About the book
After Sapiens examined the human past and Homo Deus the future, Yuval Noah Harari turns to the present. The 21 lessons are grouped into five parts. The technological challenge covers automation, biotechnology and AI; the political challenge looks at religion, nationalism, immigration and global cooperation; despair and hope weighs war, terrorism, justice and humility; truth takes on fake news, propaganda and the narratives societies build; and resilience turns to personal meaning and mental clarity. Harari argues that in a world flooded with irrelevant information, clarity is a form of power. Published in 2018, it drew mixed reviews, with praise from Bill Gates and negative reviews in the New Statesman and The Times.
Bill Gates found Harari so stimulating that he kept reading and thinking even where he disagreed, and noted that all three of Harari's books ask what will give life meaning in the decades ahead.
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This book has 1 recommendation
Bill Gates (Founder/Microsoft)
Harari is such a stimulating writer that even when I disagreed, I wanted to keep reading and thinking. All three of his books wrestle with some version of the same question: What will give our lives meaning in the decades and centuries ahead? So far, human history has been driven by a desire to live longer, healthier, happier lives. If science is eventually able to give that dream to most people, and large numbers of people no longer need to work in order to feed and clothe everyone, what reason will we have to get up in the morning?
It’s no criticism to say that Harari hasn’t produced a satisfying answer yet. Neither has anyone else. So I hope he turns more fully to this question in the future. In the meantime, he has teed up a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the 21st century.
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