Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 2 - The Pillars of Civilization - Yuval Noah Harari - ★★.¼

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: Yuval Noah Harari

ADAPTER: David Vandermeulen

ILLUSTRATOR: Daniel Casanave

SERIES: Sapiens: A Graphic History, #1

GENRE: Nonfiction, Graphic Novel.

PUBLICATION DATE: January 1, 2021

RATING: 2.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: Not as good as the first graphic novel. Almost at the same level as the original work. Loads of assumptions and generalisations mixed in with the facts. Good for those interested in the topic, as long as you don’t blindly believe everything herein.

Even if you haven’t read Yuval Noah Harari’s 'Sapiens', you surely would have heard about it. It took the reading world by storm a few years ago and became a seminal work on the anthropological, sociological and technological evolution of humankind.

Sapiens was divided in four sections. Each section is now being adapted to a graphic novel. The first two books are already out, and the third one is due to release in October 2024. ‘The Pillars of Civilization’ is the second graphic novel of this series, based on section II of the nonfiction work, covering the agricultural revolution.

I had only liked ‘Sapiens’ and enjoyed the first graphic novel, ‘The Birth of Humankind’, a lot more. This book turned out to be a mixed bag like the original.

Woohoos:

✔ Great effort at turning the nonfiction work to a graphic format. It’s not easy to turn nonfiction into a proper graphic novel with a fictional frame story handling the factual reveals.

✔ Professor Saraswati, the Indian scientist who assists YNH in exploring the past, makes a welcome reappearance from the first graphic novel. She is the only character I actually love in this series.

✔ The guest appearance of some actual historical people and their interaction with the modern characters is quite interesting to read.

Hmmms:

⚠ All the plusses and minuses of the original work are carried forward in this graphic version. It is insightful, yes. And also, a comprehensive account of how the agricultural revolution altered human living. However, the content ignores all propositions that don’t support YNH’s hypotheses. So unless you are an aware reader, you might blindly believe everything you are being fed through this novel. Caveat lector.

Grrrrs:

❌ Seeing a graphic representation makes assumptions seem like facts, which is very dangerous in a world already struggling with fake information.

❌ Theories are seen only as black or white, with no potential grey area. For example, there’s a long rant about how societal changes ensured that only men came to power and women were subdued everywhere. But how does historical patriarchy and the belief in male superiority explain royal lineages where queens have ruled, or that some societies were actually matrilineal? No answer at all. Historical queens aren’t even mentioned in the book. Another example is how the life of hunter gatherers is romanticised, with nary a comment on the struggles they faced prior to the development of human settlements. There are many such half-baked declarations that generalise without listing disclaimers or exceptions.

❌ Too many characters. YNH and Prof. Saraswati, along with Doctor Fiction, were enough! Why have so many more fictional characters for a nonfiction topic? (The next graphic novel is going to have even more new characters – yikes!)

❌ The story flow is quite cluttered and clunky this time around, unlike the first book.

❌ It’s tough to respect nonfiction works where the biases of the author come into play and present a lopsided view of history. Personal opinions should be kept away from scientific nonfiction, else the result seems prejudiced and hence flawed.

❌ Somehow, the content this time seems overly pessimistic. Hardly anything beneficial is mentioned about the development of human society thanks to the agricultural revolution. It’s very easy to point out the problems in the current social construct, but the positives also cannot be ignored.

In short, I didn’t like this as much as I did the first graphic novel. The overly inductive reasoning was much more apparent this time around. Somewhere towards the end of this work, Yuval’s character says: “When scientists don’t know something, it’s better to admit ignorance than to invent an imagined version of history.” Oh, the irony of this line!

I’d still recommend this version, though not enthusiastically. If you are apprehensive of reading lengthy nonfiction works but are curious to see why ‘Sapiens’ is so applauded, the graphic novel series offers a wonderful bridge between the two. There are plenty of valuable learning points herein, but keep your thinking caps on as well. Just because the book is acclaimed doesn’t mean that the book is accurate; it is still one person’s opinion, after all. In other words, this graphic novel offers food for thought, but chew well before ingestion. 😉