An incredibly thought provoking and fascinating book. Sapiens is beautiful to read and provides numerous eye-opening insights and perspectives on the development of the world we live in.

Slightly churlishly, I eventually became irritated by Harari's generally brilliant reductionist approach overstepping itself. But that is a minor downside , that is perhaps inevitable.

I wholeheartedly recommend the book, and I will definitely read the follow up. ( )

This is a pretty strange rant. Agriculture was a mistake, eh? The book is a collection of hot takes, a mimatch of logic and cherry-picked stats without context trying to paint a picture that fits the world view Harari is peddling. The heavy reliance on everything that humans have created for society as a dillusion, magic, or make-believe gives him the freedom to criticize freely while offering alternatives that don't actually address his underlying criticism. Occasionally he dives into some scientific sounding topic, rattling off a bit of medical jargon or physics, and then he uses that as a leap-pad for some absurd statement.

Just skip this one. It's BS. ( )

A metà tra il saggio e il compendio di storia, in questo libro Harari ripercorre la storia dell'umanità dai suoi albori fino ai giorni nostri. A differenza di un qualsiasi manuale di storia, però, cita pochissime date e ciascuna di queste corrisponde a svolte importantissime nella civiltà dei Sapiens, svolte spesso molto più importanti di quello che ci piacerebbe credere; sì, la storia è fatta anche di questo, piccole verità scomode da ammettere e che Harari descrive benissimo in una visione d'insieme che mette in discussione l'uomo e il suo ruolo nel mondo.
"Può esserci qualcosa di più pericoloso di una massa di dèi insoddisfatti e irresponsabili che non sanno neppure ciò che vogliono?" ( )

More like 3.5 stars but I round up on GP. I enjoyed this - give me a mountain of facts to weave together a story and I will eat it up. Even when it's wrong. Mini spoiler here (though it's non-fiction...how can there be spoilers??): he had me completely nostalgic for a little while over the loss of our hunter-gatherer days! It did go on a bit long (though paradoxically he gave short shrift to a lot). Still, quite glad to have read it. ( )

Das war schon beeindruckend - jede Menge interessante Informationen darüber, wie sich der Homo Sapiens zur vorherrschenden Art auf diesem Planeten aufgeschwungen hat und wie wir und unsere Gesellschaft überhaupt funktionieren. Er geht dabei auf die unterschiedlichsten Aspekte ein (Landwirtschaft, Wissenschaft, Religion, Ideologien).

Die Sprache ist leicht zu lesen, bildhaft und häufig mit einer Prise Humor gewürzt. Man benötigt nicht wirklich viele Vorkenntnisse, um dem Autor zu folgen, die Bereitschaft, sich auf bestimmte Gedankenspiele einzulassen, reicht völlig aus. Auf jeden Fall weckt dieses Buch die Lust auf mehr Bücher von Harari und regt zu weiterer Recherche an. ( )

Thoroughly enjoyed this one. I've read quite a few criticisms of the book, though I didn't necessarily fixate on what others had issues with and I went in knowing it was a "pop science" book so mostly focused on it as an interesting hypothesis and was entertained throughout.

Derek Perkins did an admirable job as the narrator - my wife and I won't even touch an audiobook unless we like the sound of the narrator's voice and Perkins has a great one. It felt like listening to a very interesting lecture.

Some of the ideas behind why Homo Sapiens emerged over Neanderthals in particular were my favorite part. How important creativity, fiction and imagination were in strategizing as a civilization and surviving potential threats.

I don't know how often I'll get to a book like this, but I'm glad we indulged and I'm keen to learn more. ( )

Very good start. Ending a bit too philosophical l. ( )

Interesting to a point, then trending to tedioum. ( )

* Historian Yuval Noah Harari covers a lot of ground in this engrossing work, relaying events that have been teased out of the corners of what has been, and spanning millennia in the history of the species that has named itself Homo sapiens. From the dawn of human culture in the Cognitive Revolution and the gathering together of families and bands into villages and towns, and the development of the race’s sensibilities toward its surroundings, and the development of religious and political thought, we race through the centuries and into the Agricultural Revolution and the “taming” of nature… the plants and animals that now work for us in versions and forms unknown to their evolutionary predecessors.
* The presentation of the development of monetary principles, and of capitalistic and imperial views, and the dawn of the Scientific Revolution brings us closer and closer to the present age, rarely slowing down as we are taken leaping from one concept to another, linking points of view from one period of history to others, and leaving one reeling with the recognition or denial that what one thinks one knows is accurate or is lacking of verisimilitude.
* Harari develops the narrative with an engrossing view toward a complete package, and leaves (at least me) wanting to find out more about the events and periods of time he has weaved into this history.
* Quote: “Seventy thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was still an insignificant animal minding its own business in a corner of Africa. …Today it stands on the verge of becoming a god, poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine abilities of creation and destruction. …We are consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding satisfaction.
Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want?” ( )

Мислите си, че днес човекът замърсява природата, изсича горите и изтребва животните, а преди е живял в хармония с тях като във филма Аватар? Помислете пак. Различните видове хора (преди и заедно с H. Sapiens) са кажи-речи най-голямата екологична катастрофа в историята на планетата ни, собственоръчно изтребили практически всеки по-едър бозайник и изгорили милиони кв.км. хилядолетни гори по време на развитието си от полу-маймуни до земеделци - а след изобретяване на земеделието се захващат с още по-голяма страст със същото.

В Нова Зеландия преди само 800 г. е имало гигантски торбести животни, гигантски орел и нелетяща птица. Стотина години след стъпването на маорите там, те изчезват - това се повтаря практически на всеки остров и континент, дето племената ни се разпространяват.

Интересно е и мнението на автора относно земеделието, което според него не е възприето защото е било по-добро от лова и събирачеството, а по-скоро защото хората са си мислели, че е по-добро, докато всъщност е довело до доста по-нисък стандарт на живот и здраве (последното е неоспоримо така, съдейки по костите).

Книгата описва историята на човешкия вид от малко по-особена гледна точка, която си заслужава да се прочете, ако и да е доста пълна главно с мнението и размислите на автора. В началото е доста по-интересна и качеството намалява с напредването на текста. ( )

I went back to this book to check whether my rating wasn't too harsh. It wasn't. Harari's besetting sin in both his best-selling books is intellectual laziness: he has not brought to the reading public any information that has not already featured in many other, better, popular books. His books amount to little more than notes on other books and popular subjects often treated in magazines, the evidence he cites is thin and sparse, his commentary is obvious and simplistic. For example, for everything he writes about the hunter-gathering lifestyle, the reader would be better served by reading [b:The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?|15766601|The World Until Yesterday What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?|Jared Diamond|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1461046572s/15766601.jpg|21471299]: that's not even a great book, but it's much better than what's on offer here. ( )

There were a number of shrewd insights of the type one gets after a few puffs of cannabis, but I never felt these ideas were developed into anything more profound. ( )

This book was a gift to me by my SO(significant other). And while being a treasured gift ,it was also a very necessary read. Reading this book was easy and it allowed me to think ,compare and image life as it was before. I could almost see the human kind developing in my minds eye. Motivations of such developments were well worded and authors arguments made overall sense. The occasional slip of authors own ideas were visible and noticeable, but were always welcome and non intrusive. Reading sometimes seemed suggestive of certain ideologies, but then i thought about those judgements really being influenced by my thoughts.
I am not a scientific person , but i found the facts fascinating, interpretations interesting and overall this book left me with a good feeling. I learned a lot but most of all , I yet again learned how much there is to learn. Recommended read! ( )

November "everyone" group.

Physically heavy book, because quality paper for quality pictures.

I've read several other prehistory/ origin of mankind books over the years, but never got the overview with the numbers made so clear as is done here.

2.5 myo = "animals much like modern humans first appeared" and first recorded tool use by humans
6 myo = "a single female ape had two daughters. One became the ancestor of all chimpanzees, the other is our own grandmother."
2 myo = the diaspora out of Africa leading to the evolution of disparate humans.

400 kyo = "several species of man began to hunt large game on a regular basis"
300 kyo = regular use of fire
15o kyo = still marginal, still more than about 1 million total humans, Sapiens still in Africa
100 kyo = "the rise of Homo Sapiens... man jumped to the top of the food chain."
70 kyo = the Cognitive Revolution
45 kyo = Sapiens reached Australia

30 kyo = sociopolitical codes and rituals (Sungir burials)
15 kyo = dogs domesticated (maybe earlier)
12 kyo = the Agricultural Revolution
12 kyo= Sapiens reached southern South America
10 kyo = the extinction of other humans than Sapiens, also extinction of mammoths and other entire genera of megafauna
9.5 kyo = construction of Göbekli Tepe built by hunter-gatherers
2.5 kyo = construction of Stonehenge by agrarians

Good companion book, especially for the first few chapters: [b:The Kin|289577|The Kin|Peter Dickinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309203726l/289577._SY75_.jpg|280952] by [a:Peter Dickinson|5345|Peter Dickinson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1292282037p2/5345.jpg]. The bit about lawyer bees reminded me of the clever fable, [b:The Bees|18652002|The Bees|Laline Paull|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1384018069l/18652002._SY75_.jpg|26457997] by [a:Laline Paull|7307477|Laline Paull|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1398389169p2/7307477.jpg].

Skimmed the section about early history, between the Sumerians and the Scientific Revolution, and expect to skim the latter as well. Not new to me.... Skimmed until the last two chapters, actually... and even those I didn't read as carefully as the first section. This book is valuable to those not as widely read as I, I suppose.

In fact I'm annoyed at him for not understanding how much science fiction has, indeed, already considered the questions he poses in the last chapter. But of course I can't expect him to be familiar with the genre... look how much work went into this book, how much reading of science fact, history, economics, current pop psychology, etc etc he must have done.

Btw, I'm very glad that many quotations from the book are listed here on goodreads. Saves me typing up a lot of the bookdarts I marked!

One that did not make it to the GR database: "truth is a poor test for knowledge... a theory that enables us to do new things constitutes knowledge."

Another: "Perhaps social poverty can never be eradicated, but in many countries around the world biological poverty is a thing of the past."

Edit - somewhere I learned 'million years ago' and 'thousand years ago' wrong. Please forgive and read myo and kyo to mean those measures.

A formidable commentary on the development of mankind. ( )

Me ha tomado casi dos meses terminar esta lectura, pero no es porque sea aburrida o pesada, es porque es un libro que te pone a pensar cada dos o tres páginas. Es increíble todo lo que se aprende, lo que se comprende o redescubre con este libro. Desde la prehistoria hasta el futuro de la humanidad, el autor nos da un paseo más que ameno por toda la historia. Muy recomendable. ( )

I wasn't expecting to be this amazed by the book, but here I am. I feel like studying Anthropology now :)

(I also wasn't expecting for Serbia and Yugoslavia to be mentioned that many times) ( )

Llibre de culte sobre la història de la humanitat. De la forma més didàctica, Harari, il.lustra sobre com l'Homo Sapiens ha deixat de ser un animal més en el planeta, per convertir-se en l'espècie dominant a partir de la imaginació i el llenguatge. Una lectura que hauriem de fer cada cert temps. ( )

Assume that you are a huge coffee lover, and you are served a cup of tea. You refuse at first, but are then informed by all and sundry that it is no ordinary tea, but a delightful masala chai, exotic and exquisite, innovatively prepared like never before... All these raring compliments convince you to give it a try. Still slightly wary, you take a tentative sip. "Well, it does seem pretty good for tea", you think, and end up drinking the whole cup. You relish the flavour and appreciate the chai-maker for converting something mundane into something so pleasing to your senses. You feel like complimenting him for not following the typical tried-and-tested recipe but taking a different approach towards instilling new flavours in the brew. However, a teeny tiny part of your heart is still not satisfied. Just because it was tea and not coffee.

"Sapiens" to me is that brilliant masala-infused chai. Almost all of the nonfiction I read tends to be science, economics, business or real-life narratives. So I was slightly apprehensive about taking up an anthropological book. But it seemed to have received glowing reviews from almost all quarters, so the temptation to try it was tremendous. A few chapters into it, I began relishing the journey. Sapiens is flavourful, it is offbeat, it is thought-provoking. It is a ray of sunshine in the bleak realm of human evolution books.

And yet, in spite of all this, by the time I reached the end, I was left underwhelmed. It was more a feeling of relief that the book was over rather than satisfaction on reading a thought-provoking book. Surprisingly to me, I enjoyed the cognitive and agriculture revolution sections of the book (they were really eye-openers) much more than the scientific and industrial revolution parts.

This doesn't take away anything from the book. It's still worth a read, and opens up your mind tremendously about who we are as a species and how we've reached this position in society. After all, covering thousands of years of human evolution within a single book is no mean task. Though Harari sounds a bit presumptuous at times, his knowledge does reveal itself in most cases without any ambiguity or bias.

Do I regret reading this book?
Definitely no regrets.

Did I enjoy the book?
Indeed, I did.

Would I recommend the book to others?
Certainly, I would.

Would I reread it anytime?
Absolutely not!

Why?
Because Sapiens isn't my cup of..... er... coffee.




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Join me on the Facebook group, "Readers Forever!", for more reviews and other book-related discussions and fun. ( )

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. ( )

Nesta versão graphic novel de Sapiens: Uma breve história da humanidade , que vendeu mais de 16 milhões de exemplares em sessenta idiomas mundo afora, você é convidado a viajar pelo lado selvagem da história, acompanhado por personagens como Bill Pré-Histórico, dra. Ficção e detetive Lopez, e tendo o historiador e filósofo Yuval Noah Harari como guia. Com roteiro do belga David Vandermeulen e arte do francês Daniel Casanave, o formato HQ dá uma nova perspectiva ao passado e às nossas origens. A evolução humana é repensada como um reality show. O primeiro encontro entre os sapiens e os neandertais se dá através das obras-primas da arte moderna. A extinção dos mamutes e dos tigres-dentes-de-sabre é recontada como um filme policial.
Esta série em quadrinhos é uma versão radical da história da humanidade, recheada de inteligência, humor e personagens pitorescos, e pensada para cativar quem gostaria de saber, entre outros assuntos, como um reles primata se tornou governante do planeta Terra, capaz de dividir átomos, viajar à Lua e manipular o código genético da vida.

I failed to be awed or amazed. The information was interesting, yet never amazing, and I struggled to pay close attention. ( )

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). ( )

This is one long book, but definitely worth the read. One of the greatest book of all time. It gives an deep dive from humanity beginning until now. Lots of great insights. It makes me realize that we are a small species. Gave me a better understanding of how we came to have everthing today (social politcal economical structure) and we shouldn’t take it for granted. ( )

In Sapiens, Harari starts with the appearance of matter and energy - 13.5 billion years ago - and moves through key developments in our history: the evolution of homo sapiens in East Africa 200,000 years ago; the Cognitive Revolution 70,000 years ago; the Agricultural Revolution 12,000 years ago; the Scientific Revolution 500 years ago; and the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago. The book is engaging and readable and contains historical information that could be considered essential for understanding who we are and where we came from. ( )