You know when sometimes books just appear in your life when you most need them? I was feeling a bit disillusioned with humankind recently. With the initial panic of the coronavirus, all I saw on twitter, were news how people were stockpiling without a second thought of what that would mean for everybody else, Americans queuing up outside gun shops to bulk-buy ammunition and guns in case the shops would run out of food and Trump trying to buy the vaccine ‘but only for Americans’. The evidence kept mounting up, and all I could think was ‘Wow, we really are a selfish bunch’. And then Bregman came and proved me wrong.

‘Humankind’ packed with stories and interpretations and study findings which you most likely haven’t heard before. There were moments were I sat shocked as even some of the fundamental things I’d learned in my psychology and sociology classes, recently have been proven to have not been true, and well I failed to hear about them. At others times, I sat smiling, feeling a tinge of warmth as chapter after chapter I was shown the goodness that ‘homo puppy’ (as Bregman came to call our species) was capable of showing.

Bregman looked at Hobbes’ and Rousseu’s views of civilisation, bystander effect, bullying, non-complementary behaviour, prison structure, participatory democracy, employees directing their own teams, kids’ playgrounds among many other fascinating stuff. There’s an overload of information in this book, but the clear and concise language and structure will make it easy to read and absorb. It’s easier if you start at the beginning and read from beginning to end, but it will also work if you pick and choose random chapters as any previous information needed for context, will be shown by the inclusion of the correct chapter number to which you can term if needed. Bregman does not come across as patronising and overbearing, but as a likeable narrator, or that cool teacher who would sometimes share jokes and anecdotes whilst still managing to deliver the context of the lesson, and keep everybody interested.

Overall, I really loved this book, and there’s no question about it when I say that I will be returning to it several more times. I might have started the book as a cynic, but as I turned the last page I no longer felt like one; I learned the majority of us are actually decent despite what the newspapers will have you believe. I urge all of you to give this one a try; we all need a more positive outlook of the world and ‘Humankind’ might just be the easiest way to start.

A fascinating, well written and informative read from start to finish. Fully formed review to follow for full book.

There is somehting of MIchael Lewis (this is a very good thing) in the way Bregman takes an interesting, and complex subject and distills this into an easily accessible read without dumbing down the subject matter.

Even though this is an extract of Humankind it sets the scene for a diagnosis of human nature and an age old question is given a new review. Books like this make you think and that is no bad thing.

I will look forward to reading the full version when the same i released later this year..