HarperNorth signs 'hopeful' non-fiction on fractured society from Yates

HarperNorth has signed a “bold and hopeful” book on political and social divisions by Youth Endowment Fund executive director Jon Yates.

Jonathan de Peyer, senior commissioning editor for non-fiction, acquired world English rights from Toby Mundy at Aevitas Creative Management. Fractured: Why Our Societies are Coming Apart and How to Put Them Back Together Again, publishes on 10th June 2021, five years after the Brexit referendum drew battle lines across the UK.

The publisher explained: “Ultimately an optimistic book, Fractured contains a multitude of examples of how powerful and effective people are when they're united in diversity. Its author, Jon Yates, is executive director of the Youth Endowment Fund, a £200m charitable fund focused on integrating young people into society. As most people spend less and less time with people who are different — as defined by race, or class, or education, or a range of other factors – Yates draws on the latest research in psychology and the social sciences to show that a new common life, or set of shared practices and institutions, could strengthen the glue that connects our societies, in all their diversity.”

De Peyer said: “This accessibly written book does so much that we’re striving for with the new list at HarperNorth: demonstrating that our divisions are not intractable, and arguing in lucid and compelling prose for a highly international audience that a better world is only just over the horizon. Jon has written a bold and hopeful book that left me re-evaluating so much I thought I knew. He is a fierce and willing advocate for change and an original thinker in the same bracket as Steven Pinker and David Goodhart. I’m delighted to be publishing him.”

Yates added: “Our societies have rarely felt so divided. Most of us want our countries to feel united again. I’ve spent the past two decades striving to bring people together. Fractured is everything I have learnt. It tells the honest and surprising truth about how we fractured, provides a manifesto of how to mend these fractures and a call to arms to make it happen. It is a privilege to work with the brilliant team at HarperNorth on getting this story out.”