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Nexus review: Yuval Noah Harari is out of his depth in his new book

The author of Sapiens has turned his attention to the information networks that shape our societies, but when you stop and think about what he's saying, it's obvious

By Michael Marshall

4 September 2024

SAN FRANCISCO - SEPTEMBER 20: Freshly printed copies of the San Francisco Chronicle run through the printing press at one of the Chronicle's printing facilities September 20, 2007 in San Francisco, California. Newspaper sales in the U.S. continue to slide as people turn to the internet and television for their news. The Chronicle saw its circulation plunge more than 15 percent in 2006 to 398,000 during the week which has hurt newspaper vendor Rick Gaub's business. Unable to sell as many papers as he used to, Gaub is looking for a new way to earn money after selling papers for 42 years. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) — The invention of the printing press helped the distribution of information
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Nexus
Yuval Noah Harari (Fern Press, out 10 September)

Reading Nexus is a strange experience. The quality of the text lurches up and down: one minute you are reading something incisive, the next you are wading through banalities.

Its author, Yuval Noah Harari, is a medieval historian most famous for his book Sapiens, a whistlestop history of humanity from the Stone Age to the present day. Its central thesis is that humans came to dominate the planet because we can believe in things that only…

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