My review of Sapiens: "Lesson Relearned: First scan the expert reviews" [2021] "Sapiens is "folk history", feel good stuff that sounds true, because you've he

My review of Sapiens: "Lesson Relearned: First scan the expert reviews" [2021] "Sapiens is "folk history", feel good stuff that sounds true, because you've heard it before. First concern was really good description of perennial tension (liberty vs freedom) followed by incorrect definition of cognitive dissonance. Oops. I tried to power thru the section about money. As others noted, though he cites Graeber, he apparently hasn't read Graeber. So then I remembered to consult r/askhistorians' wiki. Oh. Sapiens has been widely debunked, refuted. For example, his neanderthals vs sapiens narrative is decades out of date. I don't mind coloring book (abridged, simplified) versions of history. They can be great intros. But life's too short for "not even wrong". And it seems as though Harari hasn't handled the critics very well (defensive, no updates). Too bad." FWIW, Here's those r/askhistorians criticisms too: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views#wiki_historians.27_views_of_yuval_noah_harari.2C_sapiens_and_homo_deus https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views...