I have a fundamental disagreement with the author’s idea of what history should be, and the same goes for all the wonderfully valid positive reviews here. Many seem to apologize the book’s flaws based on the idea that, surely, a 500 paged glossary of our history can afford to be short on the details, and maybe even make a mistake or two on the way to the end.

I disagree.

I disagree because history is (as of today) an ongoing process that has lasted 70.000 years by now. I do not feel the weight of those years on the paper.

The author is using the occasion to offer some of his own ideas. Usually, it boils down to pure speculation that you and your loved ones could come up with at a dinner party. This is horrible because this is not a dinner party, it’s a supposedly very serious book that people are going to take very seriously. Since Harrari is not careful enough in his speculation or unrequested divulgation of ideas (the second part in particular) we end with a very contradictory work at hand, one that wants, at both times, be a portal to the past for all kinds of audiences and a mediocre attempt at philosophizing.

I haven’t read, and probably won’t read, Guns, Germs and Steel by Diamond for the same reasons I was sceptical about starting with Sapiens, because I understood I was not going to be pleased by it. This one’s a gift however so I couldn’t just skip it this time. Diamond’s book happens to be an equally unsourced and problematic piece of pop history that has also displeased historians. But I have an underserved amount of respect for Diamond because he at least is probably trying history in some way. He’s speculating based on data, probably reaching wrong conclusions and we will leave it at that.

Harrari is not doing that. Harrari is straight up jumping into the pool of speculation and carrying millions of readers with him into the most asinine dinner party you will attend. I don’t feel like I came out of the reading having read a good history book.

Anyway, in one word: overrated.