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A review by foosreadsandwrites
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
3.0
This book is a history of the human species from before Homo sapiens conquered the Earth. It is fascinating and I think you should read it. Still, the author is either brilliant or a psychopath. He looks at the human condition and the history of our species with a particularly dispassionate air that occasionally leaves you with the feeling that he believes most individual humans are worthless. I doubt that’s the case, and I think he makes efforts in the text to avoid that being the conclusion the reader would make, but it was the still the feeling with which I was often left.
The author also has an interesting definition of the word “imagination.” In this book, it refers to anything that is not strictly rooted in physical objects - capitalism, communism, gods, ideologies, money, nations, and the concept of justice are all “imaginations” and “fiction” by this book’s definition. The author assumes that any idea of a creator-god (or any god in general) is fiction. According to the text, these fictions are the things that allow us as humans to cooperate and work with one another. I agree with him that these are ideas we cannot show another person and that they help us function. I cannot hold up capitalism or any god to you or let you smell the numbers in my bank account, but I need you to believe the numbers in my bank account have value so I can buy stuff. I’d argue that our inability to encounter a physical version of an ideology or other “imagination” makes it no less real, because we made it real when we assigned value to it. I think he would concede that they are both real and fiction, and that the distinction is that if all humans died tomorrow, no animals are going to make use of those numbers in my account.
Anyway, a very interesting book. Style-wise, it felt a little rambly at times and strayed from the point occasionally to tell a story, but it was a fairly compelling use of the 15 hours I spend listening to it.
The author also has an interesting definition of the word “imagination.” In this book, it refers to anything that is not strictly rooted in physical objects - capitalism, communism, gods, ideologies, money, nations, and the concept of justice are all “imaginations” and “fiction” by this book’s definition. The author assumes that any idea of a creator-god (or any god in general) is fiction. According to the text, these fictions are the things that allow us as humans to cooperate and work with one another. I agree with him that these are ideas we cannot show another person and that they help us function. I cannot hold up capitalism or any god to you or let you smell the numbers in my bank account, but I need you to believe the numbers in my bank account have value so I can buy stuff. I’d argue that our inability to encounter a physical version of an ideology or other “imagination” makes it no less real, because we made it real when we assigned value to it. I think he would concede that they are both real and fiction, and that the distinction is that if all humans died tomorrow, no animals are going to make use of those numbers in my account.
Anyway, a very interesting book. Style-wise, it felt a little rambly at times and strayed from the point occasionally to tell a story, but it was a fairly compelling use of the 15 hours I spend listening to it.