A Brief Review of “A Brief History”

I have recently read numerous volumes in the “A Brief History” series, including “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” “A Brief History of Everything,” “A Brief History of the World,” and “A Short History of Europe: From Pericles to Putin,” and I will briefly discuss their merits and detriments.

My personal favorite is “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” which unifies the conventional perspectives of Western historians and introduces the history of human development in an accessible manner. This book is appropriate for individuals who do not have a distinct historical stance or who are not so repulsed by the views of “Western historians”; otherwise, they are playing the piano against the cow, and no one is persuaded. For instance, the book’s perspective on agriculture: on the whole, agriculture has contributed to the development of humanity by allowing different regions to accommodate more people; however, agriculture has reduced the quality of life of the individual; in short, agriculture has allowed more people to survive in an unhealthy manner. In any case, the most intriguing section of “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” is the first few chapters about where humans originated: it states that there is a significant overlap between the existence of Homo sapiens and other species, such as Neanderthals, so that the widely circulated map of man’s evolution from ape to homo sapiens is incorrect. Later, when discussing religion, “limited company,” and the concept of collective, the author interweaves “private goods” and presents some of history’s most disputed themes as conclusions. Although history does not take a side, people who read it do. In explaining the history of Christianity, for instance, the author notes that early Rome tolerated Christianity despite opposition and that Christianity “repaid the favor” by executing a significant number of pagans after gaining power. This is merely a piece of history for atheists, but I’m wondering as to what it implies for Christian believers. But I’m frightened of being assaulted if I address such matters openly with them, thus this may remain a mystery to me forever (laughs).  This book is the most fun of the “Brief Histories” to read, and avid readers can finish it in a single day.

“A Brief History of Everything,” (at least in my opinion) is an extremely dull book that does not earn its rating. It includes numerous tales about scientists learning all sorts of things, how individuals learn about the world, how they progress from being incorrect to discovering their errors, and finally how they arrive at the “truth.” The issue is that most of the stories in this book are about mathematics and chemistry that I already knew, so reading it feels like being a “prophet.” As a popular science book, it may be better appropriate for liberal arts students who are interested in science but lack scientific common sense to read it. Certainly, the anecdotes of several renowned scientists contained within are still intriguing.

“A Brief History of the World.” It is tough to rate the book. People with a strong interest in history prefer to seek out more specialized and thorough history books about a certain region or time period, but people like myself, who are merely interested in history, find this book excessively dense. Obviously, despite its weight, it is not a tedious read. I also created numerous book excerpts and shared them on Twitter and Dynalist. Time is the first keyword and places (or cultures) are the second. Because this is a serious book, it has less evaluative text and funny stories but more narrative, and it is relatively objective and opinion-neutral. (Those who study history are unable to avoid facing the cruel historical facts.) This book is still worth reading if you wish to comprehend the history of the growth of other regions of the world, such as India or Japan. However, if you have a great interest in a particular period of history, you should seek out a more specialized text. I groaned after finishing this novel, realizing that humans have never changed.

The instructor who taught me TOEFL reading advised the book “A Very Short History of Europe,” stating that it could provide more context for TOEFL. However, for various reasons (really, laziness), I haven’t finished reading it till today, and I’ve heard that this book has received excellent ratings, so I’ll finish it when I’ve completed reading it, but I don’t know when that will be (laugh).

When I write this brief review, it has been a long time since I read these books, so if my memory of the content is incorrect, it is not the author’s fault but mine.