Scan barcode
yellow_star's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
2.0
This is a book by an asshole. Warning: author has lots of prejudices, strongly classist.
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Religious bigotry, and Colonisation
Minor: Genocide
Classismallegrahistory's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.5
This is an excellent book that covers centuries of history in one book. This book does a lot different things, it could have been three separate books in terms of the subject matter covered. An archaeology book, a book on evolutionary biology, the history of economics. Overall the book was good, it was almost like a textbook.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty
Moderate: Racism