If you are one of those people constantly watching news and worrying about the sorry state of the world. Read this book. It’ll convince you with data, instead of baseless sensationalism, that life has never been more peaceful, safer and better than right now.
I procrastinated on starting reading this book because I already fully buy Steven Pinker’s proposition that we are living the most peaceful time in human kind, but I’m glad I’m reading it now. This book is full of well researched nuggets of information that are very interesting.
I’m fascinated by the explanation of why USA is so violent compared to all other developed countries (having murder rates similar to third world countries). I’m not sure I buy all of it, but it’s interesting to see how things were different there compared to western Europe, Canada, etc.
Having been raised in one of the dysfunctional governments he describes as promoting violence through corruption and negligence, I was thrilled when he called them crappy governments, because that’s the category they have in my mind. I was a little bit miffed by him using the word “negro”. He used it to refer to groups of people back when those groups of people were referred to as negros and in the context of their class struggle, but it was still weird.
Another interesting aspect was how people that live in crappy governments do differently in some psychological tests showing how deep a dysfunctional authority can affect people and why countries that are at the top remain at the top and countries that are at the bottom, remain at the bottom.
This book is long, and in a good way. It feels it covers everything there’s to cover about the subject, so, it would be impossible for me to do a full review. All I’m going to say is this: read it. It’ll surprise you in at least one way. It may change how you see the world entirely.
★★★★★
Buy The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
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