Why it endured
A brief history of humankind — from the cognitive revolution 70,000 years ago to the present. Harari's central argument: Homo sapiens conquered the world because we can believe in fictions — money, nations, corporations, and religions. The most popular history book of the 21st century.
What they're saying
12 people recommend this book
“I recommended Sapiens to my father and he loved it. It's a sweeping account of human history that will change how you see the present.”
GatesNotes
“Sapiens is a thought-provoking account of how Homo sapiens came to dominate the planet. Harari's central argument about collective fictions is fascinating.”
Reading list
“Sapiens is worth reading. Harari asks the right questions about where we came from and where we're going.”
“Essential reading for anyone thinking about the long arc of human health and civilization.”
The Drive Podcast
“Gave me 20 new ideas I hadn't thought about before. A remarkable synthesis of human history.”
“Sapiens is one of the best books I've read — it gives a sweeping account of human history and asks profound questions about our future.”
A Year of Books
“Harari's Sapiens fundamentally changed how I see business, society, and our species' future.”
“Sapiens is the book I recommend more than any other. It reframes everything about how you see human civilization.”
Interview
“Sapiens offers a good overview of broad trends that have shaped the human civilization from prehistoric to modern times, but suffers from inconsistent assumptions about its target audience and, due to its scope, an abundance of high-level statements that don’t connect. My chief criticism of the book is that it does seem to address a consistent audience. One minute the book discusses and explains a broad trend (e.g. the empire, or capitalism) and then abruptly dives into very specific examples from history to support its statements (e.g. a briefly alluded to specific battle during the expansion of the British empire). The problem is that as an ordinarily-educated person, I am familiar with the basic ideas such as capitalism so these sections bore me, but I am not at all familiar with the details of specific conflicts or related circumstances. As such, I spent the majority of the book either bored, or confused and overwhelmed with information that was seemingly assumed. Overall, the book often felt as a work of a historian written for other historians, selling and supporting certain historical interpretations that the author believes to be true. Not an attempt to teach the general audience about history. I enjoyed the first part of the book dealing with prehistoric times - these chapters were fun to read, perhaps partly due to my relative lack of knowledge of this era. From there, my enjoyment of this book diminished monotonically until the end, which suddenly features several hours of philosophical musings about the point of life and happiness. If you’re looking to get a basic idea about some broad strokes of our history, you might enjoy the first parts of this book. If you’re, like me, trying to get a better and more concrete sense of what life was like in different times of our history, this book never spends enough time and depth to paint and communicate a coherent picture and you will end up disappointed. 3/5”
“I love that book so much.”
“It seems that the author has his own ideas about certain things like capitalism and socialism and these. I guess they're complex things to describe anyway. The bias of the author to me is clear in there, at least. And that sort of mudded the waters. But regardless, I really really enjoyed this book.”
“A beautifully written narrative history of human civilization that reads more like a story than a textbook, offering vivid accounts of how our species developed and evolved in ways that subtly reshape how you see the world.”
Modern Wisdom Reading List