Rating: 5 out of 5
This is a thorough look into the ideas and institutions that have built modern humanity with plentiful examples to illustrate the author’s point. In many a case, I felt that Mr Harari made a very good point but the illustrating examples were subpar; as such, this was a better theoretical link between ideas than a source for the discussions that the author recommends as part of understanding ourselves and our future.
Also, quite often the book felt as a mission statement with the author in an incredible hurry to run through all of the topics. As part of this, the problems with the present day started repeating themselves and the same questions cropped up again and again – though one could have hoped for new(er) ideas presenting themselves in the look towards the present.
Mr Harari also seemed to make a very half-arsed effort with regards to some topics (such as religion where he described two and expanded his thoughts to the others without noting significant changes in some of the others), but overall this is a book worthy of reading — but read some more focussed histories as well to create those mental examples for the ideas the author describes herein. The rating from me, however, is mostly to reflect that this is a very readable work even if there are aspects of it I would like to have been better.
