Book Review #4: “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” by Yuval Noah Harari

Yuval Noah Harari is a renowned historian and one of the great critical thinkers of our time. He gained a lot of popularity with his three books, which highly impacted how we think about humanity: Sapiens, which tells the story of humankind’s past, Homo Deus, its future, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, which explores the present and its most pressing questions.

As artificial intelligence (AI) advances and outperforms humans, will human jobs become irrelevant? Will the development of biotechnology lead to enhancing human abilities, potentially creating large inequalities throughout the world? What happens if AI is able to hack human feelings and how dangerous can this technology be in the wrong hands? How can we deal with global issues such as climate change? Can we still find a meaning to life and what should we teach our children in a world that is overwhelmed with information and fake news?

These are only a handful of the questions he explores in 21 Lessons. Drawing from his years of research and contemplation, Harari uses socratic questioning, sound logic, and an honest, courageous and humble tone to brilliantly analyze our century’s most challenging questions. He also debunks some of society’s myths in a mind-expanding narrative and a remarkable effort to help ease the suffering of today’s world and overcome the fears that cripple it.

He for instance explores why we fear terrorism more than sugar when terrorism had, between 2011 and 2018, the time the book was published, killed about 50 people annually in the European Union, about ten in the USA, and up to 25.000 people globally mostly in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria, whereas sugar kills 3.5 million people annually, and air pollution 7 million.

In another chapter, he explains that “our feelings aren’t based on intuition, inspiration, or freedom — they are based on calculation” of survival and reproduction which we fail to recognize as they happen in a threshold that is below our awareness, giving us the erroneous belief that our partner choices and political opinions are the result of “free will”.

Harari warns us against “our own stupidity”, and urges us to uncover our biases and to verify our sources of information. He also invites scientists to be part of the political debate, and make their voices heard, and shares that observing the mind through meditation helped him in his own quest to gain more clarity about reality and the causes of suffering, which he explains should be the main questions humanity should focus on.

When it comes to politics, he says: “We need a global identity because national institutions are incapable of handling a set of unprecedented global predicaments. We now have a global ecology, a global economy, and a global science — but we are still stuck with only national politics.”

This book certainly gives clarity in a world where information and fake news can be alienating. Harari breaks down complex technological and political issues, and makes them easily understandable, which makes 21 Lessons for the 21st Century a great read for anyone interested in having a better understanding of today’s history, and politics, but also of our inner workings.

If you’re interested in buying this book, you can find it on Amazon at: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.