Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks From the Stone Age to AI

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world. “Masterful and provocative.”—Mustafa Suleyman For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite allour discoveries, inventions, and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis. The world is on the verge of ecological collapse. Misinformation abounds. And we are rushing headlong into the age of AI—a new information network that threatens to annihilate us. For all that we have accomplished, why are we so self-destructive? Nexus looks through the long lens of human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world. Taking us from the Stone Age, through the canonization of the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism, and the resurgence of populism today, Yuval Noah Harari asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. He explores how different societies and political systems throughout history have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill. And he addresses the urgent choices we face as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence. Information is not the raw material of truth; neither is it a mere weapon. Nexus explores the hopeful middle ground between these extremes, and in doing so, rediscovers our shared humanity. Review “Yuval Noah Harari has a unique ability to unite history’s finest details and its grandest megatrends in a single view. In this masterful and provocative new book, he makes a compelling case that information networks are—and always have been—the primary driving force shaping human societies. This deeply important book comes at a critical time as we all think through the implications of AI and automated content production.” —Mustafa Suleyman “Harari draws on history, philosophy, science, psychology, and political theory to present a plethora of examples of information as the current running beneath all human endeavor. Indeed, it is Harari's genius to untangle complex patterns to reveal complicated structures while illuminating the connections to our everyday lives. An important and timely must-read as our survival is at the mercy of information.” — Booklist , starred review “Confronting the avalanche of books on the prospects of AI, readers would do well to begin with this one.” — Kirkus Reviews , starred review About the Author Professor Yuval Noah Harari is a historian, philosopher, and the bestselling author of Sapiens : A Brief History of Humankind , Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century , and the series Sapiens: A Graphic History and Unstoppable Us. He is considered one of the world’s most influential public intellectuals working today. Born in Israel in 1976, Harari received his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford in 2002. He is currently a lecturer at the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. Harari co-founded the social impact company Sapienship, focused on education and storytelling, with his husband, Itzik Yahav.