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elliott_the_clementine's review against another edition
3.75
Graphic: Genocide, Racism, and Sexism
Minor: Transphobia
rafacolog's review against another edition
3.0
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Death, Genocide, Misogyny, Racism, Colonisation, and War
msonoda's review against another edition
2.0
Graphic: Racism and Xenophobia
merilyn_ohtla's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Genocide, Racism, Rape, and Slavery
keishac13's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Genocide, Violence, and Colonisation
Moderate: Fatphobia, Misogyny, Racism, Slavery, and War
kinddog2073's review against another edition
1.0
1. Wild ans unsubstantiated sociological-anthropological conjectures
2. Unapologetically but still annoyingly coy in its defense of imperialism
3. Imperialist and capitalist propaganda, sum and substance
It is a frustrating read written mostly (though not entirely) in a self-righteous and snivelling tone. Harari at once appears to either trust the reader to make their own critical conclusions about say, the validity of American justifiation for atomic war crimes, but not enough to stop himself from arguing in favour of (or at least against substantive criticisms of) inexusable genocidal empires that to this day continue to reap the benefits of and never pay the price or reparations for their centuries of crimes against humanity.
The wild conjectures at least are darkly funny, but the uncritical defense and optimism applied to "Western values" betrays a lot about the writers view of the world.
No wonder Obama, Bill Gates, and Jared Diamond praised this book.
Graphic: Genocide, Racism, Violence, and Xenophobia
greebkit's review against another edition
3.0
I did not care for some real obvious misogyny and racism. It is very obvious that the author has issues with women and it is not healthy. After I read this book, I found out the author was gay and that does explain his obvious revulsion, but he offers up his biases and opinions as facts. There were a lot of points he was arguing that seemed like opinions rather than facts, but, because of the lack of citations, I have no idea if they have even the slightest basis in truth.
Still, there were several interesting topics and I would say it is an interesting read when he is sticking to actual history. I'd say it is a good starting point from which to go to more in-depth writings on the subject.
Moderate: Misogyny and Racism
burnt_milk's review against another edition
3.75
I've read in other reviews that there are also a few factual inaccuracies in the text.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Racism, Colonisation, and War
Moderate: Slavery
Minor: Fatphobia and Transphobia
lanid's review against another edition
5.0
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Genocide, Racism, Slavery, Religious bigotry, Colonisation, and War
yellow_star's review against another edition
2.0
It should be a good overview of humanity's history, and parts of it are that, but there's constant butt ins from the author being an r/iamverysmart type prick. One example of many: "[humans developed more and more specialized niches] including niches for imbeciles like water carriers or factory workers." What kind of classist asshole writes that because someone is in the bottom of a class organization and can only get low paying jobs they themselves are a brain dead idiot?!? Who tries to make a fact based argument that classism and other types of prejudice are how superior genes work out and arrange themselves in a society besides a prejudiced jerk? That's just one example, the author gleefully throws in many other attacks against many other groups and ideologies that don't really connect with or build on the academic content of the book and are mainly just there to pretend there's a factual basis for being an asshole. There are a few parts where the author just innocently covers prejudice as it pertains to human history which is totally a valid thing to have a lot of in a book about human history, but they still add in their personal hateful opinions where it adds nothing and isn't pertinent to what is being learned. I still gave it 2 stars because there's some actual facts in there and the book is well organized but I bet that's to the credit of the editor more than this jerk author. What kind of person tries to pretend there are factual arguments supporting imperialism and classism and racism as helping our species thrive? The author does not differentiate between established facts and his own personal theories, I would guess that is because of an oversized ego thinking all of his own personal theories and opinions are equal to established facts. Maybe all the good reviews of this popular book are just people being blinded by the illusion of facts supporting prejudice in this to not see it's just the author's own barely disguised hatefulness? I've never read such a bad popular book. There have to be other books that are a summary of human history with a more reliable narrator though.
Moderate: Racism, Religious bigotry, and Colonisation
Minor: Genocide
Classism