Humankind: A Hopeful History
More praise for Humankind
‘An extraordinarily powerful declaration of faith in the innate
goodness and natural decency of human beings. Never dewy-eyed,
wistful or naive, Rutger Bregman makes a wholly robust and
convincing case for believing – despite so much apparent evidence to
the contrary – that we are not the savage, i
edeemably greedy, violent
and rapacious species we can be led into thinking ourselves to be’
Stephen Fry
‘Every revolution in human affairs – and we’re in one right now! –
comes in tandem with a new understanding of what we mean by the
word “human”. Rutger Bregman has succeeded in reawakening that
conversation by articulating a kinder view of humanity (with bette
science behind it). This book gives us some real hope for the future’
Brian Eno
‘Humankind provides the philosophical and historical backbone to
give us the confidence to collaborate, be kind and trust each other to
uild a better society’ Mariana Mazzucato, author of The Value of
Everything
‘Some books challenge our ideas. But Humankind challenges the very
premises on which those ideas are based. Its bold, sweeping argument
will make you rethink what you believe about society, democracy and
human nature itself. In a sea of cynicism, this book is the sturdy,
unsinkable lifeboat the world needs’ Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive
‘This is a wonderful and uplifting book. I not only want all my friends
and relations to read it, but everyone else as well. It is an essential part
of the campaign for a better world’ Richard Wilkinson, author of The
Spirit Level
‘A fantastic read … Good fun, fresh and a page turner’ James
Rebanks, author of The Shepherd’s Life
‘This stunning book will change how you see the world and you
fellow humans. It is mind-expanding and, more importantly, heart-
expanding. We have never needed this message more than now’
Johann Hari, author of Lost Connections
‘Rutger Bregman’s extraordinary new book is a revelation’ Susan
Cain, author of Quiet
‘Rutger Bregman is one of my favourite thinkers. His latest book
challenges our basic assumptions about human nature in a way that
opens up a world of new possibilities. Humankind is simple,
perceptive and powerful in the way that the best books and arguments
are’ Andrew Yang
‘I have not read anything quite as stunningly well written, insightful
and revelatory for a very long time. So long, in fact, that I cannot
emember the last time’ Danny Dorling, author of Inequality and the
1%
‘This book demolishes the cynical view that humans are inherently
nasty and selfish, and paints a portrait of human nature that’s not only
more uplifting – it’s also more accurate. Rutger Bregman is one of the
most provocative thinkers of our time’ Adam Grant, author of Give
and Take
‘Put aside your newspaper for a little while and read this book’ Ba
y
Schwartz, author of Practical Wisdom
‘I know of no more powerful or carefully documented rejoinder to
Machiavelli’s observation that “men never do anything good except
out of necessity” than Rutger Bregman’s book. His reassessment of
human nature is as faithful to the actual evidence as it is uplifting’
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, author of Mothers and Others
‘Humankind articulates what we anthropologists have been arguing fo
decades, only far more beautifully. Want to catch up with the science?
Read this book. It’s myth-busting at its best, and a hopeful new story
for the twenty-first century’ Jason Hickel, author of The Divide
‘Humankind is an in-depth overview of what is wrong with the idea
that we humans are by nature bad and unreliable. In vivid descriptions
and stories, Rutger Bregman takes us back to the questionable
experiments that fed this idea and offers us a more optimistic view of
mankind’ Frans de Waal, author of Mama’s Last Hug
‘This beautifully written, well documented, myth-busting work is now
number one on my list of what everyone should read. Read it and buy
copies for all of your most cynical friends’ Peter Gray, author of Free
to Learn
HUMANKIND
To my parents
ALSO BY RUTGER BREGMAN
Utopia for Realists
CONTENTS
Prologue
1. A New Realism
2. The Real Lord of the Flies
PART 1 THE STATE OF NATURE
3. The Rise of Homo puppy
4. Colonel Marshall and the Soldiers Who Wouldn’t Shoot
5. The Curse of Civilisation
6. The Mystery of Easter Island
PART 2 AFTER AUSCHWITZ
7. In the Basement of Stanford University
8. Stanley Milgram and the Shock Machine
9. The Death of Catherine Susan Genovese
PART 3 WHY GOOD PEOPLE TURN BAD
10. How Empathy Blinds
11. How Power Co
upts
12. What the Enlightenment Got Wrong
PART 4 A NEW REALISM
13. The Power of Intrinsic Motivation
14. Homo ludens
15. This Is What Democracy Looks Like
PART 5 THE OTHER CHEEK
16. Drinking Tea with Te
orists
17. The Best Remedy for Hate, Injustice and Prejudice
18. When the Soldiers Came Out of the Trenches
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Notes
Index
A Note on the Autho
‘Man will become better when you show him what he is like.’
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904)
PROLOGUE
On the eve of the Second World War, the British Army Command found
itself facing an existential threat. London was in grave danger. The city,
according to a certain Winston Churchill, formed ‘the greatest target in the
world, a kind of tremendous fat cow, a valuable fat cow tied up to attract the
easts of prey’.1
The beast of prey was, of course, Adolf Hitler and his war machine. If the
British population
oke under the te
or of his bombers, it would spell the
end of the nation. ‘Traffic will cease, the homeless will shriek for help, the
city will be in pandemonium,’ feared one British general.2 Millions of
civilians would succumb to the strain, and the army wouldn’t even get
around to fighting because it would have its hands full with the hysterical
masses. Churchill predicted that at least three to four million Londoners
would flee the city.
Anyone wanting to read up on all the evils to be unleashed needed only
one book: Psychologie des foules – ‘The Psychology of the Masses’ – by
one of the most influential scholars of his day, the Frenchman Gustave Le
Bon. Hitler read the book cover to cover. So did Mussolini, Stalin,
Churchill and Roosevelt.
Le Bon’s book gives a play by play of how people respond to crisis.
Almost instantaneously, he writes, ‘man descends several rungs in the
ladder of civilization’.3 Panic and violence erupt, and we humans reveal ou
true nature.
On 19 October 1939, Hitler
iefed his generals on the German plan of
attack. ‘The ruthless employment of the Luftwaffe against the heart of the
British will-to-resist,’ he said, ‘can and will follow at the given moment.’4
In Britain, everyone felt the clock ticking. A last-ditch plan to dig a
network of underground shelters in London was considered, but ultimately
scrapped over concerns that the populace, paralysed by fear, would neve
e-emerge. At the last moment, a few psychiatric field hospitals were
thrown up outside the city to tend to the first wave of victims.
And then it began.
On 7 September 1940, 348 German bomber planes crossed the Channel.
The fine weather had drawn many Londoners outdoors, so when the sirens
sounded at 4:43 p.m. all eyes went to the sky.
That September day would go down in history as Black Saturday, and
what followed as ‘the Blitz’. Over the next nine months, more than 80,000
ombs would be dropped on London alone. Entire neighbourhoods were
wiped out. A million buildings in the capital were damaged or destroyed,
and more than 40,000 people in the UK lost their lives.
So how did the British react? What happened when the country was
ombed for months on end? Did people get hysterical? Did they behave like
utes?
Let me start with the eyewitness account of a Canadian psychiatrist.
In October 1940, Dr John MacCurdy drove through south-east London to
visit a poor neighbourhood that had been particularly hard hit. All that
emained was a patchwork of craters and crumbling buildings. If there was
one place sure to be in the grip of pandemonium, this was it.
So what did the doctor find, moments after an air raid alarm? ‘Small boys
continued to play all over the pavements, shoppers went on haggling, a
policeman directed traffic in majestic boredom and the bicyclists defied
death and the traffic laws. No one, so far as I could see, even looked into
the sky.’5
In fact, if there’s one thing that all accounts of the Blitz have in common
it’s their description of the strange serenity that settled over London in those
months. An American journalist interviewing a British couple in thei
kitchen noted how they sipped tea even as the windows rattled in thei
frames. Weren’t they afraid?, the journalist wanted to know. ‘Oh no,’ was
the answer. ‘If we were, what good would it do us?’6
Evidently, Hitler had forgotten to account for one thing: the
quintessential British character. The stiff upper lip. The wry humour, as
expressed by shop owners who posted signs in front of their wrecked
premises announcing: MORE OPEN THAN USUAL. Or the pub proprieto
who in the midst of devastation advertised: OUR WINDOWS ARE GONE,
BUT OUR SPIRITS ARE EXCELLENT. COME IN AND TRY THEM.7
The British endured the German air raids much as they would a delayed
train. I
itating, to be sure, but tolerable on the whole. Train services, as it
happens, also continued during the Blitz, and Hitler’s tactics scarcely left a
dent in the domestic economy. More detrimental to the British war machine
was Easter Monday in April 1941, when everybody had the day off.8
Within weeks after the Germans launched their bombing campaign,
updates were being reported much like the weather: ‘Very blitzy tonight.’9
According to an American observer, ‘the English get bored so much more
quickly than they get anything else, and nobody is taking cover much any
longer’.10
And the mental devastation, then? What about the millions of traumatised
victims the experts had warned about? Oddly enough, they were nowhere to
e found. To be sure, there was sadness and fury; there was te
ible grief at
the loved ones lost. But the psychiatric wards remained empty. Not only
that, public mental health actually improved. Alcoholism tailed off. There
were fewer suicides than in peacetime. After the war ended, many British
would yearn for the days of the Blitz, when everybody helped each othe
out and no one cared about your politics, or whether you were rich o
poor.11
‘British society became in many ways strengthened by the Blitz,’ a
British historian later wrote. ‘The effect on Hitler was disillusioning.’12
When put to the test, the theories set forth by cele
ated crowd