# Humankind: A Hopeful History

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/books/humankind-a-hopeful-history/
- Published: 2021-05-21T10:40:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

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. By thinking the worst of others, we bring out the
worst in our politics and economics too.**

In this 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.

## Reviews

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**

“Made me see humanity from a fresh perspective”.
**Yuval Noah Harari**