To anyone interested about the history of human evolution, I highly recommend Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari. It's the best book I have read about human history and how we have evolved until now. The book is also listed on the Gates Summer reading list.
I did not find it particularly good. Sure, I learnt some things I did not know, but for the large part I was turned off by Harari's self-assurance about a time for which little archaeological evidence exists. It seemed very unscientific to me.
I read the book around a year ago and I remember him pointing out the uncertainty to his claims. It was simply his personal research and views which I think should be taken at his face value. Sure, there might be a few things wrong here and there but that book left a lasting impact on me with regards to how I perceive day to day generic things.
And for those interested in the future, I would recommend his other book "Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow". I must say that I enjoyed this a lot and I like how he builds his story by references various studies and summarising the key points from them. The book also felt quite "condensed", too often I get a feeling that book has material for long article, but is then artificially expanded. Homo Deus certainly did not have this problem.
His MOOC on thr same topic was even more enriching and enjoyable than thr book. 2nd best online course Ive ever taken (P. Zelikow's history class MOOC is the most useful and best class ive taken online or in oerson) as he has such an engaging personality
