IF YOU LIKE YUVAL NOAH HARARI FULL

In 2008, Yuval Noah Harari, a young historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, began to write a book derived from an undergraduate world-history class that he was teaching. If youвЂ™re from Germany or buying from Amazon.This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. If you are buying online use the links below and I will receive a very small cut (4.5% of the price) at no extra cost to you:

To hear more from master historian Yuval Noah Harari in the form of his (brilliant) books, borrow the book from a friend or library. Suffering, love, nature, joy, physics, relationships, food, etc. Let me know what you think- are there situations where this does not apply?Д«esides all these stories, there is real life. Thank you, Yuval, for sharing your story and some of these truths you have arrived at after extensive study and work. I will continue to think about this truth/power split for many years to come. HaraiвЂ™s expertise, combined with his clear writing (his own skilled story-telling) is truly remarkable. An underlying truth of human history summed up in a matter of paragraphs. Better try your luck with chimps.вЂќД¬K: Woah. Therefore, if you dream of a society in which truth reigns supreme and myths are ignored, you have little to expect from Homo Sapiens. We spend far more time and effort on trying to control the world than on trying to understand it - and even when we try to understand it, we usually do so in the hope that understanding the world will make it easier to control it. ThatвЂ™s why they were so powerful.ДЄs a species, humans prefer power to truth. Scholars throughout history faced this dilemma: do they serve power or truth? Should they aim to unite people by making sure everyone believes in the same story, or should they let people know the truth even at the price of disunity?В The most powerful scholarly establishments -whether of Christian priests, Confucian mandarins, or communist ideologues - placed unity above truth.

You will have to admit things - for example about the sources of your own power - that will anger allies, dishearten followers or undermine social harmony. If you want to know the truth about the world, at some point you will have to renounce power. If you want power, at some point you will have to spread fictions.

Sooner or later they go their separate ways. Truth and power can travel together only so far. But how often do you demand the ultimate truth? If you demand the ultimate truth, you realize that the story of Adam and Eve is a myth. But in the midst of war you donвЂ™t have the time and energy. If you devote the time and energy, you can discover that nations are elaborate yarns. But in the heat of the match, nobody asks you about it. If you are asked about it, you know that football is a human invention. If you really focus, you realise that money is fiction. Or more correctly, they can know something when they really think about it, but most of the time they donвЂ™t think about it, so they donвЂ™t know it. вЂњHumans have this remarkable ability to know and not to know at the same time.

These stories, for better and worse, have created and govern the entire world as we know it. Nations and religions are football clubs on steroids.вЂќД¬K: Here Harai makes an offshoot example of his main thesis, that the unique power of humans to create, tell, and live the stories we tell each other is both the bedrock and the unseen force that shapes all of society. Football can help formulate personal identities, it can cement large-scale communities, and it can even provide reasons for violence. Football may begin with just having fun, but it can then becomes far more serious stuff, as any English hooligan or Argentinian nationalist will attest. If you donвЂ™t, you will think it utterly ridiculous for twenty-two people to go running after a ball. To really enjoy football, you have to accept the rules of the game, and forget for at least ninety minutes that they are merely human inventions. вЂњBlurring the line between fiction and reality can be done for many purposes, starting with вЂhaving funвЂ™ and going all the way to вЂsurvival.вЂ™ You cannot play games or read novels unless you suspend disbelief at least for a little while. One such passage that is still on my mind after finishing the book this weekend is below:

IF YOU LIKE YUVAL NOAH HARARI FULL

His books are full of passages that I find a lot of truth in and have changed the way I think. In 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, historian Yuval Noah Harari delivers even more insightful, powerful messages about humanity at large.

If you like yuval noah harari