Humankind: A Hopeful History

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
A Guardian, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman and Daily Express Book of the Year

‘Hugely, highly and happily recommended’ Stephen Fry
‘You should read Humankind. You’ll learn a lot (I did) and you’ll have good reason to feel better about the human race’ Tim Harford
‘Made me see humanity from a fresh perspective’ Yuval Noah Harari

It’s a belief that unites the left and right, psychologists and philosophers, writers and historians. It drives the headlines that surround us and the laws that touch our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Dawkins, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we’re taught, are by nature selfish and governed by self-interest.

Humankind makes a new argument: that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume that people are good. By thinking the worst of others, we bring out the worst in our politics and economics too.

In this major book, internationally bestselling author Rutger Bregman takes some of the world’s most famous studies and events and reframes them, providing a new perspective on the last 200,000 years of human history. From the real-life Lord of the Flies to the Blitz, a Siberian fox farm to an infamous New York murder, Stanley Milgram’s Yale shock machine to the Stanford prison experiment, Bregman shows how believing in human kindness and altruism can be a new way to think – and act as the foundation for achieving true change in our society.

It is time for a new view of human nature.

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Summary
Humankind makes the argument that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume that people are good. By thinking the worst of others, we bring out the worst in our politics and economics too. In Utopia for Realists, Rutger Bregman shows that we can construct a society with visionary ideas that are, in fact, wholly implementable. In Moral Ambition, internationally-bestselling author Rutger Bregman shows us it is possible to be both successful and idealistic by placing a drive for meaning and change at the centre of our lives.

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Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date ‏ : ‎ 13 May 2021
Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 496 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1408898950
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1408898956
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 400 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.8 x 3.4 x 19.6 cm