Friday, April 1, 2016

The Better Angels

A review of The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker

I recently finished reading The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker, after hearing Bill Gates recommend it on the Ezra Klein Show.* This book argues that one of the strongest and most important trends throughout human history is a massive decline in violence. Pinker compiles a large number of studies to argue that this trend actually exists and then turns to psychology, sociology, and evolutionary biology to better understand it.

Pinker is Harvard Professor in the Department of Psychology, and a brief look at his bio shows that his work reaches across fields. His book is no way an argument that there are no injustices left or that humanity has achieved some mission to remove violence. Instead, he is coming at this topic as a social scientist with an eye towards history. He observed a phenomenon, one that he argues is frequently overlooked, and tries to explain it.