Humankind: A Hopeful History – from the presenter of the 2025 BBC ‘Moral Revolution’ Reith lectures
May 2020 · Bloomsbury Publishing
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55 reviews
Ebook
496
Pages
About this ebook
THE SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Guardian, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman and Daily Express Book of the Year
'Hugely, highly and happily recommended'
Stephen Fry
'You should read Humankind. You'll learn a lot (I did) and you'll have good reason to feel better about the human race'
Tim Harford
'The book we need right now'
Daily Telegraph
'Made me see humanity from a fresh perspective'
Yuval Noah Harari
It's a belief that unites the left and right, psychologists and philosophers, writers and historians. It drives the headlines that surround us and the laws that touch our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Dawkins, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed by self-interest.
Humankind makes a new argument: that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume that people are good. The instinct to cooperate rather than compete, trust rather than distrust, has an evolutionary basis going right back to the beginning of Homo sapiens. By thinking the worst of others, we bring out the worst in our politics and economics too.
In this major book, internationally bestselling author Rutger Bregman takes some of the world's most famous studies and events and reframes them, providing a new perspective on the last 200,000 years of human history. From the real-life Lord of the Flies to the Blitz, a Siberian fox farm to an infamous New York murder, Stanley Milgram's Yale shock machine to the Stanford prison experiment, Bregman shows how believing in human kindness and altruism can be a new way to think – and act as the foundation for achieving true change in our society.
It is time for a new view of human nature.
A Guardian, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman and Daily Express Book of the Year
'Hugely, highly and happily recommended'
Stephen Fry
'You should read Humankind. You'll learn a lot (I did) and you'll have good reason to feel better about the human race'
Tim Harford
'The book we need right now'
Daily Telegraph
'Made me see humanity from a fresh perspective'
Yuval Noah Harari
It's a belief that unites the left and right, psychologists and philosophers, writers and historians. It drives the headlines that surround us and the laws that touch our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Dawkins, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed by self-interest.
Humankind makes a new argument: that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume that people are good. The instinct to cooperate rather than compete, trust rather than distrust, has an evolutionary basis going right back to the beginning of Homo sapiens. By thinking the worst of others, we bring out the worst in our politics and economics too.
In this major book, internationally bestselling author Rutger Bregman takes some of the world's most famous studies and events and reframes them, providing a new perspective on the last 200,000 years of human history. From the real-life Lord of the Flies to the Blitz, a Siberian fox farm to an infamous New York murder, Stanley Milgram's Yale shock machine to the Stanford prison experiment, Bregman shows how believing in human kindness and altruism can be a new way to think – and act as the foundation for achieving true change in our society.
It is time for a new view of human nature.
THE SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Guardian, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman and Daily Express Book of the Year
'Hugely, highly and happily recommended'
Stephen Fry
'You should read Humankind. You'll learn a lot (I did) and you'll have good reason to feel better about the human ra...
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Ratings and reviews
55 reviews
Jessica Knight
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May 16, 2026
This book has merits and is interesting. It goes into a lot of detail about historical events and adds a lot of nuance and explores the literature and interpretations of them. Lord of the Flies, bystander effect, milgram's electroshock experiments that apparently show that humans will do cruelty when ordered. Ultimately I didn't finish because unlike the subtitle suggests this did not at all make me feel hopeful. These are largely intellectual nuance-additions of pessimistic narratives that are widely accepted as "truths about human nature". Many are effective and have deepened my own understanding. This book adds welcome and defensible nuance to cliches about cruelty in humans. The discussion of neanderthals especially is interesting. But I'm already sold on "humans are fundamentally empathetic". So engaging with and disproving bad faith arguments just makes me feel more crushed by the wealthy minority fomenting mutual distrust amongst people.
Matthew Sargent
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November 15, 2021
This book offers a radical new lens to view human nature, and I couldn't be happier. Rutger does a great job of presenting his research and ideas in an approachable and direct manner whilst also backing up claims with scientific and historic evidence. A must read for philosophers, psychologists, historians and most importantly: human beings.
Kittypowaa
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January 5, 2023
I don't usually read non-fiction by choice but I decided to give this a go on my breaks and it really helped either calm me down, be more positive or just feel more centred. I've never recommended a book more because it feels like everyone is in their bubble of cynicism - might be the breath of fresh air that you are looking for.
About the author
Rutger Bregman, a historian and writer at the Correspondent, is one of Europe's most prominent young thinkers. His last book, Utopia for Realists, was a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and has been translated into thirty-two languages. He lives in Holland.
@rcbregman | rutgerbregman.com
@rcbregman | rutgerbregman.com
Rutger Bregman, a historian and writer at the Correspondent, is one of Europe's most prominent young thinkers. His last book, Utopia for Realists, was a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and has been translated into thirty-two languages. He lives in Holland.
@rcbregman | rutgerbregman.com
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