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21 Lessons for the 21st Century: Yuval Noah Harari Hardcover – 30 Aug. 2018

by Yuval Noah Harari (Author)

4.6 19,302 ratings

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**THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER**

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?

‘Fascinating… compelling… [Harari] has teed up a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the 21st century’ Bill Gates, New York Times

‘Truly mind-expanding… Ultra-topical’ Guardian

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Print length

368 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Jonathan Cape
Publication date

30 Aug. 2018
Dimensions

14.4 x 3.4 x 22.2 cm
ISBN-10

1787330672
ISBN-13

978-1787330672
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Popular highlights in this book

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Humans were always far better at inventing tools than using them wisely.
Highlighted by 4,986 Kindle readers
Feelings are thus not the opposite of rationality – they embody evolutionary rationality.
Highlighted by 4,708 Kindle readers
Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.
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From the Publisher

21 Lessons, Sapiens, Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari, Gladwell, Thinking, History, AI, Kahneman

21 Lessons, Sapiens, Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari, Thinking, Gladwell, History, Kahneman

Sapiens questioned the past

Homo deus imagined the future

Now Yuval Noah Harari addresses the most urgent questions facing us all.

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Review

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

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

Erudite, illuminating, vivid. [Harari’s] lessons suggest new ways of thinking about current problems… a splendid, sobering, stirring call to arms. ― Sunday Times

Fascinating… compelling… [Harari] has teed up a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the 21st century. -- Bill Gates ― New York Times

The great thinker of our age. ― The Times

Harari… is a rare voice of calm reassurance, slicing through the chaos and uncertainty of the modern age. -- Allan Hunter ― Sunday Express

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

Modern life can seem overwhelming. Fortunately, Yuval Noah Harari's new book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, is on hand to guide us through it. Poolside reading with purpose. ― Elle

[Harari’s] purpose is to reveal the hard-learned lessons we have all already encountered this century… the persuasiveness of Harari’s philosophical analysis, and the engaging quality of his writing, is hard to deny. ― Esquire

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Jonathan Cape; 1st edition (30 Aug. 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1787330672
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1787330672
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.4 x 3.4 x 22.2 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 23,847 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 41 in History of Civilisation & Culture

Customer reviews:
4.6 19,302 ratings

About the author

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Yuval Noah Harari

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Prof. Yuval Noah Harari has a PhD in History from the University of Oxford and lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in world history. His books have been translated into 65 languages, with 45 million copies sold worldwide. 'Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind' (2014) looked deep into our past, 'Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow' (2016) considered far-future scenarios, and '21 Lessons for the 21st Century' (2018) zoomed in on the biggest questions of the present moment. 'Sapiens: A Graphic History' (launched in 2020) is a radical adaptation of 'Sapiens' into a four-part graphic novel series, which Harari created and co-wrote in collaboration with comics artists David Vandermeulen (co-writer) and Daniel Casanave (illustrator). 'Unstoppable Us' (launched in 2022) is Harari's first book series for children, telling the epic true story of humans and our superpower in four volumes, and featuring illustrations by Ricard Zaplana Ruiz.

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SNOOTS

Fabulous

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 January 2024

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Excellent pressie for my son - great delivery.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 September 2018

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Harari’s first two books, ‘Sapiens’, ‘and ‘Homo Deus’ have been critically acclaimed, and one wonders what else can he come up with. This question is normally asked of fiction writers, but Harari’s first two books have been so tremendously popular to the extent that they were likened to best-selling novels. This, his third book, does not disappoint.

It is a book of 21 essays on different subjects beginning with ‘Disillusionment’, ‘Work’, ‘Liberty’, and ‘Equality’ under Part I, entitled, ‘The Technological Challenge’. The book has a total of five Parts. The other four are: ‘The Political Challenge’, Despair and Hope’, Truth’, and ‘Resilience’.

Harari’s thoughts spring from the basic, but important question, ‘What can we say about the meaning of life today?’ In order to put the age-old question into the context of today, Harari examines the scientific and cultural changes that have transformed human societies across the world. One major change wrought by technology is the phenomenon in which we get increasingly distanced from our own bodies, and are being absorbed into smartphones and computers.

Harari shows how ‘benign patriotism’ can so easily be transformed into ultra-nationalism; form the belief that ‘My nation is unique’ (every nation is) to ‘My nation is supreme’. Once we get to that, war and strife is, frighteningly, just a step away. He devotes a chapter each to ‘immigration’ and ‘terrorism’ because these are the two bogeymen of the world – not just the Western world. Harari fears that when New York or London eventually sinks below the Atlantic Ocean, people will be blaming Bush, Blair and Obama for focussing on the wrong front.

Given the undertones of religious conflicts and differences in the wars that an American-led West had inflicted on various parts of the world, Harari had much to say in his chapters on ‘God’ and ‘Secularism’. He tries to show how irrational belief in a personal God is. ‘Science cannot explain the “Big Bang”, they exclaim, “so that must be God’s doing”…After giving the name of “God” to the unknown secrets of the cosmos, they then use this to somehow condemn bikinis and divorces’. Not to mention abortion, eating pork, and drinking beer. What does it mean ‘Not to use the name of God in vain’? Harari suggests that it should mean that ‘we should never use the name of God to justify our political interests, our economic ambitions or our personal hatred’. He exposes the problems of dogmatism, and warns against the illusion that the falsity in one’s creed or ideology will never be allowed to happen. ‘if you believe in an absolute truth revealed in a transcendent power’, he writes, ‘you cannot allow yourself to admit any error – for that would nullify your whole story. But if you believe in a quest for truth by fallible humans, admitting blunders is an inherent part of the game’.

Harari’s conclusion is a treat to read and has much to commend in the way he reconciles religious beliefs and rational thinking. Humans love story-telling, he writes, and the answers to the question, ‘what is the meaning of life?’ lie in the stories – but we do not have just one story each. And this is crucial. We not just a Muslim, or an Italian, or a capitalist. We do not have just one identity as a human. And we have many stories. We must not shut them out for the sake of one favourite.

194 people found this helpful

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red0209

Thought provoking

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 September 2018

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Having read this book, I'm not sure that I have learnt the 21 lessons that were promised in the title. The book however is certainly thought-provoking and debates many of the questions I have asked myself about the future. The main theme is that the pace of change is much faster than at any other time in human history, and that by 2050 (a date often quoted by the author) life on Earth will look significantly different. Yuval Noah Harari speculates that biotechnology, information technology and 'Big Data algorithms' will reshape the world for Homo sapiens (humans) over the coming decades to the point that the species will cease to exist in its current form by the beginning of the 22nd century. The author debates in detail the role that artificial intelligence and these algorithms will have and how they will influence and possibly even control large aspects of our lives as time goes on.

The book begins with a lot of detail about how collection and analysis of huge amounts of data and advances in technology will allow us to even re-engineer our bodies, and in particular our brains, to allow artificial intelligence to know what we are thinking in order for it to make better decisions for us. It goes on to speculate that robots could make huge numbers of people redundant and irrelevant, forcing people to change careers at an increasingly regular rate. There is then a lot of discussion about religion, in particular the author's own Jewish religion, and how fiction has played and continues to play a crucial role in life.

I enjoyed the book but if you are looking for life lessons to follow, then it probably isn't the book for you. If you want a glimpse into the (possible) future of the human race and a summary of how we got to the point we are at now, then this is something for you. It is certainly a very well-written book.

37 people found this helpful

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Muito boa recomendo

Livro

Reviewed in Brazil on 27 January 2024

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Muito bom

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Amazon Customer

21 lessons for the 21 century

Reviewed in Mexico on 17 January 2024

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Excelente libro, el autor en sí ya es una referencia y sus reflexiones de lo que ya está en puerta para todos nosotros son maravillosas

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Arthur R. Silen

This is a philosophy of life as it is lived in the modern world

Reviewed in the United States on 12 January 2024

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I did a cover-to-cover preview, having received my copy of it late yesterday afternoon. I actually spent about two hours, reading short excerpts and getting a feel for how the writer marshals his facts and crafts his arguments. From there, I previewed the enumerated topics of the book, following the flow of argument and the evidence Yuval Noah Harari refers to make his point. The main thing about this book is to understand that the 21st century is going to be unlike anything humankind has experienced in the past. Our prior experience will not necessarily be a trustworthy guide to our future as a species. Harare is an Israeli Jew who came to knowledge of the world rather late. Growing up he mentions that his education Israel was utterly devoid of knowledge of European and world history, nor was he aware of the historical developments that characterized the Middle Ages, the Age of Exploration and European conquest of the non-European world. He knew of European history only in so far as it gave him an understanding about how he and his forebears ended up in the Land of Israel. Coming onto the subject cold, this new cornucopia of knowledge offered him certain advantages insofar as you learn to take nothing for granted or at face value. For people who emigrate to a new land, with different attitudes and customs from those they have known, there is the painful process that all immigrants experience in figuring out who they are, and how quickly they need to learn how to survive in this new environment. Harari is perhaps among the most incisive and farseeing writers I have encountered in recent times. He holds a PhD from Oxford University (no mean feat), and for someone who apparently spent his early years speaking and writing a non-Western language (Hebrew), his ability to translate his thoughts into English, and writing as well as he does, is an accomplishment that is beyond the reach of most other recent immigrants I have encountered in my lifetime. He must've spent an enormous amount of time with the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language!

It is clear to me that Harari is onto something. The strangeness that people feel when they run up against stuff they don't know, and have difficulty figuring out what to do, is going to be far beyond the cultural and linguistic barriers that recent immigrants typically experience. With English, there are thousands of words that have more than one meaning, and thousands of words that have shared meanings, depending upon context, and intent.

Harari is telling his readers to experience the strangeness that he must've felt speaking, writing, and using the English language for the first time. Most Americans are not used to learning foreign languages, because people come to America where relatively few people other than recent immigrants routinely converse and whatever other languages they happen to be trained in, or learn from infancy.

Briefly, the outline of this book is as follows.

In Part 1, Harari begins with a discussion of what he terms, "The Technological Challenge"., Followed by the head note reading, "Humankind is losing faith in the liberal story that dominated global politics in recent decades, exactly when the merger of Biotech and Infotech confronts us with the biggest challenges humankind has ever encountered."

He starts with, "Disillusionment; The End of History Has Been Postponed". Basically, Harari argues that humankind, having conquered the world, is vulnerable to technology that turns out to be an insidious threat to what it means to be human. He states that liberalism, as it used to be practiced at large in the world has reached something worse than just simply being a dead end, its consequences are becoming perverse. But conservatives should take no comfort from liberalism's embarrassment; nobody really wants to live in an authoritarian or fascistic state.

In today's world, 'work' is purposeful activity that society finds to be commercially useful, and worthy of paying money to people to perform whatever it is they do to make work productive. Harari says that work as we know it may become scarce because the skills that people acquire over a lifetime to make themselves productive enough to earn a living out of those activities, may be taken over by Artificial Intelligence, in which jobs that are not only repetitive, but includes those that require some form of judgment and discretion may become subsumed in the kind of tasks that AI can do more cost-effectively than people can. Undoubtedly, there will be numerous fixes that will be attempted to preserve jobs, but their prospects are likely to be some form of a rearguard action to delay the introduction of AI into those workspaces. Those worst off will likely be unskilled laborers were currently employed in Third World countries overseas at minimum wages. They will find that their labor is superfluous when a high tech companies in Silicon Valley, California, and elsewhere figure out how to harness 3D printers and comparable technologies to accomplish end-to-end production lines from concept to finished product for just about anything that is manufactured overseas.

So how do ordinary people earn money to meet their needs? How are they to be supported if they are not working in the private sector, for wages or salaries, and how much money will they need to survive. We are looking at Nth-degree consequences of a world in which machines and computer bots can manufacture whatever is needed to sustain human life. Programs of education and training need to be right-sized to meet the needs of the society as it exists nominally at the time of its inception, but for a generation or two down the road as school children mature into maturity, and thereafter into old age.

Political liberty and freedom are also on the auction block. What we experience today is freedom of choice, and how choices are arrived at, comes relatively recently in human history. Decision-making follows a well-trodden path where alternatives are weighed and measured, until the final choices made; what happens when humans are influenced by outside forces that they cannot fathom some of the choices they make benefit someone else, rather than themselves? What is to be said about 'free will' in the face of an AI algorithm that simulates human thinking and emotion? What can we say about 'Equality', when all meaningful data are owned by other people or corporate entities?

I'll leave the review here at this point, because having laid out some of the basic questions that Yuval Noah Harari writes about, I'll invite readers to find out for themselves by reading this highly provocative book.

7 people found this helpful

Bernardo Noguera

Must read

Reviewed in Germany on 9 March 2024

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Everyone should read this book. I think is well known that Yuval Noah Harari is a tremendous writer and whatever he writes is a must read, just like Sapiens and homo deus this too is a must read. You will start reading and you'll forget about time

TrekPyrenees

Imprescindible i actual

Reviewed in Spain on 6 December 2023

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Lectura recomanada per tots els líders mundials.

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21 Lessons for the 21st Century: Yuval Noah Harari Hardcover – 30 Aug. 2018

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