21 Lessons for the 21st Century
'Truly mind-expanding... Ultra-topical' Guardian
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4.4 • 58 Ratings
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
**THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER**
In twenty-one bite-sized lessons, Yuval Noah Harari explores what it means to be human in an age of bewilderment.
How can we protect ourselves from nuclear war, ecological cataclysms and technological disruptions? What can we do about the epidemic of fake news or the threat of terrorism? What should we teach our children?
The world-renowned historian and intellectual Yuval Noah Harari takes us on a thrilling journey through today's most urgent issues. The golden thread running through his exhilarating new book is the challenge of maintaining our collective and individual focus in the face of constant and disorienting change.
Faced with a litany of existential and real crises, are we still capable of understanding the world we have created?
'[Harari] has teed up a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the 21st century' Bill Gates, New York Times
'21 Lessons is, simply put, a crucial book' Adam Kay, author of Undoctored
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Following on the massive success of Sapiens and Homo Deus, Israeli historian and bestselling author Yuval Noah Harari turns his gimlet eye to our not-so-distant future. In his latest punchy compendium, Harari tackles many of our most pressing issues, offering thoughtful analyses of topics like what artificial intelligence means for our careers and how to determine whether a news source is legit. What makes his 21 Lessons more than mere lectures is the deep vein of philosophical thought and moral clarity. It’s heady stuff, but, thanks to Harari’s expressive prose, it’s also hugely engaging.
Customer Reviews
21 chapters not 21 lessons
Author
Israeli historian. PhD from Oxford in 2002. Works at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where his research focuses on macro-history: the relation between history and biology, the difference between Homo sapiens and other animals, justice in history, the direction of history, human happiness through history. Multiple awards. Best selling author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011), which was excellent, Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow (2015), which wasn’t quite as good, and this volume that seeks to make sense of the present day.
Summary
The trick for putting an end to our anxieties, according to Harari, is not to stop worrying and learn to love the bomb like Dr Strangelove. Rather, it is to know which things to worry about, and how much to worry about them. (To quote the meerkat in the commercial for an insurance comparison website: “Easy.”) After distilling the threats to mankind down to three - nuclear war, climate change and technological/biological disruption - Harari concentrates on the third of these in the early parts of the book, and makes some interesting points about adaptation. The rest is more of a politico-philosophico-religious hotch-potch I found disappointing. War he treats almost as a non-event. The Russia-Ukraine conflict over Crimea is the only recent dispute he considers worthy of mentioning, and then rather dismissively. I suspect he might have to revise this view if he were writing on 2022 rather than 2017-2018. Harari’s thoughts on climate change were few and far between as well. His style is directed at lay readers. Detours into the esoteric are rare.
Bottom line
The title is misleading. This book contains 21 chapters but precious few lessons.