SAPIENS: A Brief History of Humankind - Noah Yuval Harari

A great read for anyone interested in understanding how we came from a small group of apes to the most dominant (and destructive) species in our planet's history. A very satisfying an convincing challenge on how to view life, humanity and human community. 

One key takeaway I have is that it is important not to discount the affect that millions of years of biological evolution on how we view and interact with the increasingly a-natural world. When I view my experiences, as well others', through the lens that we are a communal species that evolved in small bands with intimate connections and a natural drive for utility (in both technology and interpersonal interactions) much of what seems irrational or strange begins to make sense. I think as a community it is important that we reconcile our current drives, needs, anxieties, etc. with our evolutionary history and the biological features that may be ill-suited to the modern, technologically advanced world we live in.

At a minimum, Sapiens is a concise and engaging history of human history. But at its core, it is a critique of how humanity has developed and built systems that create technological progress, value, and power structures. It provokes questions of evolutionary success, the role of progress and society at large, and ultimately how happy everything makes us.