On Sapiens

I have a lot of thoughts about this book. I’ll start off by saying that I enjoyed it immensely, but that doesn’t necessarily make it good.

First, the most interesting part of the book was the first two sections on the cognitive and agricultural revolutions. These are also the parts I knew least about. Harari’s claim that humanity’s ability to imagine large structures that simultaneously bring us together and divide us is undoubtedly interesting, and I would say overall convincing. The second two parts were familiar to me. He gets the facts right, but has a habit of arguing against critics of capitalism and empire. this isn’t a problem, per se, but it detracts from his larger narrative.

His footnotes had me scratching my head a bit more. The sources he relies on are often quite dated, and in the fields I’m more familiar with (empire mostly), he didn’t even choose the most remarkable research or in depth surveys. This is unfortunate because reading wider could have strengthened the book (and I’m surprised his footnotes weren’t better given that he’s a historian by training).

I’ll probably update this tomorrow once I’m on a computer.