Barry Ritholtz, Columnist

Yuval Noah Harari on Human Delusions

The development of civilization and the "collective fiction" of money.

March 21, 2017 at 5:03 PM UTC

Barry Ritholtz is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is chairman and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, and was previously chief market strategist at Maxim Group. He is the author of “Bailout Nation.”

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

This week on our Masters in Business podcast, we speak with Yuval Noah Harari, author of "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" and "Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow." "Sapiens" was on both Barack Obama and Bill Gates's summer reading lists, and it was recommended by Mark Zuckerberg and Danny Kahneman.

Our conversation covers how the belief in stories allowed humans to share specific common “delusions.” This led to cooperation and the development of civilization, eventually making homo sapiens the dominant species on Earth.