The perfect mixture of comedy and history, Humans teleports you to a world where all of your mistakes seem minute compared to the real mess-ups that have happened over the millennia. Divided into ten sections dissecting humanity’s every major advancement from ruining the environment to misusing and abusing democracy, Phillips is able to teach you about how humans as a species are prone to repeat the same mistakes time and time and time again. Although this is quite a depressing subject, when combined with Phillips’ timely jokes, it becomes more than just bearable. Light-hearted yet tremendously informative is the true motto of this book. And while it is certainly a great and accurate work of non-fiction, the stories are so delicately chosen and so well-crafted and written that they often seem too ridiculously perfect to be true. 

Personally, I adore this book. I do not often read non-fiction but the idea of this book was simply too interesting to refuse. After reading it, I felt so much more informed and enlightened. I am also quite far behind on history and important world events due to my lack of non-fiction reading, and this book certainly helped with that. I genuinely feel like a more well-informed and overall more knowledgeable person. However, it is important to note the negatives as well. Sometimes I found the book to be a bit too repetitive with its concepts. The book is not very long (less than 300 pages), but I still found myself getting a bit tired with the repetition of the fact that “humans always repeat the same mistakes”. I believe that at times new concepts should have been introduced. Otherwise, the book is truly a masterpiece and a perfect balance between reality and comedy. 

I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone over the age of 14. This restriction is only due to the vulgar language that may not be appropriate for all ages; the concepts and ideas are all suitable for any audience over the age of 14 as there is no particularly violent or suggestive content. Moreover, I believe this is a great book for those trying to expand their overall knowledge and want to find a good gateway from reading solely fiction to some non-fiction. Humans is able to blend both genres perfectly and is simply a great read to put things into perspective. It grounds the reader while also encouraging them to do more as their ventures are sure to go better than the ones in the book. 

Furthermore, the book is both a must-read for everyone above 14 and useful for research and homework purposes. Humans is certainly not the right resource for researching a specific event such as the French Revolution. However, if a more general topic is being researched, such as how democracy has sometimes failed, then this book is a good reference; Humans has examples as well as opinions to guide the researcher. Some other topics that can be researched using this book are the failure of humans to learn from their mistakes, the misuse and abuse of technology, the history and destruction of wars, the ruining of the environment by humans, and a few more. 

In addition, it is clear that Phillips has put a substantial number of hours into finding each event to prove his point and create each chapter. I have also found the information to be highly accurate and well-curated. 

As previously mentioned, this book will appeal to nearly everyone. It is all about humans and their great, incredible, stupid mistakes, and so all humans should read it to gain a better understanding of how not to repeat those mistakes. The book is also great for transitioning from strictly fiction reading to non-fiction as it is a great combination of both with real events and spectacular storytelling that makes every page flow onto the next. 

This new genre of serious topics being mixed with humour to lighten the mood can be seen in other books such as The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson as well as Phillips’ other book Truth: A Brief History of Total Bullsh*t.