Reviews tagging 'Slavery'

Sapiens: Een kleine geschiedenis van de mensheid by Yuval Noah Harari

9 reviews

_mechita's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective tense slow-paced

2.25

in one word: traumatic 😀
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merilyn_ohtla's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

In his book "Sapiens," Yuval Noah Harari presents a historical timeline in which he sheds light on significant advancements achieved through various "revolutions" in human history, such as the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. Challenging established perspectives, he encourages fresh ideas about our modern way of life and argues against the notion of a natural way of living.

Harari specifically focuses on the Agricultural Revolution and its profound impact on not just diets, but also on family and community structures, which continues to influence our present era. While the surplus of food brought about opportunities for leisure and cultural development, the majority of people still carried the burden of laborious tasks.

Strong opinions are expressed by Harari with regards to money, culture, and capitalism. A notable quote from the book states, "Money is the only trust system created by humans that can bridge any cultural gap, and that does not discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, race, age, or sexual orientation."

Finally, Harari concludes by reflecting on the imminent revolution in human society and the irreversible changes we are causing to our environment. 
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keishac13's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.5

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scifipunk's review against another edition

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challenging informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

This book was a very informative and yet surprisingly entertaining recap of literally, the history of humankind as modern scientists understand it.
There is a lot of information in there, but the lively style makes it easy to read regardless.
I enjoyed that Harari manages to approach complicated issues from multiple perspectives and explains controversies among scientists very well. All opinions given are explained, and the author interestingly does not leave out issues he does not have a satisfying answer or explanation for (yet), but rather admits to that and moves on.
I also noticed that the translator localized all examples or comparisons, and did so very well.
This is one of the books that I see myself re-reading over and over in the future, and I truly wish it had been around when I was a child.
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bookreadingelf's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

2.75

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burnt_milk's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

Overall a really interesting read with a lot to say about our place in the world and especially what we deem "progress". However there was such a rudimentary view of gender even for 2014 - no acknowledgement of intersex people, and while there is some talk about gender roles and differentiating gender from sex, the author avoids talking about trans people, and clumsily uses "he or she" for every example.
I've read in other reviews that there are also a few factual inaccuracies in the text.
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jlautry's review against another edition

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informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

This was a book about humankind. From inception to current day. It discusses every aspect of being human that you could think of. From brain and physical development and social structures, to war, money, and politics. I think I learned more from this book than I did from any history or social studies class in school.

The first part of the book really sucked me in. This surprised me because I have a hard time reading and staying interested in non-fiction books. But parts 1, 2, and 3 really held my interest. The author discusses multiple theories about humankind throughout the book and talks about the likelihood of each, which I thought was interesting. 

The book lost me towards the end when I got into the Industrial Revolution and Politics. Those topics just don’t seem to interest me as much. So, full disclosure, I mostly skimmed most of the last couple of parts of the book. Something I didn’t like about the book is it made assumptions about the reader’s knowledge level of certain people and historical events. I had to do a fair amount of Googling who this was and what that was. 

If you are religious in any way (I am), know that the author is not. However, he does go into the history of many religions and the contributions (good and bad) that came from it. I particularly liked this part and found it really interesting to learn more about other spiritual beliefs other than my own. 

This has nothing to do with the content of the book, but I think it’s worth mentioning. This book is REALLY heavy. Like, physically heavy. This was probably my least favorite thing about reading the book was my arms and wrists would literally start hurting if I sat reading it too long. 

Overall, for a non-fiction book, I really liked it and I learned a lot of history that I didn’t know before. I think it’s a worthwhile read!
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lanid's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective

5.0

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karenaerts's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

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