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_mechita's review
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
tense
slow-paced
2.25
in one word: traumatic 😀
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Rape, Hate crime, Animal cruelty, Genocide, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, and War
kinddog2073's review
1.0
1 star because it's not entirely terribly written. But only 1 because the book is quite literally barely anything more than:
1. Wild ans unsubstantiated sociological-anthropological conjectures
2. Unapologetically but still annoyingly coy in its defense of imperialism
3. Imperialist and capitalist propaganda, sum and substance
It is a frustrating read written mostly (though not entirely) in a self-righteous and snivelling tone. Harari at once appears to either trust the reader to make their own critical conclusions about say, the validity of American justifiation for atomic war crimes, but not enough to stop himself from arguing in favour of (or at least against substantive criticisms of) inexusable genocidal empires that to this day continue to reap the benefits of and never pay the price or reparations for their centuries of crimes against humanity.
The wild conjectures at least are darkly funny, but the uncritical defense and optimism applied to "Western values" betrays a lot about the writers view of the world.
No wonder Obama, Bill Gates, and Jared Diamond praised this book.
1. Wild ans unsubstantiated sociological-anthropological conjectures
2. Unapologetically but still annoyingly coy in its defense of imperialism
3. Imperialist and capitalist propaganda, sum and substance
It is a frustrating read written mostly (though not entirely) in a self-righteous and snivelling tone. Harari at once appears to either trust the reader to make their own critical conclusions about say, the validity of American justifiation for atomic war crimes, but not enough to stop himself from arguing in favour of (or at least against substantive criticisms of) inexusable genocidal empires that to this day continue to reap the benefits of and never pay the price or reparations for their centuries of crimes against humanity.
The wild conjectures at least are darkly funny, but the uncritical defense and optimism applied to "Western values" betrays a lot about the writers view of the world.
No wonder Obama, Bill Gates, and Jared Diamond praised this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Xenophobia, Racism, and Violence
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