/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20852784]

Are any books in this genre, like Sapiens, Guns, Germs and Steel and a Short History of Nearly Everything actually worth reading?

Bill Brysons Short History of Nearly Everything is the only book in this style I haven't seen get totally panned by people who actually knows what they're talking about

[Anonymous No.20852798]

>>20852784
I don't think so. It's "popular history", but academic history is not that difficult a field that it needs to be popularized, like physics oe math. You just get more per time spent reading actual history books/articles not simplified for brainlets. Same goes for philosophy of history.

[Anonymous No.20852912]

more books for this feel?

[Anonymous No.20853137]

>>20852798
That's true, but what I want to read about spans over a pretty large span of time, pretty much from when single cell life originated up to the stone age or so, without needing to read 50 different books.

But I guess there should be books written that covers roughly that range as well, without going into the industrial revolution and beyond, because that feels to me like the part where it gets too complex to fit into a book like these universal history books without glossing over way too many subjects.

[Pneumatique No.20853245]

>>20852784
GGS is worth reading, the rest not
I also recommend Horse Wheel and Language. I also heard of this one interesting book on prehistoric economics but I forgot the name

[Anonymous No.20853257]

The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow is good. It also shits on Sapiens

[Anonymous No.20853452]

>>20852784
Not Harari for sure

[Anonymous No.20854688]

>>20852784
I read Sapiens once fully on a plane from America to Europe and Homo Deus just normally just before going to bed and being to tired to read anything worthwhile. I think these pop-science books are only good in those situations, when you have some time to kill but don't want to put in effort.

[Anonymous No.20854812]

>>20852784
No
Just think about it for a second
Humans have been around for roughly like ~200,000 years and for almost all of that time we have basically no concrete evidence of anything that happened
Even written human history we have from 1000 years ago might just be full of lies and inaccuracies and we'd never know
Even events as recent as WW1 or 2 have had countless misinformation spread about them and again all of it still relies on whether people at the time just flat out lied about stuff
And maybe it's easier to verify if it's more recent but things slip through the cracks all the time even now in the modern day
In a broad sense this is kind of why history as a subject in general is a little bit dumb but some proof is better than nothing at teh end of the day and if it's fun for you then go ahead
The point is one history professor who is no doubt full of biases, isn't gonna magically give you an accurate picture of all of human history probably not now or ever unless we literally invent a time machine
Basically if you believe anything in these books it's because you want to believe it not because it's what actually happened

[Anonymous No.20855689]

Evolution is a papist lie, Greek history is millions of years old, and Yuval Harari should be in a mass grave

[Anonymous No.20855804]

>>20852784
Sex, science and profits has an unpopular take on the subject which cannot be dismissed easily because as a biochemist and a hard scientist by trade he kinda knows what he's talking about. Still very light and entertaining read.
Yeah, Sapiens is just a school textbook regurgitated, you may give it a pass if you passed your lessons.

[Anonymous No.20855877]

>>20852784
Isn't that the WEF intellectual asset guy?

[Anonymous No.20855917]

>>20852784
>Are any books in this genre, like Sapiens, Guns, Germs and Steel and a Short History of Nearly Everything actually worth reading?
No, not at all. If you're lucky it'll simply be entirely wrong and inaccurate. More likely it'll be full of political biases and attempt to brainwash you as well.

If you just want to read a comprehensive history book, ask /his/. If you want /lit/'s answer, start with Herodotus and Thucydides.

[Anonymous No.20855926]

>>20854812
there's easier ways to admit you have no idea what history as a field even is

[Anonymous No.20855956]

>>20852784
My grandpa really wants me to read this, but I don't want to because I don't want politically motivated (it always is) pop-history to contaminate my perspective. I also don't want to tell him that because he's gonna die before long.

[Anonymous No.20856250]

>>20853257
>It also shits on Sapiens
Explicitly, by calling it out, or implicitly, just by doing the same thing, but better in every way?

[Anonymous No.20856460]

>>20852784
Here, OP. An actually good book that shits on both /pol/tards and idiots like Harari

[Anonymous No.20856477]

>>20855956
It's dumb as shit. Beyond the usual stupid accusations lobbied at Harari for being a Jew, it's lowkey a work to promote a secular Buddhist view of things, which isn't a thing as positive as you might imagine from the description. It could be seen as part of what's called skillful means.

[Anonymous No.20856484]

>>20852784
The only history that matters

[Anonymous No.20856491]

>>20856460
What's the central thesis?

[Anonymous No.20856618]

>>20856491
How can someone be so stupid?
360 is a full turn!

[Anonymous No.20856765]

>>20852798
What is the academic equivalent of Sapiens?

[Anonymous No.20856931]

>>20856491
Basically a commie coming up with insane theories which have either no evidence behind them or require olympic mental gymnastics and assumptions to make any sense

[Anonymous No.20857110]

>>20852784
Understanding Human History by Michael H Hart

[Anonymous No.20857150]

>>20853257
Graeber literally just makes shit up though. Debt is so error-ridden that it’s practically useless for understanding anything at all

[Anonymous No.20857405]

>>20856477
jews don't believe in evolution and materialism.

[Anonymous No.20857482]

>>20852784
First of all, you need to let go of the delusion that you can know what really happened 10k years ago. Even historians are just making guesses based on some scant evidence. But if you want the "most likely" academic consensus, go read the dry academic stuff.

History is in large part about telling stories. And pop-history even more so. It's about presenting interesting ideas that make you think about society. Personal biases are inevitable and that goes for humanities in general.

Anyway, Sapiens has some good parts and that's enough for me to recommend it. It has some weak parts too, but if you're mature enough you'll ignore them. Overall it's a nice and easy read.

[Anonymous No.20857489]

>>20852784
I enjoyed Sapiens, and GGS. I haven’t read A Short History though

[Anonymous No.20857868]

>>20852784
All the ones you mentioned are fucking terrible

[Anonymous No.20857969]

>>20852784
>Guns, Germs and Steel
No

https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2017/09/04/guns-germs-and-steel-revisited/

[Anonymous No.20857995]

>>20857405
Evolution is a kabbalistic doctrine abd mosr atheists and secularists are jews.

[Anonymous No.20857998]

>>20853245
Are you maybe thinking of Against the Grain by James C Scott?

[Anonymous No.20858798]

>>20857995
How could Jews simultaneously believe in Adam and Eve and "macro-evolution"? Atheism is bullshit made up by evil irregular masonic lodges

[Anonymous No.20858818]

>>20852784
This book is fucking horrible, and i'd invite debate on this. This fucking retard not only sounds like a foreigner, but he sounds like a mean-spirted, stupid lame prick who doesn't know what he's talking about. I've read Bill Bryson and I like his style. But that fucking retard Harari sounds like a complete imbecile. And his science is fucking retarded, everything about the cunt licker is wrong. I don't like him or his book at all.

[Anonymous No.20858830]

>>20857995
also the biblical model of the earth is a flat plane but you already know that because you're a lying retard

[Anonymous No.20858837]

>>20856250
Pretty sure the implication was that it was an implicit callout you slow ass autist

[Anonymous No.20858912]

>>20858830
No it isn't, you dumb faggot.
https://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/history/1997Russell.html

[Anonymous No.20859052]

>>20858912

I can trust Wernher von Braun or a random /lit/ homosexual. Hmm...