Official U.S. edition with full color illustrations throughout.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward the future of humanity, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.
Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style--thorough, yet riveting--famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda.
What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century--from overcoming death to creating artificial life and artificial intelligence. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This provocative work of popular science is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.
With the same insight and clarity that made Sapiens an international hit and a New York Times bestseller, Harari maps out our future.
But as we stand on the verge of godhood, what new challenges will replace the old ones?
- The New Human Agenda: With famine, plague, and war no longer seen as uncontrollable forces of nature, Harari argues that humanity will aim for immortality, happiness, and divinity. What happens when we try to play God?
- Upgrading Humankind: Explore the profound implications of biotechnology and genetic engineering as Homo sapiens attempts to evolve into Homo deus. Is this the next stage of evolution, or the beginning of the end?
- The Rise of Dataism: Discover the emergence of a new religion where information is the ultimate value. What happens to human free will when external algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?
- The Future of Consciousness: This groundbreaking book examines the decoupling of intelligence from consciousness and asks the fundamental question: will a world dominated by super-intelligence and AI have any room left for the human spirit?
About the Author :
Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling historian and philosopher, is considered one of the world's most influential intellectuals today. His popular books--including Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, and the series Sapiens: A Graphic History and Unstoppable Us--have sold more than fifty million copies in sixty-five languages. Harari, with his husband, Itzik Yahav, cofounded Sapienship, a social impact company with projects in the fields of education and storytelling, whose main goal is to tell and retell our shared human story. Harari has a PhD in history from the University of Oxford. He has been a lecturer at the Department of History in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge's Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.
Review :
"Provocative...the handiwork of a gifted thinker." - Jennifer Senior, New York Times
"Provocative... essential reading." - New York Times Book Review
"I enjoyed reading about these topics not from another futurist but from a historian, contextualizing our current ways of thinking amid humanity's long march-especially...with Harari's ability to capsulize big ideas memorably and mingle them with a light, dry humor...Harari offers not just history lessons but a meta-history lesson." - Washington Post
"Thought-provoking and enlightening, Harari's books is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of our species." - BookPage
"...[S]hares DNA with the work of writers like Jared Diamond ... while drawing freely from other disciplines in both the humanities and sciences. It's emphatically a work for the general reader eager to grapple with big ideas, but who is equally hungry for context for today's headlines." - Shelf Awareness
"Thrilling to watch such a talented author trample so freely across so many disciplines... Harari's skill lies in the way he tilts the prism in all these fields and looks at the world in different ways, providing fresh angles on what we thought we knew... scintillating." - Financial Times
"Like all great epics, Sapiens demanded a sequel. Homo Deus, in which that likely apocalyptic future is imagined in spooling detail, is that book. It is a highly seductive scenario planner for the numerous ways in which we might overreach ourselves." - The Observer (London)
"Harari is an intellectual magpie who has plucked theories and data from many disciplines - including philosophy, theology, computer science and biology - to produce a brilliantly original, thought-provoking and important study of where mankind is heading." - Evening Standard (London)
"Harari is an exceptional writer, who seems to have been specially chosen by the muses as a conduit for the zeitgeist... Fascinating reading." - Times Literary Supplement (London)
"Thank God someone finally wrote [this] exact book." - Sebastian Junger, New York Times Book Review
"Homo Deus will shock you. It will entertain you. Above all, it will make you think in ways you had not thought before." - Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking Fast, and Slow
"Spellbinding... This is a very intelligent book, full of sharp insights and mordant wit... It is a quirky and cool book, with a sliver of ice at its heart... It is hard to imagine anyone could read this book without getting an occasional, vertiginous thrill." - Guardian
"What elevates Harari above many chroniclers of our age is his exceptional clarity and focus." - London Sunday Times
"A remarkable book, full of insights and thoughtful reinterpretations of what we thought we knew about ourselves and our history." - The Guardian
"[A] great book...not only alters the way you see the world after you've read it, it also casts the past in a different light. In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari shows us where mankind is headed in an absolutely clear-sighted & accessible manner." - Mail on Sunday
"Sapiens takes readers on a sweeping tour of the history of our species.... Harari's formidable intellect sheds light on the biggest breakthroughs in the human story...important reading for serious-minded, self-reflective sapiens." - Washington Post
"In Sapiens, Harari delves deep into our history as a species to help us understand who we are and what made us this way. An engrossing read." - Dan Ariely, New York Times Bestselling author of Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The Honest Truth About Dishonesty
"Sapiens tackles the biggest questions of history and of the modern world, and it is written in unforgettably vivid language." - Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Collapse, and The World until Yesterday
