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A review by djbeyers75
Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
2.0
I am greatly disappointed I purchased this book.
To be fair, the first few pages intrigued my interest. Narari can certainly write and capture your attention. I suspect in large part that is why this book received such high reviews on GoodReads: it is an easy book to pick-up and read.
I struggled, however, with many of his claims and often erroneous statements. On several occasions I found myself turning to his footnotes for further information. What I often found was a list of sources without any explanation of why the sources supported his claims. Moreover, he presents a rather simplistic review of history, such as:
1. Medieval Period = A simplistic time when people blindly obeyed religious leaders who used their "knowledge" for their own purposes.
2. Science freed people from the chains of religious ignorance, and gave way to a new religion, humanism.
3. In our time, the human person has replaced God but only for so long. Soon, artificial intelligence will replace humans and we will encounter a whole new set of problems and challenges.
Harari paints with broad strokes and more often than not offers a less-than-nuanced review of history, contemporary and future developments. More often than not, I found most of the material of this book to have been covered better in other books.
To be fair, the first few pages intrigued my interest. Narari can certainly write and capture your attention. I suspect in large part that is why this book received such high reviews on GoodReads: it is an easy book to pick-up and read.
I struggled, however, with many of his claims and often erroneous statements. On several occasions I found myself turning to his footnotes for further information. What I often found was a list of sources without any explanation of why the sources supported his claims. Moreover, he presents a rather simplistic review of history, such as:
1. Medieval Period = A simplistic time when people blindly obeyed religious leaders who used their "knowledge" for their own purposes.
2. Science freed people from the chains of religious ignorance, and gave way to a new religion, humanism.
3. In our time, the human person has replaced God but only for so long. Soon, artificial intelligence will replace humans and we will encounter a whole new set of problems and challenges.
Harari paints with broad strokes and more often than not offers a less-than-nuanced review of history, contemporary and future developments. More often than not, I found most of the material of this book to have been covered better in other books.