Praise for The Better Angels of Our Nature

"If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this--the most inspiring book I've ever read."
--Bill Gates (May, 2017)

"Elegantly [argues] that in various ways humanity has every reason to be optimistic over life in the twenty-first century.... A defense of progress that will provoke deep thinking and thoughtful discourse among his many fans."
--Colleen Mondor, Booklist

"Pinker defends progressive ideals against contemporary critics, pundits, cantankerous philosophers, and populist politicians to demonstrate how far humanity has come since the Enlightenment...In an era of increasingly "dystopian rhetoric," Pinker's sober, lucid, and meticulously researched vision of human progress is heartening and important."
--Publishers Weekly

"[An] impeccably written text full of interesting tidbits from neuroscience and other disciplines...The author examines the many ways in which Enlightenment ideals have given us lives that our forebears would envy even if gloominess and pessimism are the order of the day."
--Kirkus Review

Praise for The Better Angels of Our Nature

"If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this--the most inspiring book I've ever read."
--Bill Gates (May, 2017)

One of The Guardian's "Books to Buy in 2018"

"The world is getting better, even if it doesn't always feel that way. I'm glad we have brilliant thinkers like Steven Pinker to help us see the big picture. Enlightenment Now is not only the best book Pinker's ever written. It's my new favorite book of all time."
--Bill Gates

"A terrific book...[Pinker] recounts the progress across a broad array of metrics, from health to wars, the environment to happiness, equal rights to quality of life."
--Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times

"A meticulous defense of science and objective analysis, [and] a rebuttal to the tribalism, knee-jerk partisanship and disinformation that taints our politics."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"Brimming with surprising data and entertaining anecdotes."
--Financial Times

"[Pinker] makes a powerful case that the main line of history has been, since the Enlightenment, one of improvement."
--Scientific American

"Pinker presents graphs and data which deserve to be reckoned with by fair-minded people. His conclusion is provocative, as anything by Pinker is likely to be."
--Colorado Springs Gazette

"Elegantly [argues] that in various ways humanity has every reason to be optimistic over life in the twenty-first century.... A defense of progress that will provoke deep thinking and thoughtful discourse among his many fans."
--Booklist

"Pinker defends progressive ideals against contemporary critics, pundits, cantankerous philosophers, and populist politicians to demonstrate how far humanity has come since the Enlightenment...In an era of increasingly "dystopian rhetoric," Pinker's sober, lucid, and meticulously researched vision of human progress is heartening and important."
--Publishers Weekly

"[An] impeccably written text full of interesting tidbits from neuroscience and other disciplines...The author examines the many ways in which Enlightenment ideals have given us lives that our forebears would envy even if gloominess and pessimism are the order of the day."
--Kirkus Review

Praise for The Better Angels of Our Nature

"If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this--the most inspiring book I've ever read."
--Bill Gates (May, 2017)

"My new favorite book of all time." --Bill Gates

"A terrific book...[Pinker] recounts the progress across a broad array of metrics, from health to wars, the environment to happiness, equal rights to quality of life." --The New York Times

The follow-up to Pinker's groundbreaking The Better Angels of Our Nature presents the big picture of human progress: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science.

Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.

Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.

With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.