Sapiens showed us where we came from. Homo Deus looked to the future. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century explores the present. 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? 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. Are we still capable of understanding the world we have created?
Yuval Noah Harari has a PhD in History from the University of Oxford and now lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specialising in world history. His two books, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, have become global bestsellers, with more than 12 million copies sold, and translations in more than forty-five languages.
"The great thinker of our age."
– The Times
"Truly mind-expanding [...] Ultra-topical [...] Harari's big selling point [is] the ambition and breadth of his work, smashing together unexpected ideas into dazzling observations."
– Guardian
"Erudite, illuminating, vivid. [Harari's] lessons suggest new ways of thinking about current problems [...] a splendid, sobering, stirring call to arms."
– Sunday Times
"There is surely no one alive who is better at explaining our world than Yuval Noah Harari – he is the lecturer we all wish we'd had at university. Reading this book, I must have interrupted my partner a hundred times to pass on fascinating things I'd just read. Harari has done it again – 21 Lessons is, simply put, a crucial book."
– Adam Kay
"More comprehensible [than Sapiens and Homo Deus] [...] showing you things you thought you knew about in a completely new way [...] I find Harari's writing exhilarating."
– Radio Times
"Harari thrills his readers because he addresses the biggest possible topics with confidence and brio. Compared with the subjects he tackles, anything else we might read looks piffling and parochial."
– Evening Standard
"Harari's genius at weaving together insights from different disciplines, ranging from ancient history to neuroscience to philosophy to artificial intelligence, has enabled him to respond to the clamour to understand where we have come from and where we might be heading [...] 21 Lessons is lit up by flashes of intellectual adventure and literary verve."
– Financial Times
"I'm predicting that 21 Lessons for the 21st Century will complete a Harari hat-trick of classics [...] The clarity of Harari's vision is astonishing [...] thanks to him, the world makes better sense to many more of us."
– Bookseller *Book of the Month*
"A terrific primer on where we are now and where we might be heading [...] Harari is a superb global cartographer, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a lucid and essential read."
– Marina Vaizey, Arts Desk
"Bound to be one of the biggest books of the autumn [...] Exhilarating [...] compulsively readable and with almost every page providing something juicy to chew on."
– Reader's Digest