When reading a book how do you validate the thesis in an unknown field for you?

3 points by L0in 295 days ago | 1 comment

When reading a book on a topic/field you are unfamiliar, how do you validate that what you are reading it's not BS? For example, i want to read a book about geopolitics that makes statements about a certain phenomenon. How do i know the arguments are not completely BS vs different position/views/opinion of the phenomenon?

chistev 295 days ago |

You read the reviews about the book and get a sense of how it was received.

This is why I've never read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah

Although a best seller, the scholarly reception was not great, and I'd just rather read other things.

Sometimes, though, I still want to read those books to see the author's arguments/points.