Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari is a brilliant and thought-provoking journey through human history, covering 13.5 billion years. While it is engaging and insightful, particularly on modern topics, it is also flawed in its historical accuracy and understanding of medieval times and religious beliefs.
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari is a brilliant and thought-provoking journey through human history, covering 13.5 billion years. The book is engaging and insightful, particularly in its analysis of modern topics. Harari's exploration of the forces that shaped Homo sapiens and his critique of modern social ills are refreshing and objective. However, the book is also flawed in its historical accuracy and understanding of medieval times and religious beliefs. Harari's depiction of the medieval world and the Church is inaccurate and oversimplified. His understanding of Christianity and its beliefs is also shaky, leading to misrepresentations. While the book has many merits, its critique of Judaism and Christianity lacks objectivity and historical respectability.
Quick quotes
Harari’s pictures of the earliest men and then the foragers and agrarians are fascinating; but he breathlessly rushes on to take us past the agricultural revolution of 10,000 years ago, to the arrival of religion, the scientific revolution, industrialisation, the advent of artificial intelligence and the possible end of humankind.
Harari is not good on the medieval world, or at least the medieval church. He suggests that ‘premodern’ religion asserted that everything important to know about the world ‘was already known’ (p279) so there was no curiosity or expansion of learning.
Harari is also demonstrably very shaky in his representation of what Christians believe. For example, his contention that belief in the Devil makes Christianity dualistic (equal independent good and evil gods) is simply untenable.