Nexus

Over the last 100,000 years, mankind has achieved enormous power. But despite all our discoveries, inventions and conquests, we are now facing an existential crisis. The world is on the brink of ecological collapse. Misinformation is being spread on a massive scale. And we are plunging headlong into the age of artificial intelligence - a new information network that threatens to wipe us out. If we are so smart, why are we so self-destructive? Nexus shows how the flow of information has shaped us and our world. Yuval Noah Harari takes us from the Stone Age and biblical times through the early modern witch hunts, Stalinism and National Socialism to the resurgence of populism today. In doing so, he draws our attention to the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. He explores how different societies and political systems have used information to achieve their goals - for better or for worse. And he looks at the pressing choices we face today as non-human intelligence threatens our existence. Information is not the raw material of truth, but neither is it simply a weapon. Nexus explores the hopeful middle ground between these extremes and shows how our common humanity can be rediscovered.