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4.23 AVERAGE
4.23 AVERAGE
ghamr's review
4.0
I still recommend Sapiens, but Harari is absolutely presenting a narrative based on suppositions and assumptions and guesses. He is NOT presenting truth, although he does try to present it that way.
drkottke's review
5.0
This is a gorgeous, meaty read that's like a sprint through (and update of) my undergraduate cultural and biological anthropology survey courses, integrating greatest hits from some seminal reads, like [b:Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies|1842|Guns, Germs, and Steel The Fates of Human Societies|Jared Diamond|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1453215833l/1842._SY75_.jpg|2138852], [b:How the Mind Works|835623|How the Mind Works|Steven Pinker|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387741747l/835623._SY75_.jpg|2085667], and [b:Acts of Meaning|1605646|Acts of Meaning|Jerome Bruner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388282518l/1605646._SY75_.jpg|1598964] among others. I'm most fascinated by the idea that the distinguishing characteristic between homo sapiens and other human species that have walked the Earth (as well as other non-human species) is the ability to create - and believe in - fictions. Note the plural; this isn't fiction, as in, literature. This is the constructs around which we create social contracts (itself a fiction): democracy, corporations, economic systems, the rule of law, gods. These are things that transcend human lives, that don't have a physical reality that we necessarily have to negotiate in order to survive as biological beings, yet they're what allowed sapiens to dominate the world. It fascinates and disturbs me, particularly in the current historical moment where competing visions of how society should be organized and where exactly our sense of rights and freedoms derive are in a pitched battle. The mode of presentation, like a European folio-style comic, is superb.
servane_m's review
5.0
Great work from a comic format perspective. Loved how the authors put the complex points of the original Sapiens book into this format. I loved it, it helped me reframe many arguments.
mantaman0a's review against another edition
4.0
Exuberantly illustrated, and for the most part very concisely told. Just a bit hard to get into at the start, but last third made me really marvel and despair at just how much we can never know about our species' cultural histories, and all the animals that have gone extinct as a result of our existence