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The Better Angels Of Our Nature
Steven Pinker
Why Violence Has Declined
Viking
October 2011
On Sale: October 4, 2011
848 pages
ISBN: 0670022950
EAN: 9780670022953
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
The author of The New York Times bestseller The
Stuff of Thought offers a controversial history of
violence. Faced with the ceaseless stream of news
about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we
live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York
Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this
startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true:
violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be
living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence.
For most of history, war, slavery, infanticide, child abuse,
assassinations, pogroms, gruesome punishments, deadly
quarrels, and genocide were ordinary features of life. But
today, Pinker shows (with the help of more than a hundred
graphs and maps) all these forms of violence have dwindled
and are widely condemned. How has this happened? This
groundbreaking book continues Pinker's exploration of the
essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to
provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly nonviolent
world. The key, he explains, is to understand our intrinsic
motives- the inner demons that incline us toward violence
and the better angels that steer us away-and how changing
circumstances have allowed our better angels to prevail.
Exploding fatalist myths about humankind's inherent violence
and the curse of modernity, this ambitious and provocative
book is sure to be hotly debated in living rooms and the
Pentagon alike, and will challenge and change the way we
think about our society.
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