PRH to Publish Major New Work From #1 Internationally Bestselling Author of SAPIENS Yuval Noah Harari
Yuval Noah Harari
THE LAWS OF HISTORY by Yuval Noah Harari will be published globally by Penguin Random House on September 21, 2027, it was announced on September 30, 2026, by Penguin Random House Global CEO Nihar Malaviya. Random House, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, will publish in the U.S. in hardcover and ebook. An audiobook edition will be released simultaneously by Penguin Random House Audio. Penguin Random House will publish THE LAWS OF HISTORY in additional territories, including the UK (including India, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand), Canada (McClelland & Stewart/Signal), Spain (including Latin America), Brazil, and Portugal.
A visionary new work from one of the most prescient writers and thinkers working today, THE LAWS OF HISTORY is an exploration of the laws that govern the ebb and flow of history. From time immemorial, humans have sought to explain the tides of change: What causes empires to rise and fall? Why do certain religions ignite and take hold? Why do some nations accumulate vast power while others quickly fade into oblivion? And will history ever end?
As Harari shows, history is not composed of solid events linked in a causal chain. Rather, it is made of fluid processes that intermingle like a network of streams and rivers. Drawing on examples that range from the fall of the Roman Empire to the French Revolution to the Second World War, Harari identifies six laws that all historical processes obey. While these laws help us better understand the upheavals of the past and the present, they do not allow us to predict the future. In fact, they reveal history to be a radically open-ended process, one that lacks any predetermined destination.
“We encounter history every day,” Harari says. “Sometimes it storms into our house in the shape of an enemy soldier, a deadly pandemic, or a revolutionary technology. Other times it creeps quietly into our minds, changing our artistic tastes or our sex lives. While history touches every aspect of our lives, we still fail to understand the laws that govern it—laws that have held sway from the Stone Age to the Silicon Age. This book is my attempt to identify and explore those laws, because I believe that knowing them can help us live happier as well as more responsible lives. Since history is radically open-ended, we have a huge moral responsibility. What we do in the coming years can turn the course of history in entirely different directions.”
Malaviya adds, “Once again, Yuval Noah Harari has delivered a brilliant intellectual adventure that uses history to help us make sense of our current moment. These six laws—and the infectious curiosity and deep humanity with which he illuminates them—don’t just change the way we think of the past; they help us think about how to create a better future.”