It feels like this is the thesis that Pinker wanted to develop when he wrote ’the better angels of our nature.’ The fist half of the book, which dealt with how life has been getting better over time seemed both obvious, but also interesting in providing a concise overview for such a sweeping thesis. However I found the last part outlining both why the world has gotten better (hint: humanism and enlightenment principles) and what that should mean for the way we approach society today.
If you believe that life now is better than it was 50 years ago, you could probably skip to ‘The Future of Progress’ and save yourself a lot of time.
However I liked the chapter on ‘happiness’ as a worthwhile overview to combat a prevailing pessimistic view.
Perhaps the biggest weakness in this book for the American / European reader is drawing distinctions between the middle class in developed western countries and the world at large. I think that for this small subset of the globe, things have indeed gotten worse over the last 40 years, and Pinker’s cheerleading for global progress as a whole does little to address or even acknowledge this phenomenon. (See: The Rise and Fall of American Growth)