"For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite all our discoveries, inventions, and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis. The world is on the verge of ecological collapse. Misinformation abounds. And we are rushing headlong into the age of AI-a new information network that threatens to annihilate us. For all that we have accomplished, why are we so self-destructive? Nexus looks through the long lens of human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world. Taking us from the Stone Age, through the canonization of 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 throughout history have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill. And he addresses the urgent choices we face as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence"--

v. 1. "From world-renowned historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari, the New York Times bestselling author of Sapiens, comes an exciting, brand-new illustrated book for middle-grade readers that looks at the early history of humankind. Even though we'll never outrun a hungry lion or outswim an angry shark, humans are pretty impressive-and we're the most dominant species on the planet. So how exactly did we become "unstoppable"? The answer to that is one of the strangest tales you'll ever hear. And it's a true story. From learning to make fire and using the stars as guides to cooking meals in microwaves and landing on the moon, prepare to uncover the secrets and superpowers of how we evolved from our first appearances millions of years ago. Acclaimed author Yuval Noah Harari has expertly crafted an extraordinary story of how humans learned to not only survive but also thrive on Earth, complete with maps, a timeline, and full-color illustrations that bring his dynamic, unputdownable writing to life"--

Something really strange happened 10,000 years ago, and it changed everything. Why did millions of people agree to obey a few leaders? Where did kings and kingdoms come from? The answer to that is one of the strangest tales you'll ever hear. And it's a true story. Have you ever wondered how we got here? From gathering berries and hunting mammoths, to shopping at supermarkets and letting people tell us what to do? You might hear a lot of people say 'the world isn't fair'. But why isn't it? And how did it become so? In Unstoppable Us- Volume 1 , we learned how humans told stories to become rulers of the world - for good and bad. Now, in this next chapter of the incredible true tale of the Unstoppables, find out how humans learned to control animals like dogs, chicken and cows . . . And how a handful of humans learned to control everyone else. With full-colour illustrations showing the relentless rise and rise of the human race, this is history like you've never experienced it before.

Renaissance military memoirs studied for what they reveal of contemporary attiudes towards war, selfhood and identity.

'A portrait of espionage, covert operations, assassination squads, and the deep penetration of seemingly invulnerable fortresses or security systems matching anything to be found in the war stories of the modern era'. MATTHEW BENNETT, SANDHURST. Alongside the familiar pitched battles, regular sieges, and large-scale manoeuvres, medieval and early modern wars also involved assassination, abduction, treason and sabotage. These undercover operations were aimed chiefly against key individuals, mostly royalty or the leaders of the opposing army, and against key fortified places, including bridges, mills and dams. However, because of their clandestine nature, these deeds of 'derring-do' have not been studied in any detail, a major gap which this book fills. It surveys a wide variety of special operations, from the eleventh to the sixteenth century. It then analyzes in greater depth six select and exciting operations: the betrayal of Antioch in 1098; the attempt to rescue King Baldwin II from the dungeon of Khartpert in 1123; the assassination of Conrad of Montferrat in 1192; the attempt to storm Calais in 1350; the 'dirty war' waged by the rulers of France and Burgundy in the 1460s and 1470s; and the demolition of the flour mill of Auriol in 1536. Dr YUVAL NOAH HARARI teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

"For millennia, war was viewed as a supreme test. In the period 1750-1850 war became much more than a test: it became a secular revelation. This new understanding of war as revelation completely transformed Western war culture, revolutionizing politics, the personal experience of war, the status of common soldiers, and the tenets of military theory"--OCLC