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The cover of Humankind

Humankind

Rutger Bregman, 2019

A hopeful challenge to cynical assumptions about human nature, showing through evidence how trust and humane institutions can make cooperation more likely.

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11 parts, about 23 minutes to read.

Why read it

  • Makes the case that most people are fairly decent, and that believing otherwise shapes worse institutions
  • Shows how schools, workplaces, prisons and politics change when they are designed around trust instead of suspicion
  • Revisits famous experiments and collapse stories that seemed to prove human cruelty and checks what the records show

Who it is for

  • Cynics who suspect the news has skewed their view of people
  • Teachers, managers and reformers designing institutions
  • Readers who took classic psychology experiments at face value

What the summary covers

  1. A hopeful idea tested against disaster2 min
  2. The island that contradicted a famous fiction2 min
  3. Why friendliness became a human advantage2 min
  4. Friendship, war, and the rise of hierarchy2 min
  5. Easter Island and the danger of a satisfying collapse story2 min
  6. Famous experiments under a brighter light2 min
  7. How decent people participate in cruelty2 min
  8. Designing institutions for better motives2 min
  9. Democracy, commons, and humane justice3 min
  10. Contact and courageous nonviolence2 min
  11. Ten rules for an evidence based realism2 min

Recommended by

  • Yuval Noah HarariAuthor of the number 1 bestseller Sapiens
    Humankind made me see humanity from a fresh perspective.
  • Adam GrantNew York Times bestselling author of Give and Take and Originals
    Rutger Bregman is one of the most provocative thinkers of our time
  • Daniel H. PinkNumber 1 New York Times bestselling author of When and A Whole New Mind
    In a sea of cynicism, this book is the sturdy, unsinkable lifeboat the world needs.

About the author

  • Rutger BregmanDutch historian and author
    • Born 26 April 1988
    • BA in history at Utrecht University 2009; MA in history 2012, partly at Utrecht and partly at UCLA
    • Still writes for De Correspondent, twice nominated for the European Press Prize
    • Davos 2019 panel where he criticised the event for focusing on philanthropy rather than tax avoidance
    • Earlier books Utopia for Realists and Humankind translated into 46 languages and sold more than 2 million copies
    • Relation to the book's subject: cofounded The School for Moral Ambition in 2024

Read it alongside

  • Pushes backThe Dawn of Everything

    Bregman argues that farming brought private property and that settlement made lasting inequality easier to build; Graeber and Wengrow argue that agriculture did not start private property or an irreversible slide into inequality, and that many early farming communities had relatively few ranks.

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