Fake news, genetic engineering, designer babies, Big Pharma, incipient totalitarian rule, the destruction of books, transhumanism, the desire to play God, and the serial misuse of the word "science"-it may sound a lot like America in the 2020s, but these politically charged modern concerns have been probed deeply in classic fiction by a host of prescient authors over the past two centuries. The Art of Being Human draws some much-needed attention to the impact great literature can and does have, especially in the realm of the cautionary tale, in considering how we might learn from the past in order to inform our present decisions and plan for the future, all the while maintaining our humanity amid a dehumanizing world.