cached feelings

Sapiens is a book that wants very badly to explain everything, and often succeeds—at least on the first pass.

Harari is a compelling synthesist. He has a talent for pulling threads from biology, anthropology, economics, and myth and laying them side by side until a pattern emerges. Reading this book feels like being walked through a well-organised museum by a guide who is charismatic, confident, and occasionally too pleased with their own ability to gesture at the whole room at once.

At its best, Sapiens is genuinely clarifying. The idea of shared myths as social glue is useful and sticky; it reshapes how you think about money, nations, and even family. The book excels at reframing familiar facts in ways that feel newly legible, and I understand why so many readers come away from it feeling as though a fog has lifted.

Where it falters, for me, is in its certainty.

The book frequently slides from this is one persuasive way to interpret the evidence into this is what it all means, and that shift is doing more work than the prose admits. Complex histories are flattened into clean narratives, dissenting scholarly voices are gestured at rather than grappled with, and speculation is sometimes delivered with the confidence of conclusion.

There is also a tone problem. Sapiens is curious about humanity in the abstract, but less interested in humans as lived, situated beings—particularly when it comes to women, care, and the invisible labour that keeps societies functioning. The macro lens is impressive, but it leaves some rooms unexplored.

I don’t regret reading this book. It gave me language for ideas I still use, and it sparked questions I’m glad to have. But I trust it more as a conversation starter than as a framework to live by.

This is a book to read alertly. With interest, yes—but also with a willingness to pause, annotate, and remind yourself that “a brief history” is always a choice about what to leave out.