Author Guide · History & Big Ideas
Books Written by
Sapiens started as a set of lectures for an introductory world history course at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Yuval Noah Harari, a historian with an Oxford doctorate on Renaissance soldiers’ memoirs, turned them into a Hebrew book in 2011; the English edition of 2014 spent 96 consecutive weeks in the top three of The New York Times best-seller list. His books have since sold over 55 million copies in 65 languages, according to his publisher. He followed humankind’s past with its future in Homo Deus, its present in 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, and artificial intelligence in Nexus, and retold Sapiens as a graphic novel and as a series for children. This guide covers his 10 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 key books · 2011–2026 · Updated October 2026
ClickTap a spine to jump to that book below.
Quick answer
Yuval Noah Harari’s best-known books are Sapiens (2011; in English 2014), Homo Deus (2015), 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018) and Nexus (2024), alongside the three-volume Sapiens: A Graphic History and the children’s series Unstoppable Us. Start with Sapiens: the later books build on its central idea, that humans rule the world because they can cooperate around shared stories.
Where to Start with Yuval Noah Harari
If you want his defining book
→ Sapiens (2011) — 70,000 years of human history in one argument.
If you want his view of the future
→ Homo Deus (2015) — what humans might aim for once famine, plague and war are under control.
If you want his book on AI
→ Nexus (2024) — information networks from the Stone Age to artificial intelligence.
If you are reading with children
→ Unstoppable Us, Volume 1 (2022) — Sapiens retold for young readers.
10 Yuval Noah Harari Books, in Order
Sapiens
A history of the human species in four parts: the Cognitive Revolution of about 70,000 years ago, the Agricultural Revolution, the unification of humankind through money, empires and religions, and the Scientific Revolution. Its central claim is that Homo sapiens came to dominate the planet because it can cooperate in large numbers by believing in shared fictions such as gods, nations, money and companies. First published in Hebrew in 2011, it appeared in English in 2014 and was a 2015 pick for Mark Zuckerberg’s online book club, A Year of Books.
Homo Deus
The sequel to Sapiens looks forward. Harari argues that famine, plague and war have largely been brought under control, and that humanity’s next projects will be immortality, happiness and godlike powers through biotechnology and computing. The last part describes “Dataism”, a belief that the universe consists of data flows. Published in Hebrew in 2015 and in English in 2016, it is dedicated to his meditation teacher, S. N. Goenka.
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
Twenty-one essays on the present, grouped in five parts: the technological challenge, the political challenge, despair and hope, truth, and resilience. Subjects include work and automation, liberty, nationalism, religion, terrorism, fake news and education; the final chapter is about meditation. The 2019 Russian edition was published with passages about Russia cut or softened, with Harari’s approval.
Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 1
The first part of Sapiens retold as a comic, adapted with the writer David Vandermeulen and drawn by Daniel Casanave. Harari appears as a cartoon guide who takes his niece Zoe through the Cognitive Revolution and the spread of Homo sapiens across the world.
Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 2
The second volume of the graphic adaptation, by the same team, covers the Agricultural Revolution: how farming changed human bodies, societies and hierarchies, and why Harari calls it a trap rather than a simple step forward.
Unstoppable Us, Volume 1
His first book for children, illustrated by Ricard Zaplana Ruiz, tells the story of the early humans: how a weak, unremarkable animal spread across the world by cooperating, and what happened to the other human species and the large animals along the way.
Unstoppable Us, Volume 2
The second volume for young readers moves to farming, cities and the first kingdoms, and asks why the world became so unequal: how rulers, laws and stories created hierarchies between rich and poor, and between groups of people.
Nexus
Published on 10 September 2024, Nexus traces how information networks, from stories and holy books to bureaucracies, newspapers and the internet, have shaped human societies. Harari argues against the “naive view” that more information leads to more truth, compares how democracies and totalitarian regimes handle information, and treats artificial intelligence as the first technology that can make decisions and create ideas by itself.
Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 3
The third volume of the graphic adaptation, again with David Vandermeulen and Daniel Casanave, covers the unification of humankind: money, empires and religions, the forces that pulled separate cultures into one global system.
Unstoppable Us, Volume 3
Published on 3 February 2026 and again illustrated by Ricard Zaplana Ruiz, the third volume follows early civilisations as they traded food, crossed oceans, built empires, spread religions and intermarried, and looks at how disagreements could turn neighbours into enemies.
In What Order to Read Yuval Noah Harari
The four books for adults can be read on their own, but they work best in order. Sapiens sets out the idea everything else depends on, that large-scale cooperation rests on shared stories. Homo Deus projects it into the future, 21 Lessons applies it to current affairs, and Nexus retells the history of those stories as a history of information networks before turning to AI.
The graphic volumes and Unstoppable Us do not add new arguments; they retell Sapiens for new readers. Read the graphic volumes in number order, and give Unstoppable Us to children in number order too, since each volume picks up where the last one ends.
A reading path
1. Sapiens (2011)
2. Homo Deus (2015)
3. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018)
4. Nexus (2024)
Everything Else Yuval Noah Harari Published
Beyond the 10 key books: 4 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Academic books on military history
3
3 books · 2004–2008
- 2004Renaissance Military Memoirs: War, History and Identity, 1450–1600based on his Oxford doctorate
- 2007Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry, 1100–1550commando-style missions in medieval warfare
- 2008The Ultimate Experience: Battlefield Revelations and the Making of Modern War Culture, 1450–2000how soldiers came to describe war as a revelation
Short selections
1
1 book · 2018
- 2018Moneya Vintage Minis selection of passages from Sapiens and Homo Deus
The years · 1976–2026
Quick facts about Yuval Noah Harari
- Known for
- Telling the whole history of humankind as one argument: that Homo sapiens came to rule the planet because it can cooperate in large numbers around shared fictions such as gods, nations and money
- Born
- 24 February 1976, Kiryat Ata, Israel; grew up in Haifa
- Education
- BA, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; DPhil in history, University of Oxford (Jesus College), 2002
- Works
- Professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Husband
- Itzik Yahav, his manager, with whom he founded the social-impact company Sapienship
- Practice
- Vipassana meditation since 2000, about two hours a day
- Readers
- Over 55 million copies sold in 65 languages, according to his publisher
The red mark is 2011: the Hebrew first edition of Sapiens, which reached English readers in 2014.
How Yuval Noah Harari Writes: Big History in Short Chapters
Harari works at the largest possible scale. Sapiens covers some 70,000 years, Nexus runs from the Stone Age to AI, and both are organised around a few large claims rather than a chronology of events. The material comes from other scholars’ work in history, archaeology, biology and economics, which he synthesises rather than adding new research of his own; his own academic training was in medieval and Renaissance military history.
His prose is plain and conversational, with short chapters, everyday examples and deliberate provocations: in Sapiens he calls the Agricultural Revolution “history’s biggest fraud”. He keeps returning to the same questions, about how stories hold large groups together and whether people are actually happier, which reflects his long practice of Vipassana meditation; the last chapter of 21 Lessons is about meditation itself.
The same features draw criticism. Reviewers in academic journals and magazines have argued that he simplifies or overstates the science, among them the anthropologist C. R. Hallpike and, in Current Affairs in 2022, the neuroscientist Darshana Narayanan. Readers who come to him for the big picture usually find the argument more important than the detail; readers who want the detail will want to check his sources.
Frequently asked questions about Yuval Noah Harari’s books
How many books has Yuval Noah Harari written?
Fourteen, counting each volume separately. The 10 key books on this page are four books for adults (Sapiens, Homo Deus, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century and Nexus), three volumes of Sapiens: A Graphic History and three volumes of the children’s series Unstoppable Us. Before Sapiens he published three academic books on military history, and in 2018 a short selection called Money.
What are Yuval Noah Harari’s books in order?
Sapiens (2011), Homo Deus (2015), 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018), Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 1 (2020), Volume 2 (2021), Unstoppable Us, Volume 1 (2022), Unstoppable Us, Volume 2 (2024), Nexus (2024), Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 3 (2024) and Unstoppable Us, Volume 3 (2026).
Where should I start with Yuval Noah Harari?
With Sapiens. Its idea that humans cooperate through shared stories runs through all his later books. If you are mainly interested in artificial intelligence, Nexus (2024) also works on its own.
What is Yuval Noah Harari’s most famous book?
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. First published in Hebrew in 2011 and in English in 2014, it spent 96 consecutive weeks in the top three of The New York Times best-seller list.
Should I read Sapiens or Homo Deus first?
Sapiens. Homo Deus was written as its sequel: it starts from the history told in Sapiens and asks what humans will aim for next.
Is there a graphic novel of Sapiens?
Yes. Sapiens: A Graphic History, adapted with David Vandermeulen and drawn by Daniel Casanave, has three volumes so far: The Birth of Humankind (2020), The Pillars of Civilization (2021) and The Masters of History (2024). A fourth and final volume is listed for April 2027.
Which Yuval Noah Harari books are for children?
Unstoppable Us, illustrated by Ricard Zaplana Ruiz: How Humans Took Over the World (2022), Why the World Isn’t Fair (2024) and How Enemies Become Friends (2026).
Why is Yuval Noah Harari criticised?
Two reasons come up most. Some academics argue that his books simplify or overstate the science; the anthropologist C. R. Hallpike wrote in 2020 that Sapiens should not be judged “as a serious contribution to knowledge”. And in 2019 he approved a Russian edition of 21 Lessons in which passages about Russia were cut or softened; critics called it self-censorship, and Harari said publishing an edited version was better than not publishing at all.
Is Yuval Noah Harari still alive?
Yes. He was born on 24 February 1976 and teaches history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The third volume of Unstoppable Us was published in February 2026.
What is Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari about?
The history of information networks, from the earliest stories to the internet, and what artificial intelligence will do to them. Harari argues that information connects people more than it informs them, and that AI differs from earlier technologies because it can make decisions and create ideas by itself.
Footnotes
- Yuval Noah Harari — Wikipedia
- Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari — Penguin
- Unstoppable Us, Volume 3 — Bookshop.org
- Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 4 — Indigo
- 21 Lessons for the 21st Century quotes — eNotes
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power.”
— Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018), the first line of the introduction
If this shelf interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
Browse the full bookshelf Get book recommendations