Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind in Science and Inquiry

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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari

Start date: March 1, 2016

Finish date: March 31, 2016

Discussion: Book Club 2016

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Book Club 2016

* December 2016 - Wizards, Aliens
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last updated Jan 25, 2017 01:23AM

* November 2016 - Neurotribes
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last updated Nov 27, 2016 08:47PM

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What Members Thought

Jul 09, 2016 Petra X rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2016-150-reviews, popculture-anthropology, 2016-read, history, reviewed

The book was too much a basic primer for me, at least to start with, but that's probably because I've read too many books on our origins biologically and culturally. Once the author had us settled into the civilization of cities he waxed romantically (as authors on this subject quite often do) on the life of the hunter gatherer and its perfection. (I've just finished Sebastian Junger's Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging and there was more of that.) If it was all so perfect then more of us would The book was too much a basic primer for me, at least to start with, but that's probably because I've read too many books on our origins biologically and culturally. Once the author had us settled into the civilization of cities he waxed romantically (as authors on this subject quite often do) on the life of the hunter gatherer and its perfection. (I've just finished Sebastian Junger's Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging and there was more of that.) If it was all so perfect then more of us would return to that ancient life style where people had more leisure, freedom and happiness according to Harari and Junger, neither of whom have given up their miserable materialistic lives for stalking around with a spear.

The book got better. There were some good explanations of why we are as we are and how things developed, Such as human conversation evolving (see below) so we could gossip about our fellow tribes people. I didn't always agree with the author. But I always enjoy books like that to some extent because it gives me a different point of view, different reasons and things to think about. So this was good.

But then it dragged at the end as the author got preachy and scifi technological about our bionic futures. At some time not in the unimaginable future, robots will think for themselves and be able to feel, and then they will supercede us... Yes well Asimov covered all that more than half a century ago. It's not going to happen we are too complex to duplicate. And anyway I can't see robots gossiping and if they don't do that what have they got to talk about (view spoiler) that will make them 'human'? If the desire to gossip gave us speech, then the inability to gossip puts us right back into the pre-sapiens world. Robots are retrogression. Bionic bodies though, that might be progress.
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Written on reading the book. According to the author, basic vocal communication was solved by the primates. And although animals aren't supposed to have theory of mind, green monkeys have been heard calling 'beware there's a lion' when there's no such thing, they just don't want to risk losing or having to share food they've just found.

Human conversation apparently evolved so we could gossip. As a social animal, we need to know whose screwing who, who ripped off who, and who lives in a really disgusting midden. Maybe the author's right. He also says that we are not a tolerant species. He got that right for true. ...more

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Apr 13, 2017 Susanna - Censored by GoodReads is currently reading it

Harari is prone to rather large generalizations, isn't he? ...more

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Jun 16, 2019 Mitchell Friedman rated it it was ok

Shelves: nonfiction, two-star, history, library, popular

Huh. Well I'm glad I read that, but I'm even more glad that I'm done reading it. Interesting but mostly not enjoyable. And I find joy in being pedantic, but this book brings that practice to a level I couldn't even have imagined. There are clever ideas here, and clever turns of phrases. And it would definitely be something I would reach for as a reference for an answer to subjects and ideas. But it was boring and annoying to read. ...more

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