In writing Homo Deus Prof. Harari has done his best to rely on the most up to date sources and the most accurate facts available. Yet as with any human endeavor, mistakes are inevitable. Despite the best efforts of Prof. Harari and his editors, the text unfortunately contains some factual errors that were discovered only after the book was published, and it was too late to correct them.

Below you can find a list of errors, and the corrected information. None of the errors changed the core arguments of the book, but Prof. Harari and his editors apologize for these mistakes, and thank the attentive readers who noticed and flagged them.

If you spot any additional errors, please contact us so that we can add them to the list, and do our best to correct them in future editions of the book.

The following corrections refer to editions published prior to May 2017. 

Page 10 USA hardcover edition, page 9 UK paperback edition:

World War I killed a total of 20 million people. The total number of casualties, dead, wounded and missing, was 40 million.

Page 33 USA hardcover edition, page 38 UK paperback edition:

The comparison of suicide rates in poor and rich countries contains several significant errors. According to the 2012 World Health Organization data, annual suicide rates in Peru were actually 3.1 per 100,000 people, in Guatemala 7.3, in the Philippines 2.6, and in Albania 6.5. In contrast, in Switzerland they were 12.2, in France 15.8, in Japan 23.1 and in New Zealand 10.3. In South Korea the annual suicide rate in 2012 was 36.8 people per 100,000. Despite the serious mistakes in the statistics quoted, the overall argument of the passage holds true – suicide rates in rich developed countries are significantly higher than in poor developing countries.

Page 134 USA hardcover edition, page 155 UK paperback edition:

The text says that:

“The communists didn’t release their grip until the late 1980s. Effective organisation kept them in power for eight long decades, and they eventually fell due to defective organisation.”

In fact, since the communists took power in Russia in 1917 and held it until 1991, they were in power for more than seven decades, but less than eight.

Pages 134-6 USA hardcover edition, page 156-7 UK paperback edition:

The description of Ceauşescu’s last speech contains some factual inaccuracies. The interruption to the speech occurred right at the beginning, rather than after 8 minutes, and the transmission on television was cut off for about 90 seconds before the technicians resumed it.

Image 26 on page 216 USA hardcover edition, page 252 UK paperback edition:

The Copenhagen Accord was actually signed in 2009, rather than in 2008.

Page 231 USA hardcover edition, page 269 UK paperback edition:

The text says that:

“In 1917 Marcel Duchamp purchased an ordinary mass-produced urinal, declared it a work of art, named it Fountain, signed it, and placed it in a Paris museum.”

In fact, Duchamp did not place it in a Paris museum, but submitted it to a New York art exhibition.

Page 250 USA hardcover edition, page 290 UK paperback edition:

The confrontation between Merkel and Reem took place on 15 July 2015 rather than 17 July.

Page 302 USA hardcover edition, page 349 UK paperback edition:

When describing the Isonzo battles on the Italian front in the First World War, the text says that in the first battle of the Isonzo, the Italians lost 15,000 men, in the second battle they lost 40,000 men and in the third battle they lost 60,000.

It should be clarified that the losses include soldiers killed, wounded and taken prisoner rather than only the number of soldiers killed (which was much lower).

Page 305 USA hardcover edition, page 352 UK paperback edition:

The government of Scotland decided to erect a new parliament building in 1997 rather than in 1999.

Pages 365 and 441 USA hardcover edition, pages 419 and 505 UK paperback edition:

In the 1990s leading experts such as Martin Seligman, Ed Diener (not Dinner as mistakenly misspelled) and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argued that psychology should study not just mental illnesses, but also mental strengths.

Page 404 note 13 USA hardcover edition, page 465 note 13 UK paperback edition:

While the text refers to the SARS epidemic, endnote 13 mistakenly refers readers to a source about cholera. The correct reference should be:

‘Summary of probable SARS cases with onset of illness from 1 November 2002 to 31 July 2003’,
World Health Organization, 21 April 2004, accessed 6 February 2016.

http://www.who.int/csr/sars/country/table2004_04_21/en/