“Homo Deus: a brief history of tomorrow” by Yuval Noah Harari
Sapiens is one of my top 3 favourite books of all time, so I had such a tremendous expectation for this sequel. In retrospect, it is still a brilliant book with vast range of topics filled with plenty of data and insights that are signature of Harari. Some parts are even world class.
However, almost the majority of the contents are stretched a little too long, and give the feel like they are only the extended notes that didn’t get the cut in Sapiens. Moreover, it is not really a direct book about the future, in which I expected to be like the brilliant last chapter in Sapiens. But instead it dwells quite some time in history, thus the overlapping feel with his 1st book.
And when we finally arrived at the predictions of the future? Nothing is really new, although to be fair I have read, watched, and listened to a lot of interviews with Harari talking about this book.
All in all, when reading this book, I can’t help but feeling like when I’m watching the 8th season of Game of Thrones. Sure, it’s brilliant on its own. But when we compare it with the early 7 seasons it becomes obvious that it’s a rather disappointing follow up from the build up.
Already bought his 3rd book though. And I remain a massive fan.
EDWIN SETIADI 