Earlier I had read Sapiens of Yuval Noah Harari and I was in awe of that book, hence picking this one off the shelf made me excited. However, for me, it was not that impressive. Homo Deus is an exploration of the human future. It discusses the historical perspective while keeping an eye on how human society has evolved through times. It addressed the impact of technology, data and artificial intelligence on society, politics and what it means to be a human.

Yuval Noah Harari gave strong arguments on immortality calling death just a technical glitch that will be fixed with time. (I liked that term). Yuval has a gift of explaining such complicated concepts and theories in a very understandable way. Although throughout reading Homo Deus, I kept arguing with him on various concepts he presented but it’s a fact I kept reading. I wanted to know where would this end. He does have a way with words he knows how to engage a reader with witty lines, throwing a bit of humour here and there and catchy one liners.

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One point that turns me off is his blatant disregard of religions. He describes the religion of Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism in Homo Deus. If he searched his queries in Qur’an too, he might have got the answers. Because then he can compare different aspects fairly. But I have noticed this in especially Jewish writers that when they discuss religions, they completely sideline Islam. Harari sidelines himself too.

In my opinion, Sapiens was a delight to read for me more because it was based on historical facts. It described the things that actually happened. While this book, Homo Deus is mostly about what would be happening. It gets more theoretical at times, which becomes a bit boring for a reader.

Review by Sidra Javed