Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari's thesis is that an emerging religion he calls Dataism--which "collapses the barrier between animals and machines" as it "expects electronic algorithms to eventually decipher and outperform biochemical algorithms"--will gradually overtake, and perhaps supplant, humankind. This new faith, fed by the ceaseless flow of information from our smartphones, computers and devices yet unimagined, will supersede the worldview of liberal humanism--with its emphasis on the exercise of individual free will--that emerged in the late 18th century and eventually triumphed in the 20th over the ideologies of Nazism and Communism.

Homo Deus shares DNA with the work of writers like Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel) in its proclivity for synthesizing large swaths of history, while drawing freely from other disciplines in both the humanities and sciences. It's emphatically a work for the general reader eager to grapple with big ideas, but who is equally hungry for context for today's headlines. Harari possesses a well-stocked mind and is an engaging stylist skilled at neatly summarizing arguments--like his contention that overeating is more of a threat to humankind than violence--with memorable, epigrammatic sentences: "Sugar is now more dangerous than gunpowder."

Harari (Sapiens) is neither advocate nor alarmist, but anyone who engages seriously with this challenging work should come away from it with ample motivation to think more deeply about what's around the next bend in the river of human history. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

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