history audiobook
21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari is about 12 hours long at normal speed. At 1.5× that drops to about 8 hr, and at 2× to about 6 hr.
Runtimes are approximate and vary slightly by edition and retailer. Check the length shown in Audible, Libby, Spotify or Apple Books for your copy.
| Playback speed | Total time |
|---|---|
| 0.8× | 15 hr |
| 1× | 12 hr |
| 1.25× | 9 hr 36 min |
| 1.5× | 8 hr |
| 1.75× | 6 hr 51 min |
| 2× | 6 hr |
| 2.5× | 4 hr 48 min |
| 3× | 4 hr |
Plan your listen
At one hour a day and normal speed, you'll finish in about 12 days. Speed it up to 1.5× and the same hour a day finishes it in about 8 days. At 45 minutes a day and 1.5×, plan on about 11 days.
The table below shows whole days needed for every combination of speed and daily listening time.
| Speed | 15 min | 30 min | 45 min | 1 hr | 1.5 hr | 2 hr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1× | 48 | 24 | 16 | 12 | 8 | 6 |
| 1.25× | 39 | 20 | 13 | 10 | 7 | 5 |
| 1.5× | 32 | 16 | 11 | 8 | 6 | 4 |
| 2× | 24 | 12 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 |
How long, really
At 12 hr, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is close to a full workday of listening, or a New York to London flight and then some. That's longer than about 51% of the 169 popular audiobooks we list.
Spoken at an average narration pace, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century comes to roughly 112,000 words. Narrators vary, so a faster or slower reader will shift that number and the total runtime.
Want to try other speeds or your own schedule? Use the audiobook speed calculator or the listening goal calculator to find the daily minutes you need.
Track it as you listen
Booktrace is an iPhone audiobook tracker that logs your sessions, chapters, narrator and playback speed in one place, so you can see real progress through 21 Lessons for the 21st Century and how many hours remain, whichever app you listen in.
Common questions
The 21 Lessons for the 21st Century audiobook by Yuval Noah Harari runs about 12 hours at normal (1x) speed. Exact runtime can differ by a few minutes between editions and stores.
At 1.5x speed, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century takes about 8 hours. At 2x it takes about 6 hours.
At one hour a day and normal speed, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century takes about 12 days. At 1.5x speed and an hour a day it takes about 8 days. At 30 minutes a day and normal speed it takes about 24 days.
Compared with the 169 popular audiobooks on this site, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is longer than about 51% of them. At 12 hr it is close to a full workday of listening, or a New York to London flight and then some.
