Yuval Noah Harari became famous with Zuckerburg and Gates raving about his 2015 book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. The book surveys, with big and broad brush strokes, the entire length of human history, from the evolution of our species from the Stone Age up to the current political and technological revolutions of the 21st century via the cognitive, agriculture, and scientific revolutions. Probably in my top 10 favorite books of all time and one of the few I would read a second or third time. He is a tenured world history professor who specializes in macro-historical processes also popularized as Big History--an emerging academic discipline which examines history from the Big Bang to the present. It examines long time frames using a multidisciplinary approach based on combining numerous disciplines from science and the humanities and explores human existence in the context of this bigger picture. Yuval’s research focuses on macro-historical questions such as: What is the relation between history and biology? What is the relationship and evolution of physics to chemistry to biology to history to sociology to psychology? What is the essential difference between Homo sapiens and other animals? Is there justice in history? Does history have a direction? Did people become happier as history unfolded? His next book was Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, that moves into predicting the future and the impact of data and AI on humans.
Here my suggested curriculum:
*Must: Read at least his Sapiens book (I can share my library card account with you to get the audio or ebook if you can’t get access)
*Quick: See his Ted Talk on “What explains the rise of humans?”
Or watch one of his lectures on his youtube channel:
