“F*cking brilliant” – Sarah Knight
“Very funny” – Mark Watson
“This book is brilliant. Utterly utterly brilliant. Apart from the epilogue which is idiotic.” – Jeremy Clarkson
The international bestseller – an exhilarating journey through the most creative and catastrophic fuck-ups of human history
In the seventy thousand years that modern human beings have walked this earth, we’ve come a long way. Art, science, culture, trade – on the evolutionary food chain, we’re real winners. But, frankly, it’s not exactly been plain sailing, and sometimes – just occasionally – we’ve managed to really, truly, quite unbelievably fuck things up.
From Chairman Mao’s Four Pests Campaign, to the American Dustbowl; from the Austrian army attacking itself one drunken night, to the world’s leading superpower electing a reality TV mogul as President… it’s pretty safe to say that, as a species, we haven’t exactly grown wiser with age.
So, next time you think you’ve really fucked up, this book will remind you: it could be so much worse…
Where to buy
🇬🇧 Buy from Amazon | WHSmith | Foyles | Waterstones
🇺🇸 Buy from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Amazon en español | B&N en español
🔊 Audiobook read by Nish Kumar available from Audible | Kobo
Further praise for Humans:
“Phillips is hilarious and breezily readable, but he knows his sh*t, and his book is backed by mountains of research” – Los Angeles Review of Books
“It’s hard to imagine someone other than Phillips pulling off a 250-plus page roast of mankind, but his perfect blend of brilliance and goofiness makes it a joy to read” – BuzzFeed News
“A light-touch history of moments when humans have got it spectacularly wrong… Both readable and entertaining” – The Telegraph
“Chronicles humanity’s myriad follies down the ages with malicious glee and much wit … a rib-tickling page-turner” – Business Standard
“A timely, irreverent gallop through thousands of years of human stupidity” – Nicholas Griffin, Ping-Pong Diplomacy: The Secret History Behind the Game That Changed the World
“A laugh-along, worst-hits album for humanity. With the delicate touch of a scholar and the laugh-out-loud chops of a comedian, Tom Phillips shows how our species has been messing things up ever since we evolved from apes and came down from the trees some 4 million years ago.” – Steve Brusatte, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
“In dark times, it’s reassuring to learn that we’ve always been a bunch of clueless fucking nitwits” – Stuart Heritage, Don’t Be a Dick, Pete