Homo Sapiens

The History of Humanity and the Development of Civilization

By: William Potter

Narrated by: Gordon Griffin

Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

In just a blink of geological time, the human species spread out from Africa and colonized every corner of the globe, and subjugated the new environments they came across to their will. How did humanity become so dominant so quickly? And what did they then do with this new power?

Homo Sapiens tells the story of the species from its earliest evolutions through the development of the first civilizations up to the industrial and information revolutions that have shaped the modern age. William Potter's thrilling new account asks us to reconsider our traditional notions of history by examining the power of the environment, the influence of language, the ideas that have transformed society, the power of transformative technology, and much, much more.

©2023 Arcturus Holdings Limited (P)2023 Arcturus Publishing & ID Audio

Pretty informative and interesting

It's a pretty interesting book going over most of human history. It's basically like listening to a history documentary, so if you're into that then you should give it a try. I started to lose interest towards the end as we got closer to the modern age but that's more of my personal taste. The narrator also performed very well.

Ambitious

I cannot imagine a more ambitious project than trying to capture the entire history of humankind in a single volume. I enjoyed this book. a great deal not only for its content but because of the excellent narrator. while it is impossible for a book of this breadth to go into great depth in each subject, I'm more eager to explore on my own some of the subjects with which the author dealt

Solid Core. Informative read.

The core of this book is a summary of the entirety of the existence of prehuman and the history of human race. It is engaging, easy to follow, and educative. History scholars might dig few historical inaccuracies here and there, but that shouldn't detract from the overall solid package.

The long introductory chapter is informative. I wished it would give credence to the debate around Darwinian evolution core theory and where it falls short in explaining the emergence of new species, and how it isn't enough to answer the aching question of our existence.

The book ends on a tangent more akin to a social justice warrior. There, the writer expresses futuristic ideas gleaned from Science-Fiction which felt out of place.

a great intro to the history of humanity

This book is an introduction to the history of humanity. It does a good job of introducing the main ideas... bullet points if you will... of vital moments in the evolutionary history of humanity.

I could see a follow-up to this book being a more in depth historical look at each major stopping point in human history.

side note, I received this book for free from the publishing company. in return for a sincere and honest review. I want to thank them for trusting me with this book.

Does what it seeks to do very well

I have no issues with this book. I thought it was an interesting, though shallow in some areas, view of most of human history. I am satisfied with this book

An overview or introductory book to humanity

This book covers thousands of years of development from Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals to the current day. It won’t get into great depth but does a great job introducing practically everything. Then if you want more in depth you should go find a Great Courses book on the specific topic.

It tends to take a topical approach as much as a timeline view. What I mean is while it moves forward on a timeline, it will run a topic out then for the next topic May back up a few years to run the topic out.

I enjoyed the book for its width. And in some ways it brings new information because of the width. For example, if we look at Middle Ages and the plague. Most things I’ve read cover Europe well but not the rest of the world. Whereas this book gives insight into how other continents were affected.

As a note, I did receive this Audible book with a free promotion code with the request I publish a review after completing. That in no way changed my feelings about the book.