Humankind: A Hopeful History

Fascinating book, well written and easy to read. A glimmer of hope for humanity in these difficult times despite what politicians and the media would have you believe. Should be compulsory reading.

One of the best and most thought provoking books I’ve read

Humankind is a boo of two halves.The first half is an investigation into whether human being are fundamentally good. This manifests as a debunking of various famous experiments (the Stanford Prison Experiment) and myths (the bystander effect).I found this mostly convincing and in some places the author is on very solid ground. At times Bergman moves the goalposts a little and redefines “goodness” in a way that lets evil doers off the hook a little too easily. But for the most part, he is persuasive.The second half discusses various progressive ideas for reforming society with regard to matters such as education, the criminal justice system and company management. Sometimes I found myself wondering how this second half of the book tied in with the second half. It felt a little shoehorned in. But there were interesting and occasionally compelling ideas presented, nonetheless.The book feels a bit less of an album and more a collection of singles. Still, the key theme established in the first half of the book makes an impression and Bergman changed my mind on a few things. The style is also very readable in classic “airport non fiction “ manner and I was rarely bored.

It’s not often you read a book that changes the way you think about the world we live in and how society and people behave. This book does and I hope it will gain a wide audience. It is a profoundly positive book but has its message of hope grounded in hard research and fact rather than thin unsubstantiated dogma. Many ideas on human nature that I’d been taught at respectable universities and heard repeated by work colleagues and friends as absolute truths are completely debunked and I have come away feeling much more optimistic for the future as a result. I am already giving copies to friends and may even leave one or two as freebies for people to pick up, read and pass on to help its message get out to the wider world.

To begin with, I have to mention that I am blown away by this book. From the very first chapter I was enthralled. Admittedly, I am an overly pessimistic person - I thought (before reading this!) that it was usually better to expect the worse and be pleasantly surprised if something was better than I initially predicted. However, this book has taken all my assumptions about humanity and thrown it right back in my face, forcing me to take an entirely different perspective!I can't go without saying how accessible this book is. After reading a similar book (Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari), I was not expecting such a clearly written and easy-going read. Rutger Bregman has struck the perfect balance between the complexity and simplicity of his language, making it not only rich in ideas and facts but also a relatively easy read! (Unlike the books of Yuval Noah Harari, whose style I found incredibly tedious to plough through.Bregman also managed to weave his carefully thought-through ideas into well-researched facts, opening up new ideas and concepts and then backing them up with anecdotes and statistics. This book is well worth a read for anyone who needs their daily dose of optimism!

I ordered this book after wanting to read a somewhat positive spin on human nature given our almost constant exposure to the barrage of stories about how mankind is nothing but evil and we are all just animals waiting for societal breakdown before we can unleash our worst natures on the world.Happily, this book provides very good evidence that, at the very least, the information we receive might not be the full story. I'm not fully convinced, having read several other tomes on human behavior and definitely seeing some 'real life' evidence of human wickedness, but still, this book supplies plentiful evidence that humankind is not all-wicked, and in fact might even be able to achieve great things were it not for our seeming willingness to willfully forget about our nature and our past and believe only the worst about ourselves and our societies.There are not many books where you read them and HOPE that what they are espousing is the truth because it will help you to feel more optimistic during the rather dark times we seem to currently be living through but this is definitely one of those books. I came away from it with a newfound respect for mankind and a genuine bit of inspiration to help make the world a little bit better, even if only in my local community. (I feel community is the missing ingredient in society today that has allowed use to stray so far from our warmer 'communal' natures).I had to look up lots of things outside of the book to confirm whether or not the author was bending the truth a little and for the most part I was pleasantly surprised.In short, it really does seem that humans are not as bad as we have all been led to believe.

arrived in time

It's probably too optimistic about the human condition but it's also worth reading as it reminds us that most people mean well. In these difficult times that's a comforting message.

Love this book. It challenges many accepted beliefs and pushes you to reexamine commonly held truths. Some of my attitudes have been put under a magnifying glass and have forced me view concepts through a different lens.

The book proposes a blueprint for a more just and inclusive future. It is written for a fast read with many examples to make understanding the concepts easy.

Well documented and full of actual examples about the tendency of humans to be essentially good. Written in a very entertaining way .

Splendida nuova visione dell'umanità, forse non popolare, ma decisamente positivaDa speranza per il futuro, in un mondo dove i media sono concentrati sul dramma e il negativo

Simply great. Honestly, this was the second time I purchased this book. The first one I gave to a close friend and now I wanted to re-read it.