"History is not simply the study of the past, but understanding how it has changed."
Yuval Harari, a historian well known for 'Sapiens,' emphasized the correct understanding of history at the press conference for the publication of 'Unstoppable Us' (Gimm-Young Publishers) held on the 19th at the Roh Moo-hyun Citizen Center in Jongno-gu. Unusually releasing a book for children and adolescents, he said, "Until now, history taught information, but now there is no need to memorize dates, events, or names. Rather, it is necessary to discern whether the information is factual or a conspiracy, and to gather scattered information to draw a big picture." He added, "To predict the rapidly changing future, one must be able to overview the entire history. I wanted to show how humans, who were once equal to African animals hundreds of thousands of years ago, transformed into rulers of the world through a certain process."
Historian Yuval Harari is speaking at the video press conference for the book launch. [Photo by Kim Young-sa]
The book covers from the appearance of the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees 6 million years ago, to the spread of humans, and the extinction of Neanderthals. Regarding his first attempt at a children's book, he said, "It is extremely difficult to change one’s way of thinking after becoming an adult. The stories heard from childhood become fixed, and changing thoughts is practically impossible." He continued, "I thought about helping children, who are in the stage of developing their worldview, to cultivate a scientific worldview."
Although it is a children's book, the difficulty of writing was much higher than that of adult books. Having published several bestsellers including 'Sapiens,' he said this book project was the most challenging. "To be honest, when writing adult books, I can hide parts I don’t know well. If I write long sentences with difficult and abstract words, adult readers think, 'Maybe I’m the only one who doesn’t understand,' and move on. But that doesn’t work with children. They probably close the book immediately." He added, "So I included many photos for children, but I had to research much more thoroughly than for text. With text, you can avoid ambiguity, but with pictures, you cannot. My team and I had to do much more scientific research," he confessed.
The original title proposed by the publisher was 'Sapiens for Children.' This was to leverage the fame of the bestseller 'Sapiens,' but Yuval Harari rejected it. He explained, "'Unstoppable Us' has a double meaning. It means that there is no entity on Earth that can stop humans, and also that humans themselves do not stop." He continued, "In Buddhism, there is a being called 'Agwi' who is always hungry no matter how much they eat. In some ways, humans are like Agwi. They devour the world but are never satisfied. Ultimately, I wanted to point out that we cannot stop actions that put everyone at risk."
Yuval Harari stated that he published the book to help children develop the ability to prepare for the future through history. While it is difficult to predict the rapidly changing future, he warned that special caution is needed regarding AI such as ChatGPT. He said, "Nations are united by founding myths, and religions by scriptures. Because of the power to create such stories, humans could unite and dominate the world." He added, "But if ChatGPT goes beyond replicating stories and creates new ones, the situation changes. Even without making robots to attack humans like in science fiction, it can create stories that humans believe, causing them to fight each other. Therefore, special verification is necessary."
'Unstoppable Us' will be released in a total of four volumes, with one volume released each year thereafter.
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