Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

Steven Pinker

Feb 2018 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018
ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR

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

If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: 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. By the author of the new book, Rationality.

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.

Ratings and reviews

Pinker uses meticulous research to argue that we are living in the most peaceful time in human history—with the clearest explanation of progress you'll ever consume. The world is getting better, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. This also pairs really well with Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling.

The best part about this book is that it is less opinionated (not zero, obviously). The research is myth breaking and Pinker's analysis of facts promotes well reasoned thinking. I appreciate how Pinker has provided a largely unbiased, well researched and in-depth analysis of almost all the issues we come across in our everyday life.

Pinker has taken it onto himself to prove that enlightenment thinking has helped to make society better, less violent, more enriching, etc. over time. Using his trademark style of arguements, facts and graphs he proves that society is the best it has ever been and, despite the thinking that is often to the contrary, is continuing to improve. Brilliant.

About the author

Steven Pinker is the Harvard College Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and the winner of many awards for his research, teaching, and books, he has been named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World Today and Foreign Policy's 100 Global Thinkers.