Book · 2011
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari
A historian writes one book to cover all of human history, and r/AskHistorians spends years explaining why that was a bad idea.
What does Reddit think of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind?
Twenty mentions across two subreddits over seven years — 19 of them in r/AskHistorians — and the pattern is consistent: *Sapiens* comes up not as a recommendation but as an exhibit. When someone cites Harari's Cognitive Revolution argument or his framing of agricultural history, an r/AskHistorians mod or high-rep commenter appears to explain what he got wrong. The ↑126 and ↑191 responses are the telling ones: one links directly to the subreddit's wiki section on Harari under "historians' views," the other acknowledges the impossible project of one-book-for-all-of-history and still judges it dubious scholarship. The ↑52 comment cuts to it plainly — Harari trained as a historian but writes anthropology, and it shows. The lone r/history appearance (↑82) doesn't engage the book at all.
Evidence, not a rating
Recommendation receipt
A compact, source-linked answer derived from the same Reddit sample and editorial synthesis as this page.
Editorial summary
Twenty mentions across two subreddits over seven years — 19 of them in r/AskHistorians — and the pattern is consistent: *Sapiens* comes up not as a recommendation but as an exhibit. When someone cites Harari's Cognitive Revolution argument or his framing of agricultural history, an r/AskHistorians mod or high-rep commenter appears to explain what he got wrong.
Read if
Read it if you want a fast map of the territory before going deeper — just treat it as orientation, not authority. If you're the person who cited 'something I read in Sapiens' in an r/AskHistorians thread, you've already seen how that goes. Academic readers in history or anthropology will find the errors too distracting to enjoy the framing.
Skip or borrow first if
r/AskHistorians links Harari's name to a dedicated wiki entry under 'dubious scholarship' — that's not a casual dismissal.
Strongest published evidence
“Copied from an older post of mine: *DoE* is not without its fierce detractors, and that is for the best. Anyone who hopes to have made a point without … his review that *DoE* is factually sound, subject only to the inevitable errors of any book this long. There's an important comparison to be made h…”r/AskHistorians source · score 278 ↗
Dissent & strongest caveat
r/AskHistorians links Harari's name to a dedicated wiki entry under 'dubious scholarship' — that's not a casual dismissal.
Negative source excerpt
“The person you were talking to was using arguments popularized by Yuval Noah Harari in his book *Sapiens*. The book is not well-regarded in anthropological and historical circles. See the post by u/CommodoreCoCo in [this thread](”r/AskHistorians source · score 126 ↗
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · scope versus accuracy in popular history
- · academic credentialing and writing outside one's field
- · the Cognitive Revolution and its contested claims
- · agricultural history and the domestication thesis
- · pop history as a genre with different goals than scholarship
Common praise
- + Tackles the audacious single-volume scope that most historians explicitly refuse.
- + Introduces casual readers to questions about deep human history they would never encounter in a textbook.
- + Generates enough interest that readers end up in r/AskHistorians asking follow-up questions — which is how the 19 mentions got there.
Common criticism
- − r/AskHistorians links Harari's name to a dedicated wiki entry under 'dubious scholarship' — that's not a casual dismissal.
- − The Cognitive Revolution section overstates its own importance relative to current anthropological debate, per the ↑33 comment.
- − Harari trained as a historian but the book operates as anthropology, a field he has no professional grounding in, according to the ↑52 response.
- − The book's arguments appear in r/AskHistorians threads primarily because someone repeated them as fact and needed correcting.
Who it's for
Read it if you want a fast map of the territory before going deeper — just treat it as orientation, not authority. If you're the person who cited 'something I read in Sapiens' in an r/AskHistorians thread, you've already seen how that goes. Academic readers in history or anthropology will find the errors too distracting to enjoy the framing. The audience that gets the most from it is probably curious generalists who will follow up with actual monographs afterward.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind?
The most relevant excerpts across the subreddits where this book is mentioned — opinionated, argued takes first, then top-upvoted mentions. Click through to read the full thread.
“Copied from an older post of mine: *DoE* is not without its fierce detractors, and that is for the best. Anyone who hopes to have made a point without … his review that *DoE* is factually sound, subject only to the inevitable errors of any book this long. There's an important comparison to be made h…
“[continued] Anyway, that's sort of the basic overview of arguments about this. This is still a very hotly-contested area of anthropology and history. I have little doubt that we do not have the full picture here — that there is much more to learn, and that there is much that will be forever lost to…
“Hello! I think there are a few points in your post to unpack; first I’ll touch on why the genre of “big history” can be tricky just for what it IS: an … And yet, when the question is interesting enough, there are plenty of authors who will MAKE it have an answer no matter what they have to do to get…
“The person you were talking to was using arguments popularized by Yuval Noah Harari in his book *Sapiens*. The book is not well-regarded in anthropological and historical circles. See the post by u/CommodoreCoCo in [this thread](
“Think about this: Kind Edward I of England (1237-1307) and Queen Elenor had 16 children. 1. Daugther: died at birth. 2. Daughter: died at age 1 or 3 3. Daughter: died at 6 months. 4. Son: died at age 5 5. Son: died at age 6 6. Daughter: died at age 29 7. Daughter: died at 5 months 8. Daughter: died…
“The short answer is: "Ask an anthropologist-- what he's writing is much more anthropology than it is history". What's awkward is that he trained as an historian, not as an anthropologist, so he's writing almost entirely outside his professional expertise, and it shows There are many questions and…
“I would say that yes, Harari is better than the other two in that he actually has academic training as a historian. But as I understand it, his training … from the Middle Ages to the Late Modern Era". But then around 2014 he switched from doing academic history to doing Big Picture Airport Book hist…
“Graeber and Wengrow’s *The Dawn of Everything* is in many respects the latest Big Book about Human History to get a glowing write up in The Atlantic and … Paris, and the back blurb begins with “A dramatically new understanding of human history” (compare the “From a renowned historian comes a groundb…
“For prehistory I think the best version of what you're looking for may actually be a podcast, "Tides of History," by Patrick Wyman. A) if nothing else, … for B) he constantly interviews the scholars/researchers whose work he is aggregating so you can hear them in their own words C) Wyman has the tra…
“I think the point is more that state ideology is more about aspirations than facts. The ur-example obviously being the French state's imposition of "Frenchness" onto the people who lived within the territories claimed by the state. The qualities that we assign to states, including the monopoly of th…
“I think it's worth making two points before I get into it. The first is this: Yuval Noah Harari's *Sapiens* is dubious scholarship at best. This section of the FAQ i…
“\> The introduction of agriculture seems to have affected human height quite a lot, namely reduced it by tens of percent. I take this to be evidence that the average person lived a significantly worse life post-agriculture than the average person pre-agriculture, which is super interesting. I've he…
“On the other hand, The Dawn of Everything tries to more or less refute Against the Grain, derides Sapiens, and perhaps has a few challenges to 1491 as well. And the authors are explicit that their analysis differs from mainstream views in the field, which at least helps to keep everything in perspec…
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What else does r/AskHistorians read?
Other books mentioned in the same sub, ranked. Shared-sub overlap with this title breaks ties.
Guides featuring Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Ranked best-of lists and editorial guides where this book's tracked mentions place it.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind — frequently asked
What does r/AskHistorians think of Sapiens?+
Skeptical, consistently. 19 of the book's 20 tracked mentions are in that sub, and most appear as corrections when someone cites Harari's arguments. The subreddit's wiki has a dedicated section on him under 'historians' views.' The ↑191 comment acknowledges the book's ambition while still calling it dubious scholarship. That's about as close to a consensus as r/AskHistorians gets.
Is Sapiens accurate enough to trust as a history book?+
Depends on how much you fact-check your reading. The r/AskHistorians record — 19 mentions, nearly all corrective — suggests treating specific claims with caution. The ↑33 response details how Harari overstates the Cognitive Revolution. The ↑52 comment notes he's writing outside his professional expertise. Use it as a frame, verify the specifics elsewhere.
Should I read Sapiens or Guns, Germs, and Steel first?+
The data doesn't compare them directly, but r/AskHistorians treats both as pop history requiring scrutiny. Guns, Germs, and Steel has its own set of academic critics; Sapiens has a dedicated wiki entry on the subreddit. Neither is a substitute for the primary literature, but both are faster reads. If you're choosing one entry point, GGS has been in print longer and the critical apparatus around it is more developed.
Is Sapiens worth reading if you already know the academic criticism?+
Probably yes, on its own terms. The ↑191 r/AskHistorians commenter puts it well: pop history has goals 'radically different from original scholarship.' Knowing where Harari overstates actually makes the book more interesting — you can track exactly where the synthesis goes beyond the evidence. That's a different reading experience than taking it straight.