Paperback: From 'the folk hero of Davos', Fox News antagonist and author of the international bestseller Utopia for Realists (2014, 2017) comes a radical history of our innate capacity for kindness. It is 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 Pinker, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we are taught, are by nature selfish and governed by self-interest.
Humankind (2019, 2020) 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, international-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 cooperation seen in the aftermath of the Blitz, the hidden flaws in the Stanford Prison Experiment to the true story of the Kitty Genovese murder, 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.
Humankind (2019, 2020) was awarded the Publieksprijs voor het Nederlandse Boek (2020) and nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for History & Biography (2020).
About the author: Rutger Bregman (1988) is a historian and author. He has published five books on history, philosophy, and economics. His books Humankind and Utopia for Realists were both New York Times Bestsellers and have been translated in more than 40 languages. Bregman has twice been nominated for the prestigious European Press Prize for his work at The Correspondent. He lives in Holland.
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