history of human beings very interesting, easy to understand and relatable. The book is fact driven(although superficial) but it doesn’t bore you with a tsunami of statistics and details waiting at your mercy to be interpreted. While some of his opinions are very strong, the book is extremely engaging and thought provoking.
If you can bear with the outlandish claims and watered down accounting of history, evolution and sociology, this is an outstanding read!
Arun.P.C's Blog 