Yuval Noah Harari
Yuval Noah Harari ( ; born 1976) is an Israeli medievalist, military historian, public intellectual, and popular science writer. He currently serves as professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His first bestseller, ''Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind'' (2011) is based on his lectures to an undergraduate world history class. Among his other works, are other bestsellers like ''Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow'' (2016), ''21 Lessons for the 21st Century'' (2018), and ''Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI'' (2024). His published work examines themes of free will, consciousness, intelligence, happiness, suffering and the role of storytelling in human evolution.In his first book, Harari writes about a "cognitive revolution" that supposedly occurred roughly 70,000 years ago when ''Homo sapiens'' supplanted the rival Neanderthals and other species of the genus ''Homo'', developed language skills and structured societies, and ascended as apex predators, aided by the First Agricultural Revolution and accelerated by the Scientific Revolution, which have allowed humans to approach near mastery over their environment. Furthermore, he examines the possible consequences of a futuristic biotechnological world in which intelligent biological organisms are surpassed by their own creations; he has said, "''Homo sapiens'' as we know them will disappear in a century or so". Although his books have received considerable commercial success since the publication of ''Sapiens'', Harari's work has been more negatively received in academic circles. Provided by Wikipedia
Continuity and innovation in the magical tradition
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This volume brings together thirteen studies by as many experts in the study of one or more ancient or medieval magical traditions, from ancient Mesopotamia and Pharaonic and Greco-Roman Egypt to the Greek world, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It lays special emphasis on the recurrence of similar phenomena in magical texts as far apart as the Akkadian cuneiform tablets and an Arabic manuscript bought in Egypt in the late-twentieth century. Such similarities demonstrate to what extent many different cultures share a "magical logic" which is strikingly identical, and in particular they show the recurrence of certain phenomena when magical practices are transmitted in written form and often preserve, adopt and adapt much older textual units.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004215269 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.