| 21 Lessons for the 21st Century | |
| Author: | Yuval Noah Harari |
| Orig Lang Code: | en |
| Country: | Israel |
| Language: | English |
| Subject: | Social philosophy |
| Publisher: | Spiegel & Grau |
| Publisher2: | Jonathan Cape |
| Pub Date: | 2018 |
| English Pub Date: | 30 August 2018 |
| Pages: | 372 |
| Isbn: | 978-198-480-149-4 |
| Oclc: | 1029771757 |
21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a book written by Israeli author Yuval Noah Harari and published in August 2018 by Spiegel & Grau[1] in the US and by Jonathan Cape[2] in the UK. It is dedicated to the author's husband, Itzik.
The book consists of five parts, each containing four or five essays. The book focuses on present-day issues and societal questions.[3]
The review aggregator website Book Marks reported that 44% of critics gave the book a "rave" review, whilst 11% of the critics "panned" the book. The rest of the critics expressed either "positive" (22%) or "mixed" (22%) impressions, based on a sample of nine reviews.[4] The book had articles and reviews published by The New York Times, The Economist,[5] Financial Times, The Guardian, New Statesman, and The Times.
In The New York Times, Bill Gates calls the book "fascinating" and his author "such a stimulating writer that even when I disagreed, I wanted to keep reading and thinking." For Gates, Harari "has teed up a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the 21st century."[6]
John Thornhill in Financial Times said that "[although] 21 Lessons is lit up by flashes of intellectual adventure and literary verve, it is probably the least illuminating of the three books" written by Harari, and that many of the observations in it feel recycled from the two others.[7] Helen Lewis review in The Guardian is not as glowing but admires "the ambition and breadth of his work, smashing together unexpected ideas into dazzling observations."[3]
The book has also received negative reviews. Gavin Jacobson in the New Statesman sees it as "a study thick with promise and thin in import" with advice "either too vague or too hollow to provide any meaningful guidance."[8] In The Times, Gerard DeGroot writes: "The author of Sapiens is good at identifying the crises to come but his syrupy platitudes are no answer."[9]
A Russian translation of Harari's book was published in June 2019. However, the Russian media noticed that several passages about Russia and its President Putin were excluded from the translation. In particular, the chapter about post-truth begins in the Russian edition with referring to Donald Trump's speeches instead of Putin's false statements during Russian annexation of Crimea.[10] [11] [12] The representatives of Harari admitted that this change was authorized.[13]
Leonid Bershidsky in Moscow Times called it "caution — or, to call it by its proper name, cowardice",[14] and Nettanel Slyomovics in Haaretz claimed that Harari "is sacrificing those same liberal ideas that he presumes to represent".[15] In a response, Harari stated that he "was warned that due to these few examples Russian censorship will not allow distribution of a Russian translation of the book" and that he "therefore faced a dilemma", namely to "replace these few examples with other examples, and publish the book in Russia," or "change nothing, and publish nothing", and that he "preferred publishing, because Russia is a leading global power and it seemed important that the book's ideas should reach readers in Russia, especially as the book is still very critical of the Putin regime – just without naming names."[16]