Harari's Humanist Horror Story:
Why History Matters

Yuval Noah Harari

If you have read Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind or its sequel Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, you will appreciate why they have captivated so many readers. Harari writes with rare fluency, sweeping across tens of thousands of years and stitching together history, anthropology, biology and economics into a story that feels both grand and effortless. I was initially among those who found this sweeping narrative exhilarating. Yet exhilaration is no guarantee of accuracy, and even an acclaimed bestselling author can get the story terribly wrong and in ways that do real damage to reputations that are not his own.

The reputations I have in mind belong to humanists. In Sapiens and Homo Deus, Harari advances an arresting thesis: that humanism, in spite of its secular posture, is really just another religion, one that fractured into three warring 'sects' and then waged, in his phrase, 'the bloodiest wars of religion in history'. On his telling, humanism gave us Hitler's Holocaust, Stalin's gulags and rapacious capitalism. It is a memorable story. It is also, as I hope to show, very largely a work of fiction. In this essay I subject Harari's retelling of humanist history to the scrutiny it has so far escaped, disentangle his many confusions and set out what the historical record actually tells us.

First, who is Yuval Noah Harari? Harari was born in 1976 in Haifa, Israel. He received his B.A. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1998 before completing a D.Phil. at the University of Oxford in 2002. His early scholarship specialized in medieval history and military history, fields that would later inform the broad historical sweep of his popular writing.

Harari joined the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as an academic, becoming an Associate Professor in 2011 and a full Professor in 2015. In 2019, he founded Sapienship, an organization through which he advocates for global responsibility and engagement with the major challenges facing humanity. Alongside his academic and public work, he practises Vipassana meditation and is vegan, both of which he has described as shaping his outlook and discipline.

He has written eight books under his own name, as well as the co-authored Sapiens: A Graphic History and the children's series Unstoppable Us. Among his solo works are the two international best-sellers Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, which established his reputation as one of the most widely read popular historians of his generation.

Harari's Humanist Wars of Religion

Sapiens first appeared in Hebrew in 2011. It has since been translated into more than 60 languages and has sold over 20 million copies, spending 182 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list as at May 2022. Sapiens traces the history of Homo sapiens from prehistoric Africa to global dominance. Drawing on history, anthropology, biology and economics, it highlights the key revolutions—cognitive, agricultural, political, religious and scientific. The book argues that humanity's ability to create and believe shared fictions enables large-scale cooperation and has shaped the course of history.

His other big history, Homo Deus, was first released in Hebrew in 2015. It has since been translated into more than 40 languages, selling around 9 million copies. Time magazine named it one of its top ten non-fiction books of 2017. Homo Deus examines possible future trajectories for humanity as technology, data and biotechnology advance, raising questions about what may replace traditional humanism as a guiding worldview. It suggests that humanism's focus on individual experience and meaning could be challenged by emerging 'data-driven' or algorithmic forms of decision-making and authority.

For readers unfamiliar with the life stance we today refer to as 'humanism', perhaps the most accurate while concise rendition is that formulated by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (now Humanists International). In their IHEU Minimum Statement on Humanism, it is put as follows:

Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality.

[Humanists International 1996]

Three features stand out. Humanism, as its adherents articulate it, is committed to democratic institutions built on humaneness and freedom of enquiry. Hold that definition in mind, because the bad actors Harari trots out as 'humanists' will fail to meet it at nearly every turn.

In the remainder of this essay, I will examine whether humanism did splinter into three 'sects' that culminated in what he calls the humanist 'wars of religion'. I will formulate his charge sheet against humanists and investigate whether these indictments are warranted. In particular, did humanism give birth to totalitarianism and exploitative capitalism? Does Harari's timeline even make historical sense? Was the world enveloped by a humanist 'tsunami', as Harari contends, or is his humanist history a work of fiction? What I offer here is a summary answer to these questions. For a more thorough and scholarly treatment, I refer the reader to my book, Harari's Humanist Wars of Religion: A Critique of Harari's History of Modern Ideologies [Allan 2026].

Copyright © 2026 Leslie Allan