Sapiens

A Brief History of Humankind

eBook, 466 pages

English language

Published Sept. 3, 2014 by Vintage.

ISBN:
978-1-84655-824-5
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
890244744
ASIN:
B00K7ED54M

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(92 reviews)

100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens.

How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights; to trust money, books and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come?

In Sapiens, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical – and sometimes devastating – breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, paleontology and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we …

51 editions

Sapiens

No rating

La historia de la humanidad, desde un acercamiento biológico y antropológico. Sostiene un análisis casi neutral y semi lineal. La voz escribe en tercera persona lo que juega un papel interesante en la no identificación de la especie humana, y generar mayor comprensión de nuestra naturaleza.

Coffee shop BS, and I don't mean bookstore

There's a bookstore/coffeeshop I used to go to where I once heard another customer expound in an initially impressive and interesting manner that started to sound like BS after a while. I bought this book at that store and had the same experience reading it. Initially, it's informative and entertaining in the style of science books I usually enjoy, but after a while the author just sounded like the coffee shop arguer who loves to hold forth and after a while you can't believe anything he says. After some passages of there-are-some-other-theories-but-I-just-don't-buy-it, and self contractory grand statements like all those authoritarian conquerors really thought they were doing good, and later, all those authoritarian conquerors, they lied, I started wondering if this guy is for real, checked wikipedia and saw despite the celebrity endorsements (thanks, Obama), there are a lot of academic criticisms, and that was enough for me. As with …

La història mundial condensada

Bon llibre que fa un repàs, evidentment succint, a la història de la humanitat des de l'inici fins, més o menys, ara, des d'un punt de vista molt crític al capitalisme, al liberalisme i a la forma de gestionar-ho tot que tenim els humans en general. Una molt bona, a estones densa, lectura.

Books as gifts become homework

Unfortunately I didn't find any new to me insight in this book. Because of the size of the subject matter, it oversimplifies many things - perhaps I can use it to tell me what I need to learn more about because I didn't notice a simplification. It might be a good start for someone else to learn, at best. Furthermore, the author seems to have a bias that Buddhism has the Right Answers, which will never fail to annoy me.

Review of 'Sapiens' on 'GoodReads'

I can't really speak to the value of its scholarship, but this book zips along at a wonderful pace. It is extremely readable. That said, it does make a lot of superficial arguments. I wouldn't say that it is particularly deep.

I think this one is good fun for a high school senior thinking about starting a BA in History who wants an overview of potential study areas. The citations at the back of the book might also get them started down more specific paths.

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