A review by hedsek
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

informative reflective medium-paced

2.75

I did not really enjoy this book as much as I'd hoped, after it was recommended by many different people. The writing style is pretty infantilising at times, often using three different ridiculous examples in a row to illustrate that something is not possible, when one (or no) examples would have been sufficient. I also did not like how the author mixes scientific research with his own opinions without differentiating the two completely. I noticed this especially in the beginning of the book in the linguistics section, where he sometimes phrased things as facts when I know there is no consensus about it at all in the field. This made me wonder about the accuracy of other parts of the book where I don't have knowledge of the field other than what is provided in the book.
I did really enjoy his analysis of the economy as a type of religion, that was very insightful.