person1976–

Yuval Noah Harari

Disciplines:

Summary

Israeli historian and author — author of Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century — the best-selling popular historian of the last decade — who synthesizes big history with speculative futurism for global non-academic audiences.

Core Contribution

Creates the narrative big history for global audiences — Sapiens' account of Homo sapiens combining cognitive science, evolutionary biology, economics, and cultural history reached 20M+ readers and demonstrated a massive global market for grand synthetic history written for non-academics.

Key Spikes & Highlights

Meditates 2 hours daily and goes on month-long silent retreats — his meditation practice is unusually intensive for a major public intellectual and he credits it with giving him the cognitive clarity to write synthesis history
Most translated Israeli author in history — translated into 65 languages; Sapiens's global reach across China, Brazil, India, and the US is unprecedented for academic history

Notable Works & Achievements

Sapiens

Homo Deus

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Historical Influences

Jared Diamond Francis Fukuyama Richard Dawkins

Intellectual Lineage

Kiryat Ata, Israel Hebrew University Oxford

Contemporaries & Peers

Jared Diamond Steven Pinker Daniel Kahneman

Minds Influenced

Popular history globally

Intellectual Posterity

Sapiens Homo Deus Harari as global public intellectual

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