● Yuval Noah Harari – professor of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, bestselling author
● Frans de Waal – Dutch/American ethologist, biologist
Moderator: Bartosz Węglarczyk – journalist, editor-in-chief Onet.pl
Partner: Copernicus Center Press, Wydawnictwo Literackie
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Prof. Yuval Noah Harari is a historian and bestselling author, who is considered one of the world’s most influential public intellectuals today. His popular books — Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow and 21 Lessons for the 21 st Century — have sold 27.5 Million copies in 60 languages. They have been recommended by Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Chris Evans, Janelle Monáe, and many others. The Guardian has credited Sapiens with revolutionizing the non-fiction market and popularizing “brainy books”. In autumn 2020 Harari is publishing Sapiens: A Graphic History: a radical adaptation of the original Sapiens into a graphic novel series, co-created with comics artists Daniel
Vandermuelen and Daniel Casanave.
Harari, who is 44 and was born in Israel, started out in academia, earning his PhD from the University of Oxford. Following the huge success of his books, he went on to share a stage with world leaders like Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, as well as figures like Natalie Portman and Mark Zuckerberg. He publishes articles regularly in newspapers including the New York Times, the FT and The Guardian, speaks publicly at conferences that have recently included Davos 2020, and has given interviews on the global coronavirus crisis to major news channels including CNN and the BBC.
In 2019, Yuval and his husband (Itzik Yahav) co-founded Sapienship: a social impact company with projects in the fields of entertainment and education. Sapienship’s main goal is to focus the public conversation on the most important global challenges facing the world today.
Yuval Noah Harari is a professor of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and his work is about macro-historical questions, such as: What is the relationship between history and biology? What is the essential difference between Homo sapiens and other animals? What ethical questions do science and technology raise in the 21st century?
Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal is a Dutch/American ethologist and biologist known for his work on the behavior and social intelligence of primates. His first book,Chimpanzee Politics (1982) compared the schmoozing and scheming of chimpanzees involved in power struggles with that of human politicians. Ever since, de Waal has drawn parallels between primate and human behavior, from peacemaking and morality to culture. His scientific work has been published in technical articles in journals such as Science, Nature, Scientific American, and outlets specialized in animal behavior. His popular books – translated into over twenty languages – have made him one of the world’s most visible primatologists. His latest books are Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (Norton, 2016) and Mama’s Last Hug (Norton, 2019).
De Waal is C. H. Candler Professor Emeritus at Emory University and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He has been elected to the (US) National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. In 2007, he was selected by Time as one of The Worlds’ 100 Most Influential People Today.
