It is a good overview of world history. I really enjoyed the parts that were new to me. I didn't know the story of the fall of the Aztec Empire. I didn't know that China and India were significantly ahead of Europe economically in 1500 and I didn't know why they failed to jump into the Industrial Revolution. I liked the chapters that explained shifting perspectives.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Europeans began to draw world maps with lots of empty spaces – one indication of the development of the scientific mindset, as well as of the European imperial drive. The empty maps were a psychological and ideological breakthrough, a clear admission that Europeans were ignorant of large parts of the world.

Anyone looking at the map and possessing even minimal curiosity is tempted to ask, ‘What’s beyond this point?’ The map gives no answers. It invites the observer to set sail and find out .

But a lot of it was not new to me. I'm interested in these topics! So I've already read much about them on Wikipedia, thought about them, and discussed them with friends and strangers. Many of those friends and strangers had already read Sapiens. So I had already absorbed much of the content.

This seems to be my general problem with non-fiction on topics that I am actively interested in. I've already sought out much of what's in the book and this makes it a bit boring to read. Perhaps I'm drawn to sci-fi and fantasy because they at least guarantee something I haven't seen before.

Only forty years passed between the moment Einstein determined that any kind of mass could be converted into energy – that’s what E = mc² means – and the moment atom bombs obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki and nuclear power stations mushroomed all over the globe.

Nit: Atom bombs don't convert mass to energy. I expect it will be thousands of years before we can harness E = mc² for energy production. (See "Are Black Hole Starships Possible" for a vision of how this might work.) Of course the statement is easily fixed if we replace Einstein with Marie Curie.