In 1938, there were three competing stories. Different walls, resistance to immigration and to trade agreements and rising illiberal democracy appeared while the Brexit process and the Trump ascendency marked a turn while exporting democracy at the barrel of a gun (Iraq, Libya) started “not working for Kentucky and Yorkshire”. The great disillusionment came with the global financial crisis of 2008, coinciding with a slowly vanishing unipolar world we had known since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. At the peak of Western liberalism, Bill Clinton told China that its refusal to liberalise Chinese politics would put it “on the wrong side of history”. YNH sees three “stories” that shaped the 20th century with Fascism, Communism and Western Liberalism, the latter having been the “last one standing” that celebrated the value and power of liberty and became the global mantra of the 1990s and 2000s.
In many ways lesson 1 is an echo to Edward Luce’s “Retreat of Western Liberalism” discussed in mid-2018.
In Disillusionment (aptly ranked as lesson 1) YNH addresses the key point of friction of our days that relates to the rise of populism, anti-elite, anti-establishment, at times anti-capitalism and largely anti-“everything” about the Western liberal world we built since 1945. One may not always agree with his conclusions but his approach is thought-provoking while, all the lessons being interconnected, his offering offers a truly encompassing perspective of the challenges facing mankind as we gradually advance to the mid-point of our transformational century. One may not necessarily agree with his classification though it is hard to find his selection not relevant. I also do not want to uncover all the pleasures of discovering his thinking process and why those lessons are what they are.
#YUVAL NOAH HARARI LECTURES FULL#
I will only address one chapter or lesson – incidentally one reflecting why the blog exists – as the book is so rich that addressing the full YNH “course” would require a length that would far exceed the remit of one Book Note and might be unwittingly tedious. He is much “more” or as Nietzsche would have said, he is “the man of the future” or the one who can read into it as he is also the one with the longest memory, a feature that is not so common. If you don’t know him, one of the key discoveries reading YNH is that he is not your typical historian. Science Fiction (The future is not what you see in the movies)ġ9. Post-Truth (some fake news last forever)ġ8. Justice (Our sense of justice might be out of date)ġ7. Ignorance (You know less than you think)ġ6. God (Don’t take the name of God in vain)ġ5.
Humility (You are not the centre of the world)ġ3. War (Never underestimate human stupidity)ġ2. Immigration (Some cultures might be better than others)ġ1. Nationalism (Global problems need global answers)ĩ. Civilisation (There is just one civilisation in the world)ħ. Equality (Those who own the data own the future)Ħ. Work (When you grow up, you might not have a job)Ĥ. Disillusionment (the end of history has been postponed)Ģ. It has five parts and 21 sections or indeed lessons, all inter-connected in an amazing tapestry for our times as follows.ġ. “21 lessons for the 21st century” is probably the most ambitious book of the moment, focused on “today” and current affairs with a global focus, trying to explain where we are and may be going. YNH has a PhD in history from Oxford and lectures at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I would like to speak to you about “21 lessons for the 21st century” by historian Yuval Noah Harari who has risen to fame over the last few years with his two widely-acclaimed books “Sapiens” that surveyed the human past and how an ape came to rule the world and “Homo Deus” that explored the long-term future of life.