Humankind: A Hopeful History

Product Description

A Guardian Book to Look Out For in 2020

'Humankind challenged me and made me see humanity from a fresh perspective' Yuval Noah Harari

From 'the folk hero of Davos', Fox News antagonist and author of the international bestseller Utopia for Realists comes a radical history of our innate capacity for kindness.

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 Pinker, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed primarily by self-interest.
Providing a new historical perspective on the last 200,000 years of human history, Humankind makes a new argument- that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume that people are good. When we think the worst of others, it brings out the worst in our politics and economics too.
In this major book, internationally bestselling author Rutger Bregman shows how believing in human kindness and altruism can be a new way to think o and act as the foundation for achieving true change in our society.
It is time for a new view of human nature.A Guardian Book to Look Out For in 2020

'Humankind challenged me and made me see humanity from a fresh perspective' Yuval Noah Harari

From 'the folk hero of Davos', Fox News antagonist and author of the international bestseller Utopia for Realists comes a radical history of our innate capacity for kindness.

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 Pinker, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed primarily by self-interest.
Providing a new historical perspective on the last 200,000 years of human history, Humankind makes a new argument- that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume that people are good. When we think the worst of others, it brings out the worst in our politics and economics too.
In this major book, internationally bestselling author Rutger Bregman shows how believing in human kindness and altruism can be a new way to think o and act as the foundation for achieving true change in our society.
It is time for a new view of human nature.
Rutger Bregman is one of Europe's most prominent young historians. Utopia for Realists was a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and has been translated from the Dutch into thirty languages. He has twice been nominated for the prestigious European Press Prize for his work at The Correspondent, and his writing has also been featured in the Washington Post and the Guardian. His TED talk, 'Poverty isn't a lack of character; it's a lack of cash', has been viewed more than three million times. He was ranked number 10 in the Big Issue's Top 100 Changemakers of 2020.
@rcbregman | rutgerbregman.com