Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow - Hardcover

by Yuval Noah Harari (Author)

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 humanity's future, 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. 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 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.

Front Jacket

In his critically acclaimed international bestseller Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari explained how humankind came to rule the planet. In Homo Deus, he examines humanity's future, offering a vision of tomorrow that at first seems incomprehensible but soon looks undeniable: humanity will lose not only its dominance, but its very meaning.

Over the past century, humankind has managed to do the impossible: turn the uncontrollable forces of nature--namely, famine, plague, and war--into manageable challenges. Today 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 combined. 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 mold our destinies for us.

What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? What destinies will we set for 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. But the pursuit of these very goals may ultimately render most human beings superfluous. So where do we go from here? And how can we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? We cannot stop the march of history, but we can influence its direction.

Future-casting typically assumes that tomorrow, at its heart, will look much like today: we will possess amazing new technologies, but old humanist values like liberty and equality will still guide us. Homo Deus dismantles these assumptions and opens our eyes to a vast range of alternative possibilities, with provocative arguments on every page, among them:

• The main products of the twenty-first-century economy will not be textiles, vehicles, and weapons but bodies, brains, and minds.
• While the industrial revolution created the working class, the next big revolution will create the useless class.
• The way humans have treated animals is a good indicator for how upgraded humans will treat us.
• Democracy and the free market will both collapse once Google and Facebook know us better than we know ourselves, and authority will shift from individual humans to networked algorithms.
• Humans won't fight machines; they will merge with them. We are heading toward marriage rather than war.

This is the shape of the new world, and the gap between those who get on board and those left behind will be larger than the gap between industrial empires and agrarian tribes, larger even than the gap between Sapiens and Neanderthals. This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.

--Washington Post

Back Jacket

In his critically acclaimed international bestseller Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari explained how humankind came to rule the planet. In Homo Deus, he examines humanity's future, offering a vision of tomorrow that at first seems incomprehensible but soon looks undeniable: humanity will lose not only its dominance, but its very meaning.

Over the past century, humankind has managed to do the impossible: turn the uncontrollable forces of nature--namely, famine, plague, and war--into manageable challenges. Today 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 combined. 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 mold our destinies for us.

What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? What destinies will we set for 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. But the pursuit of these very goals may ultimately render most human beings superfluous. So where do we go from here? And how can we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? We cannot stop the march of history, but we can influence its direction.

Future-casting typically assumes that tomorrow, at its heart, will look much like today: we will possess amazing new technologies, but old humanist values like liberty and equality will still guide us. Homo Deus dismantles these assumptions and opens our eyes to a vast range of alternative possibilities, with provocative arguments on every page, among them:

• The main products of the twenty-first-century economy will not be textiles, vehicles, and weapons but bodies, brains, and minds.
• While the industrial revolution created the working class, the next big revolution will create the useless class.
• The way humans have treated animals is a good indicator for how upgraded humans will treat us.
• Democracy and the free market will both collapse once Google and Facebook know us better than we know ourselves, and authority will shift from individual humans to networked algorithms.
• Humans won't fight machines; they will merge with them. We are heading toward marriage rather than war.

This is the shape of the new world, and the gap between those who get on board and those left behind will be larger than the gap between industrial empires and agrarian tribes, larger even than the gap between Sapiens and Neanderthals. This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.

Author Biography

PROF. YUVAL NOAH HARARI is the author of "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind," which was an international bestseller published in more than 35 countries. He has a PhD in History from the University of Oxford and now lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in world history. His research focuses on broad questions, such as: What is the relation between history and biology? Is there justice in history? Did people become happier as history unfolded?
In 2012 Harari was awarded the annual Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality in the Humanistic Disciplines. The author lives in Jerusalem."