If we are so wise, why are we so self-destructive?

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.

In Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, Yuval Noah Harari looks through the long lens of human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world.

And he addresses the urgent choices we face as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence.

Taking us from the Stone Age through the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism and the resurgence of populism today, 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 have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill.

Information is not the raw material of truth; neither is it a mere weapon. Nexus explores the hopeful middle ground between these extremes, and of rediscovering our shared humanity.

Watch the book trailer here:

Categories International Non-fiction

Tags New books New releases Nexus Penguin Random House SA Yuval Noah Harari