Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah HarariMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Hooter: A brief history of humankind as the title suggests sums up the content with a lot of thought provoking insights.
Yuval takes a very heavy subject that could span volumes and manages to do certain level of justice to share a series of thought provoking insights on us - the homo sapiens relative to our ancestors and we have evolved over centuries yet probably account for a blip in our own timelines.
His take on the evolution of gossip forming the basis of community to shared beliefs like religion allowing for us to grow as a society makes for an interesting story arc. Wheat domesticated man and not the other way around as we moved from nomads to settling down to farm over centuries.
The role of gender from women being a property of their menfolk to the battle for gender equity in today's day and age also is another arc he tries to share through the evolution of society.
Similarly how capitalism, communism meet the criteria / definition of religion if looked from a particular lens. The interactions with Homo Erectus and other variations that would have co existed and maybe even inter species copulation make for interesting reading. Along with how genetics might have a neanderthal come to life potentially, Yuval captures and provokes a lot of thoughts around our evolution and at what cost to the rest of the planet if not just humankind.
By focusing purely on humans from a social order perspective, he keeps the flow directed without it going all over. Makes for an interesting read loaded with numerous anecdotes from all over the world and some strong hypothesis to push you think beyond the construct we lazily fall back onto.
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