The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker

Everyone should read this astonishing book' Guardian 'Will change the way you see the world' Daily Mail Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize 2012 Wasn't the twentieth century the most violent in history? In his extraordinary, epic book Steven Pinker shows us that this is wrong, telling the story of humanity in a completely new and unfamiliar way. Book excerpt: 'The most inspiring book I've ever read' Bill Gates, 2017 'A brilliant, mind-altering book. This book was released on with total page 1056 pages. Atrocitology: Humanity's 100 Deadliest Achievements (Penguin, 2011).Book Synopsis The Better Angels of Our Nature by : Steven Pinkerĭownload or read book The Better Angels of Our Nature written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin UK.

in The Cambridge Handbook of Violent Behavior and Aggression (eds Flannery, D. The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and its Causes (Allen Lane, 2011). Inventing Human Rights: A History (Norton, 2007). Human Security Report 2009/2010: The Causes of Peace and The Shrinking Costs of War (Oxford Univ. in The Social Psychology of Good and Evil (ed Miller, A. But the things we do look funny to them.” Such lessons are not indoctrination but guided reasoning, leading children to conclusions they can accept by their own standards, and the resulting understanding has become second nature.īatson, C. You can't tell whether a person is good or bad by looking at the colour of his skin”, and “Yes, the things those people do look funny to us. Today's children have been encouraged to take these cognitive leaps with gentle instruction such as “There are bad Indians and there are good Indians, just like there are bad white people and good white people. Yet they never took the mental leap that would have forced them to treat other races with the same consideration.

They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” Today we are stunned by the compartmentalized morality of these men, who in many ways were enlightened when it came to their own race.

Could an expansion of reason really have driven down violence? Consider the statements of the great men of a century ago, such as Theodore Roosevelt, who wrote: “I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth”, or the young Winston Churchill, who cheerfully carried out atrocities in British colonies in Asia and Africa and wrote: “I hate Indians.

The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker