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This boxed set bundles Yuval Noah Harari's books Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, first published in 2014, and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, first published in 2016. This version features two exclusive essays written by the author: "The Crisis of Liberalism" and "The Theater of Terror".
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind:
100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens. How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms?
How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights; to trust money, books and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come? In Sapiens, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical – and sometimes devastating – breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, palaeontology and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come?
Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our power ...and our future.
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow:
During the twentieth century, humankind has managed to do the impossible: we have brought famine, plague and war under control. Today, more people die from obesity than from starvation; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed in war. We are the only species in earth's long history that has single-handedly changed the entire planet, and we no longer expect any higher being to shape our destinies for us.
As Homo sapiens becomes Homo deus, what new destinies will we set for ourselves? As the self-made gods of planet earth, which projects should we undertake, and how will we protect this fragile planet and humankind itself from our own destructive powers? In this vivid, challenging new book, Yuval Noah Harari examines the implications of our newly acquired divine powers, from our desperate pursuit of happiness to our dogged quest for immortality. He explores how Homo sapiens conquered the world, our current predicament and our possible futures.
And, above all, he asks the fundamental questions: How do we avoid destruction, and what new world should we create? What do we want to become?
