Cheer up! Until you remember climate change, at least – because, to his credit, Harari is one of the few futurists to factor ecological collapse into his predictions. Ivan the Terrible was probably more, well, terrible than Trump. As Obama said, this approach certainly gives the reader perspective. Ultra-topical concerns such as “fake news” and the rise of authoritarians such as Donald Trump are set in the context of centuries of our biological and social evolution. (He does two hours a day, and a month-long retreat every year.) The collection of pieces aims to take stock of where humanity has reached, and where it might be going. It covers everything from war – Harari’s academic specialism – to meditation, his favourite leisure activity. The future-gazing follow-up, Homo Deus, was also a global bestseller, and now Harari has turned his attention to the present with 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. That book was Sapiens, which is bold, breezy and engaging, romping its way from the discovery of fire to the creation of cyborgs in less than 500 pages. Its sales spike when it is mentioned on Love Island. Barack Obama says it gave him perspective on “the core things that have allowed us to build this extraordinary civilization that we take for granted”. Ridley Scott wants to turn it into a TV series.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg includes it in his book club in 2015. Translated into English in 2014, the book sells more than a million copies. An obscure Israeli academic writes a Hebrew-language history of humanity.
Yuval Noah Harari’s career is a publishing fairytale.
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