Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens is a sweeping overview of human history, covering everything from the emergence of language to the creation of money to the impact of recent technological advancements. Sapiens has obviously proven to be an enormously popular work and I am hesitant to criticize a book that has struck a chord with so many readers. But while the book is engaging and can be a useful entry point into a deeper study of history and science, it is quite high-level and far too many contentious claims are carelessly presented as established fact. You could do a lot better by skipping Harari's survey and going straight to the masters themselves — Darwin, Dawkins, Feynman, etc.