Steven Pinker

In his new book The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity, Pinker argues that, contrary to popular belief, violence has declined and that humankind has become progressively less violent, over millenia and decades.

Can this be true, though? The images of global conflict seen daily on TV and computer screens suggest this is an almost obscene claim to be making.

Pinker shows violence within and between societies – both murder and warfare – has actually declined from prehistory to today. Debunking both the idea of the ‘noble savage’ and an over-simplistic Hobbesian notion of a ‘nasty, brutish and short’ life, Pinker argues that modernity and its cultural institutions are actually making us better people.