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* {{Official website|http://ynharari.com/}}
* {{Official website|http://ynharari.com/}}
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29205225 Meet the author – Yuval Harari video interview] – [[BBC News]]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29205225 Meet the author – Yuval Harari video interview] – [[BBC News]]
* {{TED speaker}}
* Yuval Noah Harari at [http://www.ted.com/talks/yuval_noah_harari_what_explains_the_rise_of_humans TED]
{{Authority control}}
{{Authority control}}


Revision as of 12:56, 9 August 2017

Yuval Noah Harari
יובל נח הררי
Harari in 2013
Born (1976-02-24) 24 February 1976 (age 48)
Kiryat Ata, Israel
NationalityIsraeli
Alma materHebrew University of Jerusalem
Jesus College, Oxford
Known forSapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Awards
  • Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality (2009 and 2012)
  • Society for Military History's Moncado Award
  • Young Israeli Academy of Sciences
  • National Library of China best book of the year award
Scientific career
FieldsHistory
InstitutionsHebrew University of Jerusalem
Thesis History and I: War and the Relations between History and Personal Identity in Renaissance Military Memoirs, c. 1450–1600  (2002)
Doctoral advisorSteven J. Gunn
Websiteynharari.com

Yuval Noah Harari (they; born 24 February 1976) is an Israeli historian and a tenured professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[1] He is the author of the international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2014).

His latest book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow was published in Hebrew in 2015. An English translation was published in the United Kingdom in September 2016 and in the United States in February 2017.

Background

Harari was born in Kiryat Ata, Israel in 1976 and grew up in a secular Jewish family of eastern European origin in Haifa, Israel.[2]

Career

Harari first specialized in medieval history and military history in his studies from 1993 to 1998 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He completed his DPhil (doctorate) degree at Jesus College, Oxford, in 2002 under the supervision of Steven J. Gunn. From 2003 to 2005 he pursued postdoctoral studies in history as a Yad Hanadiv Fellow.[3]

He has since published numerous books and articles, including Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry, 1100–1550;[4] The Ultimate Experience: Battlefield Revelations and the Making of Modern War Culture, 1450–2000;[5] The Concept of 'Decisive Battles' in World History;[6] and Armchairs, Coffee and Authority: Eye-witnesses and Flesh-witnesses Speak about War, 1100–2000.[7] He now specializes in world history and macro-historical processes.

His book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind was published in Hebrew in 2011 and then in English in 2014; it has since been translated into some 30 additional languages.[8] The book surveys the entire length of human history, from the evolution of Homo sapiens in the Stone Age up to the political and technological revolutions of the 21st century. The Hebrew edition became a bestseller in Israel, and generated much interest both in the academic community and among the general public, turning Harari into a celebrity.[9] YouTube video clips of Harari's Hebrew lectures on the history of the world have been viewed by tens of thousands of Israelis.[10]

Harari also gives a free online course in English titled A Brief History of Humankind. More than 100,000 people throughout the world have already taken this course.

Harari twice won the Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality, in 2009 and 2012. In 2011 he won the Society for Military History's Moncado Award for outstanding articles in military history. In 2012 he was elected to the Young Israeli Academy of Sciences. In 2015 Sapiens was selected by Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, for his online book club. Mark invited his followers to read what he describes as "a big history narrative of human civilization".

Homo sapiens interests

Harari is interested in how Homo sapiens reached its current condition, and in its future. His research focuses on macro-historical questions such as: What is the relation between history and biology? What is the essential difference between Homo sapiens and other animals? Is there justice in history? Does history have a direction? Did people become happier as history unfolded?

Harari regards dissatisfaction as the "deep root" of human reality, and as related to evolution.[11]

In a 2017 article Harari has argued that through continuing technological progress and advances in the field of artificial intelligence "by 2050 a new class of people might emerge – the useless class. People who are not just unemployed, but unemployable."[12] He put forward the case that dealing with this new social class economically, socially and politically will be a central challenge for humanity in the coming decades.[13]

Animal welfare

Harari has commented on the dire plight of animals, particularly domesticated animals, since the agricultural revolution, and is a vegan.[2] In a 2015 Guardian article under the title "Industrial farming is one of the worst crimes in history" he called "[t]he fate of industrially farmed animals (...) one of the most pressing ethical questions of our time."[14]

Personal life

Harari met his husband Itzik Yahav in 2002.[15] Because one cannot get married in Israel except in religious ceremonies and no officially recognized religion in Israel allow same-sex marriages, they married in Toronto in Canada.[16] The couple lives in moshav (a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms) Mesilat Zion near Jerusalem.[17][18][19]

Harari says Vipassana meditation, which he began whilst in Oxford in 2000,[20] has "transformed my life".[21] He practises for two hours every day (one hour at the start and end of his work day[22]), every year undertakes a meditation retreat of 30 days or longer, in silence and with no books or social media,[23][24][11] and is an assistant meditation teacher.[25] He dedicated Homo Deus to "my teacher, S. N. Goenka, who lovingly taught me important things," and said "I could not have written this book without the focus, peace and insight gained from practising Vipassana for fifteen years."[26] He also regards meditation as a way to research.[11]

Harari is a vegan, and says this resulted from his research, including his view that the foundation of the dairy industry is the breaking of the bond between mother and calf cows.[2][27] He walks his dog (a large mongrel from the streets) in woods for an hour every day when he has time.[28] Harari does not have a smart phone.[29]

Books

  • Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2016), ISBN 978-1910701881
  • Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (London: Harvill Secker, 2014) ISBN 978-006-231-609-7
  • The Ultimate Experience: Battlefield Revelations and the Making of Modern War Culture, 1450–2000 (Houndmills: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008),[30] ISBN 978-023-058-388-7
  • Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry, 1100–1550 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2007), ISBN 978-184-383-292-8
  • Renaissance Military Memoirs: War, History and Identity, 1450–1600 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2004), ISBN 978-184-383-064-1

Writings

  • "The Military Role of the Frankish Turcopoles – a Reassessment", Mediterranean Historical Review 12 (1) (June 1997), pp. 75–116.
  • "Inter-Frontal Cooperation in the Fourteenth Century and Edward III’s 1346 Campaign", War in History 6 (4) (September 1999), pp. 379–395
  • "Strategy and Supply in Fourteenth-Century Western European Invasion Campaigns", The Journal of Military History 64 (2) (April 2000), pp. 297–334.
  • "Eyewitnessing in Accounts of the First Crusade: The Gesta Francorum and Other Contemporary Narratives", Crusades 3 (August 2004), pp. 77–99
  • "Martial Illusions: War and Disillusionment in Twentieth-Century and Renaissance Military Memoirs", The Journal of Military History 69 (1) (January 2005), pp. 43–72
  • "Military Memoirs: A Historical Overview of the Genre from the Middle Ages to the Late Modern Era", War in History 14:3 (2007), pp. 289–309
  • "The Concept of ‘Decisive Battles’ in World History", The Journal of World History 18 (3) (2007), 251–266
  • "Knowledge, Power and the Medieval Soldier, 1096–1550", in In Laudem Hierosolymitani: Studies in Crusades and Medieval Culture in Honour of Benjamin Z. Kedar, ed. Iris Shagrir, Ronnie Ellenblum and Jonathan Riley-Smith, (Ashgate, 2007)
  • "Combat Flow: Military, Political and Ethical Dimensions of Subjective Well-Being in War", Review of General Psychology (September 2008)[30]
  • Introduction to Peter Singer's Animal Liberation, The Bodley Head, 2015.

References

  1. ^ Yuval Harari site, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem site
  2. ^ a b c Cadwalladr, Carole (5 July 2015). "Yuval Noah Harari: The age of the cyborg has begun – and the consequences cannot be known". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 November 2016.
  3. ^ "CV at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem". 2008.
  4. ^ Yuval Noah Harari, Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry, 1100–1550 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2007)
  5. ^ Yuval Noah Harari, The Ultimate Experience: Battlefield Revelations and the Making of Modern War Culture, 1450–2000 (Houndmills: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008)
  6. ^ Yuval Noah Harari, The Concept of 'Decisive Battles' in World History, in Journal of World History 18:3 (2007), 251–266.
  7. ^ Yuval Noah Harari, Armchairs, Coffee and Authority: Eye-witnesses and Flesh-witnesses Speak about War, 1100–2000, Journal of Military History 74:1 (January 2010), pp. 53–78.
  8. ^ Payne, Tom (26 September 2014). "Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, review: 'urgent questions'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 29 October 2014.
  9. ^ Fast talk / The road to happiness, in Haaretz, 25 April 2012
  10. ^ "A Brief History of Mankind course, in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem channel in YouTube (in Hebrew)
  11. ^ a b c "Fast Talk The Road to Happiness". 25 April 2017 – via Haaretz.
  12. ^ Harari, Yuval Noah (8 May 2017). "The meaning of life in a world without work". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 May 2017.
  13. ^ iqsquared (15 September 2016), Yuval Noah Harari on the Rise of Homo Deus, retrieved 1 June 2017
  14. ^ Harari, Yuval Noah (25 September 2015). "Industrial farming is one of the worst crimes in history". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 5 April 2017.
  15. ^ http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/fast-talk-the-road-to-happiness-1.426554
  16. ^ http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31821&articlexml=Sadly-superhumans-in-the-end-are-not-going-14102015012006
  17. ^ "Fast Talk The Road to Happiness". 25 April 2017 – via Haaretz.
  18. ^ Appleyard, Bryan (31 August 2014). "Asking big questions". thesundaytimes.co.uk. Retrieved 25 July 2015.
  19. ^ Reed, John (5 September 2014). "Lunch with the FT: Yuval Noah Harari". ft.com. Retrieved 25 July 2015.
  20. ^ https://soundcloud.com/panoply/yuval-harari-author-of-sapiens-on-ai-religion-and-60-day-meditation-retreats
  21. ^ Adams, Tim (27 August 2016). "Yuval Noah Harari: 'We are quickly acquiring powers that were always thought to be divine'" – via The Guardian.
  22. ^ http://time.com/4672373/yuval-noah-harari-homo-deus-interview/
  23. ^ https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/field/field_document/Interview%20-%20Yuval%20Harari.pdf
  24. ^ "Subscribe – theaustralian".
  25. ^ http://www.vridhamma.org/en2013-12
  26. ^ Homo Deus, dedication and Acknowledgements p426
  27. ^ https://soundcloud.com/bloombergview/interview-with-yuval-noah-harari-masters-in-business-audio
  28. ^ https://soundcloud.com/bloombergview/interview-with-yuval-noah-harari-masters-in-business-audio
  29. ^ 3/17 https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/waking-up-podcast-68-yuval
  30. ^ a b "Yuval Harari – YN Harari – Prof. Yuval Noah Harari – Official Site – Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind".
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