Yuval Noah Harari's book on information networks due from Fern Press in September 2024

Bestselling author Yuval Noah Harari’s next book, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, will explore how information networks have shaped human history. 

Vintage imprint Fern Press, launched last May, acquired Nexus from Harari’s company Sapienship directly. The book is scheduled for global publication by Penguin Random House (PRH) on 10th September 2024.  

PRH teams from across the world will publish Nexus in territories such as the UK (including India, South Africa and Australia and New Zealand), the US, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Canada and Portugal. Fern Press will publish in hardback, e-book and audio in the UK. 

The blurb reads: “A major new work of non-fiction, Nexus looks through the long lens of human history to consider how the flow of information has made, and unmade, our world. 

“Taking us from the Stone Age, through the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism and the resurgence of populism today, Yuval Noah Harari asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power.  

“He explores how different societies and political systems have wielded information to achieve their goals and impose order, for good and ill. And he addresses the urgent choices we face today, as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence.” 

Harari says: ‘We’re living through the most profound information revolution in human history, but we can’t understand it unless we understand what has come before.  

“History, after all, isn’t the study of the past – it is the study of change. It teaches us what remains the same, what changes, and how things change. History is not deterministic, however, and Nexus doesn’t argue that understanding the past enables us to predict the future.  

“My goal is to show that by making informed choices, we can still prevent the worst outcomes. Because if we can’t change the future, then why waste time discussing it?"

Nihar Malaviya, c.e.o. at PRH, said: “Nexus is the perfect book for the age in which we are living, and the precarious moment in which we find ourselves right now. Yuval Noah Harari gives us a brilliant framework to understand this moment and, crucially, to think about what we might do, before it’s too late. It’s clear, urgent, and compelling – a major work from one of our foremost thinkers, and a book that will stand the test of time.” 

Harari is a historian, philosopher, and the global bestselling author of books such as Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, the graphic adaptation series Sapiens: A Graphic History, and Unstoppable Us (all published by PRH), his first series of books for children. His books have sold in 65 languages and Sapiens spent 96 consecutive weeks in the top three of the Sunday Times bestseller list. 

Harari is also behind Sapienship – an international social impact company focused on education and storytelling, which he co-founded with his husband Itzik Yahav.