Thursday, June 8, 2017

Homo Deus

I really enjoyed Harari's book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind so I was excited to read his latest, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. It was good, but not out of this world.

What I loved about Sapiens was how it blended historical events with concepts to make me think. Homo Deus also has a bunch of that, but then goes on to philosophize a little bit more than I'd like (or necessarily agree with) and make predictions, in which I put little stock. I get the blame for not seeing that coming, however, as the book's subtitle does imply predictions are on the way. But I couldn't have foreseen how silly the predictions would be, at least to me. But of course they are possible...as is every other possibility.

The first part of the book is pretty great though. Harari discusses the species hierarchy on earth, and what separates humans from animals according to various civilizations, including our own. He explores the at-times symbiotic relationship between religion and science. Once again, I learnt a lot about history.

If you're a Sapiens fan, you may also enjoy Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. If you've never read Harari before, read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind first.

1 comment:

Caerus said...

Agreed. It felt more like a forced follow up to Sapiens; I should've seen it coming and I couldn't even finish the book.