A key focus of the considerations here is how human beings respond, again as both individuals and members of community, to both perceived dangers and perceived opportunities to transcend the limits of physical existence. Part III is titled “Despair and Hope,” and looks at a range of emotions and attitudes encountered by human beings as part of their experiences as individuals and as members of a community. He revisits a number of technology-related arguments and commentary first brought forward in Part I, here paying particular attention to how political perspectives and practices that were once limited to local or regional experiences have become, thanks to technology, more global in scale. Part II is titled “The Political Challenge,” and considers different ways in which politics and economics have evolved, and may evolve in the future. He focuses primarily on how what developments in both information technology and biological technology might mean for how humans interact with others, with government, and with their own individual experiences of identity.

Part I is titled “The Technological Challenge.” In it, he considers how advances in technology relate to historical advances in mechanization and industrialization. The author then divides his considerations into five parts, each of which includes several chapters. He also introduces some of the basic premises that underpin his analysis, including what he sees as the potentially enlightening connections between history, the present, and the future. The book begins with an Introduction, in which the author outlines the personal and academic perspectives from which he approached the work. The “lessons” to be taken from each commentary appear as sub-titles at the beginning of each essay/chapter. The book consists of a series of essay-like commentaries on aspects of global existence in the early part of the 21st Century. The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Harari, Yuval Noah.

Book 21 lessons for the 21st century