One of these days I'm going to sit down and make a list of the Top 100 nonfiction books that everyone absolutely must read if they really want to understand the world we live in. And, when I do, this book by the noted experimental psychologist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker will definitely make the Top Ten. In fact, I'm even tempted to say that this might very well be the most important book of the 21st century thus far.

Okay, I'll admit that I might be just a little bit biased in this assessment, because this book deals, in large part, with my two main areas of study as a political scientist: international relations, with a focus on war and international security, and comparative politics, with a focus on political development and modernization. In fact, this book bridges these two topics by showing how modernization has helped make the world more peaceful. (And if you don't believe that the world is a lot more peaceful today than it was at any time in the past, you really do need to read this book.) When I was in grad school (where I studied under John A. Vasquez and James Lee Ray, two of the world's leading experts on war and peace, both of whom are cited in Pinker's book) my main focus was on the scientific study of international militarized conflict, using quantitative methods such as statistical analysis and game theory in order to better understand why nations go to war and what it takes to maintain the peace. This particular subfield of international relations (which is sometimes referred to as "peace science") aims to identify historical patterns and trends in international conflict, to find variables that correlate well with war (or with peace), to assess the probability that an international crisis will escalate to the use of military force, and to evaluate foreign policy alternatives to see which are more likely to provoke war and which are more likely to promote peace. Although peace science is usually viewed as a subfield of international relations (which is itself a subfield of political science), it is really an interdisciplinary field that draws on a number of different academic disciplines, from political science, to sociology, to psychology, to econometrics, to mathematics, to systems engineering and beyond (in fact, the generally recognized "founder" of the field, Lewis Fry Richardson, was a physicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and psychologist). And peace scientists no longer limit themselves to studying international conflict alone, but are now applying their methods to the study of civil wars, ethnic conflict, terrorism, and other forms of politically-motivated or "group-on-group" violence. Over the past few decades, peace science has discovered a number of things about what leads to war and what keeps the peace. Unfortunately, the general public is largely unaware of these discoveries because they haven't been well publicized -- at least not until now. In this book, Steven Pinker tries to bring some of the key findings of peace science research to the public's attention.

Although a number of excellent scholarly works have been written by researchers in the field of peace science, most of these are aimed specifically at an academic audience that is accustomed to reading and interpreting quantitative research. These texts tend to be highly technical and rather dry; and most of them presume that the reader already has a strong background in the fundamentals of the subject. So they are unlikely to be of much interest to lay readers. And even the few books on the subject that are written so as to be reasonably accessible to non-specialists still tend to be written in the academic style of the scholar, rather than the more relaxed style of the popular writer; so they're unlikely to find their way to the top of any bestseller list. But this book is different. It was written specifically for a general audience rather than for professors and grad students; so it tries to keep the tone light and informal, avoiding the arcane language of statistics in favor of simple descriptions and visual illustrations. You don't need to know what a "chi-square" or a "Pearson's r" is in order to understand the research findings summarized in this book. All you need is university-level English literacy and the ability to follow a trend line on a graph. That's one reason why, if I had to recommend just one book for anyone interested in finding out the most important lessons we've learned from the scientific study of war and peace, this is the book I'd have to recommend -- not because it's the best, or the most comprehensive, or the most in-depth; but because it's the most accessible. (Of course, I intend this as no slight to any of my colleagues and former professors who have written their own books on the subject -- in particular my dissertation advisor, John A. Vasquez, whose seminal work, "The War Puzzle", which has recently been revised and updated as "The War Puzzle Revisited", is one of the best books ever written on the causes of war, and is worth reading even if you have no background in international relations. Yet, I still feel that Pinker's book is more accessible to lay readers.)

You might find it a bit strange that I would recommend a book by Steven Pinker as your introduction to peace science. After all, Pinker is not generally recognized as a "peace scientist" in the strictest sense of the term -- i.e. he has not devoted his career to studying the causes of war. Rather, he is a world-famous experimental psychologist and cognitive scientist who is best known for his work on how the mind works and, especially, how it processes language. His previous books (which are well worth reading, by the way) have all focused on these subjects. This new book is Pinker's first foray into the field of peace science. But he does an excellent job of summarizing what peace science has discovered about war and peace in language that is clear and easy to understand; and he manages to put the findings of peace science into a larger context of what is known about violence in general -- a topic that is perhaps best explored by a psychologist such as Pinker. Perhaps more importantly, Pinker is an excellent writer who is able to present scientific findings to a general audience in a way that makes sense, but without in any way "dumbing down" the material. Unlike many other academic writers, Pinker's writing style is engaging and entertaining -- his tone is conversational rather than professorial -- and yet he is careful to give proper citations for every substantive point he makes (he includes 41 pages of end notes, and 33 pages of bibliography). I should also note that Pinker is very thorough in his analysis. This is a very lengthy tome, running for nearly 700 pages (not counting the front matter, end notes, bibliography, etc.). It may take you a while to read; but it's worth every minute; and, if you're anything like me, you'll actually enjoy it.

Since my background is in peace science, my review has thus far focused on what Pinker has to say about war. But that's just one part of what this book is about. This is really a book about violence -- all types of violence, both large scale and small -- and war is just organized violence on an extremely large scale. War is arguably the most important form of violence; but it's not the only form. As it is usually understood, "violence" can include anything from full-scale war, to limited military action, to genocide, to ethnic conflict, to government oppression and human rights abuses, to religious persecution, to slavery, to terrorism, to lynching and other hate crimes, to murder, to capital punishment, to torture, to rape, to spousal and child abuse, to assault, to dueling, to bullying, to animal cruelty, to the spanking of naughty children. Scholars who study international conflict tend to focus on the unique geopolitical factors that lead nations to send soldiers into battle -- factors that are not relevant to our understanding of violence committed on smaller scales. But might it be possible that the root causes of large scale violence are to be found in the very same pathologies of human nature and human culture that give rise to honor killings, witch hunts, blood sports, hazing rituals, and even bar fights? Pinker believes that it is; and he marshals a considerable body of evidence to support that view.

He argues that all acts of violence, regardless of their scale, begin with decisions made by individuals; and, like all decisions, the decision to use violence is the product of cognitive processes that take place in our brains. And understanding how these cognitive processes work is Steven Pinker's particular area of expertise. Based on this understanding, Pinker is able to show how our brains make the decision of whether or not to use violence, and what factors influence this decision. There are a number of factors that work to push us towards using violence, and a number of other factors that work to restrain us from using violence. Some of these factors are internal (or internalized), such as our natural instincts for self-preservation, our moral values, and our capacity for empathy, self-control, and rational thought. Other factors are external, such as the norms of the society we live in, the constraints imposed on our behavior by various social institutions, and the specific demands of the situation we happen to find ourselves in at any given time. A violent act is the end result of a complex cognitive process -- most of which takes place below the level of our conscious awareness -- which takes all of these internal and external factors into account. That's why violence is not a constant. Sometimes people are violent; sometimes they're not. An individual might use violence under certain circumstances but not under others. Some people are more prone to violence than are others. Some places experience more violence than do others. And some historical periods have been more violent than have others. Violence is variable. It waxes and wanes in response to various influences. Understanding these influences is the key to understanding violence of all kinds, and how to bring it under control.

Violence will always be a part of the human experience; but it need not be its defining feature. We'll never completely eliminate violence from our world -- there will always be occasional muggings, rapes, murders, human rights violations, acts of terrorism, and even wars -- but we can reduce these things to the point where people need not live in constant fear for their safety. And we've already made a lot of progress in this direction. Using a wealth of statistical evidence, Pinker shows that we are living in what is perhaps the least violent period in the history of the human race. All forms of violence -- everything from war, to genocide, to religious persecution, to murder, to rape, to capital punishment, to torture, to animal cruelty, to the spanking of children -- are at historically low levels; and most of them have been in a state of nearly constant decline for centuries (with a few temporary setbacks in the 20th century). This may be hard for many people to believe, since our popular culture and the 24-hour news media are constantly bombarding us with images of violence, and since most people have a rather poor grasp of history; but if you take an objective look at the level of violence we see in the world today compared to the level of violence our ancestors lived with in centuries past, it becomes quite clear that we are now living in a golden age of relative peace and security that our great great great great great grandparents could never have imagined.

What is the cause of this decline in violence? This is the main question that Pinker tries to answer in this book. I won't attempt to summarize his findings here -- it's better if you read Pinker's argument, and the evidence he presents in support of it, for yourself. But I will say that it has a lot to do with my second field of study: political development and modernization. The world is becoming less violent as it modernizes and becomes more politically developed. This also helps to explain why some parts of the world are much more violent than others, even today, since political development has not been uniform around the globe. The least developed countries tend to be the most violent, and the most developed tend to be the least violent. You might suspect that this is simply a matter of economics -- i.e. that violence is a byproduct of poverty, so richer countries would tend to be less violent than poorer countries -- but it's actually a lot more complicated than that. (After all, the United States is a very rich country; but it's a lot more violent than Canada, Western Europe, and other parts of the First World.) So the real explanation has more to do with politics and culture than with economics. I'm not going to try to summarize in a few sentences what Pinker spent nearly 700 pages trying to explain -- you really do need to read the book for yourself -- but I will note that Pinker's theory is consistent with what we know about political development and modernization, and is certainly consistent with my own personal views on the subject. I think that Pinker's explanation for why violence has declined over time is essentially correct, and needs to be taken seriously.

If you want to understand the historical decline of violence you really must read Pinker's book. I would recommend it to almost anyone. However, I ought to point out that there are things in this book that some people may find disturbing or offensive. For one thing, in order to fully convince the reader that the world is much less violent today than at any time in the past, Pinker catalogues, in gruesome detail, forms of brutality that were quite commonplace at one time, but that are simply unimaginable today. He describes sadistic methods of torture and public execution that were once deemed perfectly just and proper, but that utterly shock the conscience of the modern reader. He discusses military tactics that were considered perfectly normal centuries ago, but that would be condemned as war crimes or acts of genocide today. He even talks about various acts of animal cruelty that our ancestors would have viewed as entirely unremarkable, such as the common pastime of torturing cats to death, which was a popular form of public entertainment in Medieval Europe. The book also includes very frank discussions of rape, domestic violence, and abuse, which may not be suitable for some readers, who may find some of this material disturbing, or perhaps even triggering. Some readers may even be offended by some of the things that Pinker has to say. He is not a fan of "political correctness", and refuses to censor himself or to sweep inconvenient truths under the rug simply to appease those who might not like what he has to say. He is willing to challenge the conventional wisdom if it is not supported by adequate evidence; and he even has the temerity to debunk some of the popular myths about violence that routinely get cited as "facts" in the media, in public discussions about violence, and even (sadly) in academic literature. Pinker's objective in this book is to set the facts straight, even if he has to ruffle a few feathers in the process. He has some harsh words for religion, which are bound to offend some believers. While he does not condemn religion wholesale in the manner of the so-called "New Atheists" like Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, he does strongly criticize the ancient moral codes that many of the world's major religions are built on. Pinker draws our attention to the many barbaric passages in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) that, for example, command God's "chosen people" to slaughter every man, woman, and child in the cities they conquer; that prescribe death by stoning as the appropriate punishment for all manner of petty offenses and unconventional sexual proclivities; and that even permit men to own slaves and to obtain wives and concubines by abducting and raping foreign women. Pinker is careful to point out that most modern Jews and Christians ignore these troublesome passages, and utterly reject them as guides to moral behavior in the modern world. He insists that his purpose in highlighting the flaws in the biblical conception of morality is not to cast aspersions on modern-day believers, but simply to illustrate how far we've come in our understanding of right and wrong -- particularly when it comes to the use of violence and how we treat other human beings -- since the Hebrew Bible was written. But he does call our attention to the dangers of trying to base one's morality on these ancient texts, which reflect pre-modern values that most people today -- including most contemporary Christians and Jews -- would find not only abhorrent, but ungodly. So, some believers will likely take offense at Pinker's comments, especially if they're not accustomed to viewing their faith traditions and their scriptures with a critical eye. But you can't please everyone; so it's better just to speak the truth as you see it, and not worry about who might take offense. That's what Pinker does; and I have to admire him for it.

Anyway, this is one of the best books I've read in years. I highly recommend it.

Steven Pinker is a great thinker and writer. He is also (I can personally attest) a great human being. And he has produced a magisterial tour-de-force.

The Better Angels Of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined is a big book on what might seem a narrow topic. But in Pinker's hands it turns out to be broad indeed. It's about how humans relate to each other - from individuals to nations - and how those relations have evolved. It's about moral progress.

Pinker argues that such progress has been immense, concentrated in recent centuries, manifested in a "Humanitarian Revolution" and declines in violence of all kinds, including war. He recognizes this is a tough sell, with so much contrary conventional wisdom: "Man's inhumanity to Man," and so forth. (One radio interviewer I heard was like, "Pinker, are you out of your mind?") That's partly why it's a big book. Pinker has to clobber the cynics (non-violently, of course) with an avalanche of facts.

And he's not satisfied merely showing what has happened. He aims to explain why it happened (as the title promises). However, human life being so complex, such explanations are hard to tease out, and Pinker has to dig deeply in the effort. Following along with this, for the reader, is full of reward.

I'll be candid that I agree with virtually everything Pinker says -- deliciously feeding my confirmation bias. A remarkable number of his points are also made in my own shorter book, The Case for Rational Optimism. (Pinker mentions it; he told me it's a "wonderful book.") It's an excellent alternative if you want just the capsule version.

Pinker starts off with a plot summary of the Bible. This is a hoot. (His writing is sometimes literally laugh-out-loud funny.*) In contrast, the "Good Book" is pretty appalling (though the real good news, Pinker notes, is that most of it isn't true); but his purpose is not debunking. Rather, it's to show how drastically attitudes toward violence have changed - Biblical "civilization" was utterly barbaric by today's standards.

One of Pinker's key points is that indictments of modernity rest on romanticizing the past and forgetting its horrors. And he unsparingly reminds us. The chapter on torture not only shows how ubiquitous it was, but provides clinical details. It's extremely unpleasant reading which tender souls may prefer to skip. The pillory might seem a mild, even comical form of punishment. It wasn't. Victims were helplessly assaulted by onlookers; agony, maiming, and death were common. Other tortures were often far worse.

And what was the bloodiest conflict in history? If you say WWII you'd be right in absolute numbers killed. But its death toll ranks only ninth as a percentage of population. On that measure, history's killingest episode was one you never heard of: China's 8th Century An Lushan rebellion. I am both a history buff and Chinese coin specialist, and even I was ignorant of this. It shows how deep historical amnesia runs.

The World Wars were admittedly non-trivial. But all the peaceniks who prattle about our supposedly inveterate war lust are, as is often said of generals, "fighting the last war." We're now at 67 years with zero wars among major powers.

To explain this, Pinker invokes Kant's 1795 essay, "Perpetual Peace," foreseeing a warless club of free-trading democracies. Kant, he says, got three out of three right: trade, democracy, and association among nations practicing those things, all combine to produce peace. Indeed, Pinker sees an even deeper Kantian cause, with all the foregoing reflecting operation of Kant's "categorical imperative" - guide your actions by principles that can be made universal. In other words, an instinctual human bedrock utilitarian morality. Thus major wars, Pinker says, seem to be going the way of such practices as slavery, heretic-burning, breaking on the wheel, flogging, etc., "that passed from unexceptionable to controversial to immoral to unthinkable to not-thought-about."

Of course violent conflict still happens; as in Syria. But the cause is almost always bad, undemocratic governments; and more of those are falling than arising. Germany and Japan were the prime examples; Serbia was another. One country at a time, the world grows up, and its juvenile delinquents turn into responsible adults.

As noted, the book presents a mountain of factual material, and the scientifically proper way to assess such data is through statistical analysis. This Pinker does - or perhaps overdoes. The problem is that statistical analyses of such complex phenomena as war and violence entail a plethora of knotty methodological issues, which Pinker conscientiously adumbrates - filling many pages that are apt to leave a lay reader more confused than edified. While of course such analyses are integral to the book's argument, Pinker might have been bolder in cutting to the chase, recapping the big picture in the text and relegating the nitty-gritty to appendices. Similarly, he seems impelled to pursue every possible nuance of every point, sometimes leading afield of the main line of argument. (Any book review must include at least one knock. There's mine.)

Pinker is no monomaniacal pedant. Notably, after cataloguing great reductions in varied forms of child abuse, he goes on to argue that we've over-corrected, falling into an overblown hysteria that actually harms children. Parents driving kids to school, in fear of abduction, subject them to a far greater risk from car accidents. Keeping them from playing outside contributes to obesity. Et cetera. Pinker seems particularly miffed that misguided overprotectionism has put paid to the game of dodgeball. A DVD of early Sesame Street episodes was labeled "not suitable for children." And one school banned Halloween costumes in a host of categories - including those that are "scary"!

Speaking of scary, terrorism has preoccupied America for a decade, feeding perceptions of a dangerous, violent world. Pinker is admirably cogent on why that's so cockeyed. In the big scheme of things, terrorism is simply trivial (vis-à-vis, for example, the 30,000+ yearly U.S. highway deaths, which I keep mentioning, and which we accept with blasé equanimity). Indeed, as Pinker explains, more Americans may have died due to our panic over terrorism than from terrorism itself. He does acknowledge the special danger of nuclear terrorism; but after carefully dissecting all the logistical hurdles, deems it highly improbable. Meantime, terrorism is not on the upswing in recent times, and is actually burning itself out mainly for the simple reason that it rarely works. (With every terrorist atrocity, I ask myself, what is the f---ing point? What do these people expect to accomplish?) That means our strategy toward terrorism is exactly wrong. Getting our knickers in a twist over it makes it seem like it is working. Far better to shrug it off, sending the message: do your worst, it won't affect us.

So - why has violence declined, virtually across the board? Pinker provides a whole synergistic web of reasons, a virtuous circle in which diverse trends feed each other. At its heart is that people are actually becoming smarter and thinking better. This poke in the eye of conventional wisdom is (like everything in the book) backed up with plenty of evidence and analysis. Pinker also addresses just how and why cognitive advancement leads to greater peaceableness. One aspect is technological progress (accelerated by the growing brainpower) which has made ideas and people increasingly mobile, producing the global village and what Pinker calls the "Republic of Letters." Civilization is civilizing us. And smarter people are more likely to be liberal - meaning not so much left-liberalism as classical liberalism (my kind), whose chief value is maximizing the autonomy of individuals to pursue their own flourishing, with its corollaries of limited government and free trade. That such a worldview would promote peaceableness over violence seems obvious.

So Pinker does not join with those intellectuals and scientists among whom it is lately fashionable to deride the whole idea of human reason. He thinks we have brains, and use them -- increasingly.

This book will make its readers even smarter still; and thus its author isn't merely heralding a better world, he's helping it along.

Discussing vegetarianism, he queries whether a moose-eating bear oughtn't, morally speaking, be "tempted away with all-soy meatless moose patties."

"Violence has declined over long stretches of time, and today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species' existence." (Location 128)

This is, perhaps, the primary sentiment of this latest work by Prof. Steven Pinker. And for all my reservations with his ideology (progressivism) and his lack of critique surrounding statistical analyses I cannot help but feel this is a brilliant, insightful, and profoundly optimistic book. Optimism is something which has been, intellectually, in short supply for a great many decades. Though this seems odd because between the Long Peace (since the end of the second world war) and the New Peace (the end of the cold war) this is something we should all be feeling about our collective future. However, pessimism seems to be the general sentiment: from Climate Change to the geopolitics of China and India.

Back to The Better Angels of Our Nature. The book is not without its faults

-An out of control Progressivist ideology

-Feminization theories which are deeply suspicious

-Left Wing political agenda...as read by Americans

-A mostly uncritical attitude to statistical analyses (some is suggested but mostly as a sop)

-The inherent `squishiness' of the Social Sciences

-An aggressive atheism which discounts all the positives attributes of Religion in favour of Old Testament blood thirsty hyperbole (and some from the New Testament). Personal note: I'm an atheist.

-A rather hostile discounting of conservatives and conservatism (again, American in perspective): see page 662 and following for a sample of this. Note: I read the Kindle Edition on my iPad.

For all of the above weaknesses and others, this is still a timely, important, concise, and articulate piece of optimism...with provisos (Pinker's not mine).

Perhaps some of Prof. Pinker's most interesting observations are why he believes the world remains pessimistic about violence. One of my favourites is why the world, generally, feels violence is getting worse when it is actually declining:

"The decline of violent behaviour has been paralleled by a decline in the attitudes that tolerate or glorify violence, and often the attitudes are in the lead." p. 155

Our tolerance for violence appears to have fallen faster than violence actually has. This, perhaps, could force a greater decline in violence or it could have unforeseen negative consequences. At the moment this remains uncertain...to my way of thinking.

This is a book which deserves several book length reviews and much closer analysis than I have given it here but it is brilliant and articulate while occasionally slipping into arrogance and ideological myopia (see progressivism and atheism amongst others).

I did not give this book a full 5 stars because of the problems I have cited above, but it is a brilliant and important work that is both accessible and comprehensive (if the reader is willing to put in a little time).

Highly Recommended

Addendum

There are two other reasons I only gave this book 4 stars and that has to do with the book's formatting. 1) References/End-notes are not activated 2)The index is not activated either. These are two very serious problems for readers of the e-Editions of this book. Some may feel this is not the place for this criticism but I would, respectfully, disagree because it makes looking up sources, so that I may engage more fully with the text, laborious, time consuming and uncertain. This is the typical way publishers handle eBooks...haphazardly at best. Then they over-price them...which only promotes piracy.

Steven Pinker has always been a brilliant and insightful author, ably bridging the gap between behavioral science research and the audience of intelligent laypersons. The Better Angels of Our Nature, however, is by far his most ambitious and successful book---a book destined for greatness. Like most great books, the message is simple and clear, and the author spends most of his time and energy defending and elaborating on a few key points. Immensely knowledgeable in all the behavioral sciences, and possessing considerable statistical skills, Pinker ranges over a huge swath of modern research, virtually every page overflowing with factual information.

The last book that I read that I admired almost as much as this was Jared Diamond's Germs, Guns and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997). I loved Diamond's book even though I had some reservations concerning the validity of his explanation of the distribution of poverty and wealth in the modern world. I have even more reservations concerning Pinker's explanation of the dramatic decline of violence in modern society, but this does not diminish the value of his contributions in my eyes (and it certainly should not in yours, dear potential reader).

Pinker begins by tracing six major turning points in human history (he calls them, rather inaccurately, "trends"). First was the transition from hunter-gather to sedentary and agricultural living some 10,000 years ago (yes, it was that recently!). The second was the transition from feudalism to modern society in the Middle Ages, which initiated a five hundred year "Civilizing Process" (to use the words of the great sociologist Norbert Elias) leading to a ten to fifty-fold reduction in the amount of violence in society. The third was the European Enlightenment and the Age of Reason that this unleashed, leading to the virtual elimination of socially sanction forms of violence (e.g., torture, public hangings, dueling, witch burnings, cruelty to animals). The fourth transition was the end of international war among the great powers after World War II, and the fifth was the decline in civil wars, genocides, and repression by autocrats since the end of the Cold War. Pinker's final transition is the widespread expression of faith in human rights embodied in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Pinker ascribes the decline of violence to "four better angels," that form part of the psychological repertoire of Homo sapiens. These are empathy, self-control, a moral sense, and the faculty of reason. A fair fraction of the book is devoted to showing that we in fact have these "better angels," using modern behavioral game theory and experimental psychology and economics. The rather quaint notion, fashionable until just a couple of decades ago, that humans are basically selfish and uncaring except for close kin, and that humans have a natural and irrepressible instinct for aggression and mayhem, is eloquently and effectively contradicted by contemporary social science research.

The better angels of our human nature do not operate, however, in a social vacuum. Rather, Pinker asserts, there are five historical forces that have led to the triumph of empathy, self-control, a moral sense, and the faculty of reason over the equally powerful human thirst to exploit and dominate other groups, and to take revenge against those who have offended us with no sense of self-control, temperance, or forgiveness. The first of these historical forces he calls "Leviathan" (following Hobbes)---the rise of the state and judiciary that enforces a monopoly of coercion, and funnels disputes between individuals and groups through the judicial apparatus. The second is commerce, the globalization of which starting in the sixteen century, which changes international relations into a positive sum game that is crippled by war. The third historical force is feminization, through which the interests and values of women are increasing respected and generalized to both sexes. The fourth is cosmopolitanism, including literacy, mobility, and mass media, which lead people increasingly to understand the mind-sets and desires of others unlike themselves, and to expand their circle of sympathy to larger and larger groupings of individuals. The fifth, says Pinker, is the "escalator of reason," through which people can learn from the past the futility of acting out their primitive urges, and rather turn to peaceful solutions to their problems.

Perhaps the most surprising, and welcome, aspect of Pinker's new work is that it is implicitly a devastating nail-in-the-coffin critique of the brand of evolutionary psychology with which Pinker has identified for many years. The brand of evolutionary psychology initiated by Lida Cosmides and John Tooby began with with a high-precision and effective attack on mainstream psychology and sociology, which they called the Standard Social Sciences Model (SSSM). According to the SSSM, the human mind is a blank slate at birth (nota bene: the title of one of Pinker's books was The Blank Slate), and individual psychological characteristics are determined purely by the dominant culture in which the individual is raised. "Human nature," as Karl Marx proclaimed in the Theses on Feuerbach, "is the sum of social relations" (Marxism and mainstream social theory agreed on this central tenet). Thus, in a culture that approves of violence there will be lots of violence, which in a culture that approves of pacific relations, there will be peace. In a society that recognizes differences between the sexes, there will be exhibited exactly those differences so recognized. And so on.

The SSSM would be a mixed blessing if it were true. On the one hand, we could engineer culture to produces people who are kind, considerate, and helpful to one another. On the other hand, a totalitarian state could produce people who willingly follow the dictates of Big Brother, inevitably rat on the deviations of their friends and family members from the Socially Desirable Behavior, and live on hay and cider while their masters dined on caviar and Champagne (Yves Montand one sang "Il faut une chasuble d'or pour chanter Beni Createur. Nous en tissons, grands de l'Eglise, et nous, pauvres canuts, n'ont pas de chemises.")

However, the SSSM is surely not true, as we have learned from the work of Cosmides and Tooby, followed by a few decades of behavioral economic and psychology. Just a Marx's materialism is Hegel's idealism "stood on its head," so Cosmides and Tooby's evolutionary psychology is the SSSM stood on its head: genes are everything and culture is a palsied epiphenomenon, the instantaneous representation of the human gene pool.

However, Pinker's explanation of the remarkable decline in violence that hallmarks human prehistory and history has an explanation in which genes and culture interact in a rather balanced manner (this is called "gene-culture coevolution"). Humans have empathy and a moral sense not because these virtues are impressed upon us as blank slates, but because we evolved in such a manner that those with empathy and a moral sense had more offspring that the sociopaths, and they passed the genes that precondition empathy and morality on to their offspring. Culture is thus not an epiphenomenon that is completely subservient so social structure, but a driving force in the transformation of social structure.

The problem with Pinker's argument is that it leaves us with a sense of post hoc propter hoc. Humans became nicer in many different ways at once over the years (the Civilizing Process) and we really cannot say why it came out the way it did. I think Pinker's stress on the role of the state in reducing violence is undoubtedly correct, but why did the growth of state power not lead to the sort of totalitarian despotism that was so feared in the early twentieth century, and so hoped for by the Communists, Nazi, and Fascist states of the world? Why has cosmopolitanism led to the spread of liberating information technologies, rather than highly efficient despotic control of information by an authoritarian state?

One could answer that the human drive for freedom and dignity, a legacy from our hunter-gatherer past, accounts for the control of the means of coercion by the mass of citizens (note that in a fully efficient coercive state, there is no violence at all--although there might be some ineluctable "reeducation")? I think the answer probably lies in the nature technology.

The egalitarian nature of simple hunter-gatherer societies was predicated on the existence of lethal weapons, making it impossible, in an age before property, for an individual to control the group through force, because anyone can kill anyone else, catching him by surprise, at low persona cost. With the advent of sedentary and agricultural communities, private property permitted a ruling class to control the masses by force, and primitive egalitarianism was completely eclipsed in the human world. Only with the development of the handgun and bored rifle in the eighteenth and later centuries prevented the hegemony of a ruling class of mounted warriors. The age of democracy was at the same time the age of foot soldiers and the infantry-based army.

In thinking about Pinker's argument, I am led to think that he understates the role of information technology in the decline of violence. When my Jewish ancestors were murdered in Polish pogroms, their tormenters were told that Jews sacrificed Christians on their Holy Days, and their unleavened bread was an admixture of wheat and Christian blood. My mother-in-law recounted to me the following story. As a young bride, she took the bus every Saturday to visit her husband where he was stationed. After a couple of weeks, she became friendly with another young bride in the same situation, and thereafter they sat together passing the time talking during the trip. One day my mother-in-law mention that she was Jewish. Her friend, completely horrified, pushed her away in disgust, and asked her where her horns were, which her priest had assured her all Jewish women had under the kerchiefs. My point is that now you just can't get away with manipulating people into believing such falsehoods because there is no power so despotic as to be able to shields its people from the truth.

This book for me ranks as one of the most important books I have ever read. It takes a scientific approach to the analysis of violence in humans (and other primates) over the millennia. Pinker dives deep into facts regarding violence in pre-state and "civilized" societies and matches those norms and trends against our current understanding of psychology and shifting moral codes. The book is exhaustively referenced and he supports each argument with well researched data. Steven Pinker is one of those rare and brilliant thinkers who is able to discern motivators and trends in extremely complex data sets and relate those findings in a way that the rest of us can comprehend. The book should be required reading of every politician, teacher and religious leader if not every high school student because I believe its importance to society can't be overestimated. Because of its import, it is also a commitment. I found myself re-reading many passages in the book several times to fully comprehend its meanings; but its payoff in revelations is absolutely worth it.

A truly stunning achievement!

A more in depth review........

This is a brilliant and epic analysis of the history of violence in human societies and presents a compelling argument for why violence in all its ugly iterations has declined, though not smoothly, over the past 5,000 years and particularly in the past 60.

It's an exhaustively researched book with lots of credible data to back up its claims. It's one of those few books that challenge one's fundamental assumptions about what is fact and what is fiction about our selves, our nature and our history. It challenges long held beliefs about human behavior in family, groups, tribe, community, society, culture and nation. It demonstrates how specific identifiable forces, both innate and exogenous, have been at the root of violence over the ages. But it also shows how the "better angels of our nature" have worked to modulate those forces through a complex development of an increasingly higher social and emotional intelligence. Even with the recent epidemic of mass shootings in the U.S., the proliferation of weaponry and civil wars, Pinker makes a convincing argument that we've never lived in more peaceful times.

Pinker follows a fascinating trajectory of our social and moral evolution and demonstrates how far we've really come, especially over the past few centuries. Even with the horrors of the wars of the 20th century, the slope of violence and aggression in world societies has been on an accelerating decline. With a long and sordid history of war, genocide, murder, torture, infanticide, human sacrifice, witch burnings, corporal and capital punishment, slavery, child abuse, abduction, serial killing, violent crime, racism, discrimination and animal abuse, human civilization is indeed living in a different era.

He credits the increasing pacification of human civilization to a process of intellectual and social evolution that has driven us toward a more self aware, reason based, peacefully cooperative, morally fair existence. He shows that through the science of ideas, certain stabilizing forces and philosophies such as democracy, centralized government, open mass media, education, science, technology, feminism, trade and commerce have elevated the rights of the individual and expanded our circles of empathy making violence less sensical. He supplements this analysis with a look at the neuroscience behind human behavior via game theory and current psychological research demonstrating the physio and psychological mechanisms behind power, aggression, hatred, dominance, honor, revenge, social position, group think, cooperation and competition.

He shows how evolutionary biology explains the logic of violence and its genetic motivators but also how we're wired for empathy and cooperation. He walks us through a long, detailed history of social custom, symbolism, male dominance ritual and conflict and through a scientist's lens exposes the culprits in our biological and social dynamic that have been at the roots of aggression over time. He also examines how concepts such as glory, honor, valor, national pride, holy land, mother land, eternal good, utopia, pure evil and religious ideology have wrought more misery on human lives than any other forces. Although he acknowledges the role some religions had in promoting civilizing forces such as marriage, moral compass, self-restraint and love-of-fellow-man, he believes the negative side effects of male dominant religious ideology and jealous-god worship outweigh its benefits in a rational society.

Through man's difficult and often horrific journey over 5 milennia Pinker illuminates key modifiers, pressures and motivators that seem to have played both positive and negative roles in our harrowing trip to modern times. Pinker states that "...aggression is the output of several psychological systems that differ in their environmental triggers, their internal logic, their neurobiological basis and their social distribution."

He shows how our nature as highly social animals plays a critical role in what we choose to value. Citing various psychological research he demonstrates how differently individuals behave while in a group, often acting in complete opposition to what they personally believe in order to fit in, be accepted or move the apparent goals of the group forward. He shows the mechanisms behind mob rule, group think, loyalty to family, tribe and god and shows how these innate human characteristics can be manipulated to accept shockingly inhumane behavior on the part of individuals, tribes, nations and ideologies.

Pinker cites some of the more significant breakthroughs in our moral development such as during Europe's Enlightenment period in the 17th and 18th centuries which brought forth philosophers, writers and artists who challenged traditional thought and through reason and and rational analysis introduced new ideas regarding the rights of the individual. He also cites mid 20th century acts such as the Declaration of Human Rights which led to a cascade of Rights Revolutions including civil rights, women's rights, children's rights, homosexual rights and animal rights which continue to unfold to this day.

Pinker believes that those who claim that the 21st century western world, especially the US, has degraded into a pool of permissive, licentious immorality have their heads where the sun don't shine. He calls out the Republican right in the US and their warped sense of traditional values and romantic notions of a more civilized past and shows how their value score card is an archaic vestige of a different and LESS moral society. He shows the correlation between intelligence (especially abstract thinking), access to information, cosmopolitanism and moral behavior. He shows how and why "red state America" holds onto these antiquated mindsets and why the coasts and cities of the US are considered "blue", vote Democrat, and are more progressive.

Pinker doesn't predict the future and states that it can all come unraveling in an instant due to the unpredictability of egomaniacs and the volatility of religious extremists in unstable regions of the world, but he remains optimistic. He believes there is enough positive momentum due to six decades of expanding empathy and cooperation due to technology, mass communications, education and global trade to put the odds in our favor. He also believes there's evidence that IQs are increasing worldwide, particularly abstract reasoning intelligence. He references several studies that show IQ score increases from 1901 to the present in dozens of countries. He credits cognitive environmental effects (literacy) and secondarily possible genetic selection effects.

Pinker asks point blank if it's fair to say that our ancestors were morally retarded and he answers emphatically Yes! "Though they were surely decent people with perfectly functioning brains, the collective moral sophistication of the culture in which they lived was as primitive by modern standards as their mineral spas and patent medicines are by the medical standards of today. Many of their beliefs would be considered not just monstrous, but in a very real sense, stupid. They would not stand up to intellectual scrutiny as being consistent with other values they claimed to hold and they persisted only because the narrower intellectual spotlight of the day was not routinely shone on them."

Pinker's thesis for why violence has declined along with his forward optimism is derived from his perspective on evolutionary biology and its sub discipline neuropsychology. He believes because of homo sapiens' unique sociability, intelligence and communication skills we've adapted beyond the need for pervasive violence; it makes less sense. But through his convincing indictment of the culprits within our makeup he warns that civilization needs to maintain elaborate regulators within our social systems to keep our lesser angels in check.

*A full summary of this book is available here: An Executive Summary of Steven Pinker's 'The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined'

The main argument: We are fresh out of a century that featured two world wars often considered to be the most destructive in history (not to mention numerous inter-state, civil and tribal wars and genocides), and are persistently submerged in news coverage that features more than its fair share of military conflict, terrorism, murder, gang violence, rape, domestic violence, child abuse and animal cruelty. As such, we may be forgiven for thinking that human beings are at least as violent as ever, if not more so. Indeed, many are persuaded that the onset of civilization some 5000 years ago has had none but a de-civilizing effect on the world and its people, and has led to an increasing level of violence as state hierarchies have grown in size and complexity, and military technology has advanced.

However, in his new book `The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined', the Harvard scholar Steven Pinker argues that, all appearances to the contrary, an in depth look at the evidence reveals that violence has in fact decreased world-wide and in virtually every category we can think of since civilization began (albeit unevenly in both time and geography, and with a few blips along the way). The evidence comes not only from anecdotal and narrative tales but from an exhaustive look at the statistics, which is altogether very convincing.

Specifically, Pinker cites 6 historical shifts or trends that have brought with them a reduction in violence: 1) The Pacification Process: the shift from traditional hunting and gathering societies to state-run societies based on agriculture, which saw a drop in lives lost by all violent means, including both warfare and homicide (when adjusted for population sizes); 2) The Civilizing Process: the rise of kingdoms and the increase of global commerce, beginning at the end of the Middle Ages and extending into the 20th century, which saw another massive drop in homicide rates and other violent crime; 3) The Humanitarian Revolution: the rise of science and enlightenment values in the 17th and 18th centuries, extending into the 20th century, which has seen decreasing trends in religious wars, superstitious killings, slavery, torture, corporal punishment (including capital punishment), and animal cruelty; 4) The Long Peace: The post WWII period, which has seen a massive decrease in wars fought by and between the world's major powers; 5) The New Peace: the post Cold-War period, which (despite popular perceptions) has seen drops in inter-state war, civil war, genocide, and terrorism; and finally 6) The Rights Revolutions: the civil rights era in many Western cultures over the past 50-60 years, which has seen drops in both forgiving attitudes and violence connected to racial and religious intolerance, homophobia, and violence against women, children and animals.

In addition to this historical survey, Pinker also tackles the problem of trying to explain why this reduction in violence has taken place (each of these enterprises could fill a book unto itself, hence the generous length of the work--roughly 800 pages in all, and 700 before notes). The first key to understanding why violence has declined is to understand why it exists in the first place, and has been a prevalent feature of our past (and continues to exist in the present). Violent behaviour, Pinker argues, is partly the result of certain aspects of our human nature which incline us to behave violently under certain circumstances. These biological inclinations towards violence were laid down over the course of our evolutionary past as a result of their success in helping our ancestors survive and reproduce in the environment in which they evolved. In other words, the natural inclination to push others around (under certain circumstances) in order to get the good things of life (from a biological perspective) proved to be a successful strategy for our ancestors, and so was passed down to future generations, and ultimately us.

Pinker identifies 5 distinct motivators in the name of which violence is committed, each of which with its own unique or overlapping biological backing. These are the so-called inner demons of our nature, and they are 1) Predation: the desire to attain certain ends in the most straightforward route possible (mainly biological resources, such as food, and mates); 2) Dominance: the desire for status and prestige; 3) Revenge: the desire to avenge past insults and injuries; 4) Sadism: the fascination and appetite to witness, and even inflict, suffering upon others; and 5) Ideology: a susceptibility to belief in ideologies (which are often understood as justifying the sacrificing of people that stand in the way of their fulfillment).

While evolution may have equipped us with these motivations, as well as the inclination to use violence to attain them (under certain circumstances), evolution has also equipped us with other motivations and faculties that incline us away from violence, and towards peace and cooperation (again, under certain conditions). These are the so-called better angels of our nature and they are: 1) Empathy, in the sense of having sympathy and compassion for others; 2) Self-control: the ability to control our impulses; 3) A Moral Sense, which includes not just an innate appreciation of the golden rule, but other facets as well, such as a susceptibility to beliefs regarding purity, authority, and in-group cohesion. (It is important to note that not all expressions of the moral sense contribute to more peace (hint: see #3 & #5 in the `inner demons' section above); and finally 4) Reason, meaning the capacity to remove ourselves from our own parochial interests, and recognize each individual's interest as being fundamentally equivalent; and also the capacity to identify violence as a problem to be solved, rather than a game to be won, and the ability to offer up solutions with regards to how the problem might in fact be minimized.

The evidence that both our inner demons and our better angels are a part of our biological nature come from evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and a host of very intriguing psychological experiments, and is once again very convincing.

With regards to explaining why violence has decreased, Pinker points to the idea that in each of the historical shifts away from violence, some historical force (or forces) has acted to enhance the influence of our better angels at the expense of our inner demons. In other words, various environmental forces have worked to elicit the more peaceable side of our nature, and suppress the more violent one, thus leading to less violent behaviour. Pinker identifies 5 historic forces here. They are: 1) Leviathan: the monopoly of violence by the state, which has decreased the rewards of private individuals to resort to violence themselves, and whose efficacy improves as governments become less corrupt and more just towards their citizens; 2) Commerce: the increase in global commerce, which increases cooperation and reduces hostility between states; 3) Feminization: the increasing influence of women in the realms of politics and economics (as women are, by nature, less violent than men) 4) Cosmopolitanism: the increasing exposure to new ideas and other peoples afforded by increased mobility, literacy and media, which decreases parochialism, and increases the range of people for whom each of us feels sympathy; and which also allows for the progress of ideas, which leads us into the final historic force; 5) The Escalator of Reason: the ever accumulating body of knowledge and good judgement afforded by the application of human reason to our questions and problems, which has lessened our tendency to privilege our own interests over that of others; and which also allows us to see that the cycle of violence is destructive, and provides us with ways of reducing it.

This is the most important book of the past decade. A full summary of this book is available here: An Executive Summary of Steven Pinker's 'The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined'

I've been a Steven Pinker fan for awhile. He's one of those guys whose ideas are at the leading edge of knowledge, like Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins or the late Stephen Jay Gould - just brilliant thinkers.

The idea behind this book is that violence has declined in the modern era. Dr. Pinker claims that people think that violence is at higher levels than ever before. I don't know who gave him that idea, it was a no-brainer for me. I never once thought fondly about how it would have been to have lived during the wonderful old days of, say, the 13th century. If asked I'd have said that violence has decreased from historical levels without hesitation. Maybe that's because I have read some history and have come across Tuchman's Law. Regardless, I was along for the ride to hear Pinker's thoughts.

The first half of the book was a rambling effort to shock us with graphic examples of historical violence. This tour of historical atrocities didn't go anywhere. Objectively, Pinker was presenting the idea that violence has declined in this section, but since I was already on board with that idea and didn't need convincing, the book lagged badly for me. There were a number of unconvincing studies to show the author's point (a hundred students who did or said such and such). It was simply a catalog of inhumanity. Even worse, it seemed endless. About a third of the way through, I started calling him 'Pinker the Interminable' and almost put the book aside. But, there was one idea that redeemed the whole first half of the book and allowed me to put Pinker back up on his pedestal; the idea that the historical event that had the biggest impact on lowering violence was literacy. I hit my head with my hand and said "Of Course!" Think about it: reading puts us into another person's head - it's a huge advancement in learning empathy.

The second half of the book was very enjoyable and interesting. In this section, he covers historical and modern violence in a very organized way, addressing all the usual victims, one by one: human sacrifice, the inquisition, witch-burning, women, Jews, children and infanticide, homosexuals, etc. The one remaining eye-opener was how perpetrators of violence ALL think they had excellent and justifiable reasons for what they did. Whether they're child molesters or rapists or Nazis or the early religions or serial killers, they all justify their actions and think they did it for the common good - or at the very least should be excused from going to jail because their moms didn't love them enough. On the other hand, when violence is done to us, we invariable see it as an unparalleled atrocity done by the truly evil. I'm not explaining that as well as Pinker does.

In the end, it was a rewarding reading experience and well worth my time. I suspect many of the poor reviews were people who gave up in that first half.

A week and a half later: I have to say it left a lasting impression on me that will color my thinking for a long time. At the time, it wasn't pleasant to hear how truly and wretchedly horrible people have been to each other, but in the aftermath it has been a game changer or maybe paradigm changer for me. I realize his graphic examples of historic violence have actually changed my view of my species. The book has had a bigger impact on my than I realized.

Btw, Pinker gave a TED talk on this book. If you're interested, just google 'TED talks' and then type Pinker's name in the search box on the site. Amazon won't let us publish links.

Addendum: I realized there's a flaw in Pinker's thesis that literacy taught people empathy. Women, who weren't allowed to become literate were still, in centuries past, considered the "gentle" sex and we have a thousand historical documents and paintings and songs who characterized these illiterate women as nurturers or gentle beings. I don't think that dog will run after consideration.

From Black Dungeon of Violence to the Lofty Heights of a Peaceable Era--for Now

Many complex life forms have used a life strategy of cooperation, and this has been especially true of socially disposed Homo sapiens. A theory of mind, moral sense, intricate emotion package, superior forethought--all , combine to make humans a complex social being capable of avoiding the zero sum character of violence . Add with these attributes a civilizing process-- and a generous portion of gentle commerce, a dash of democratic government, and a thick slice of Enlightenment ideas through the published word--and one forms a ready recipe for a non violent world. With such, western civilization gradually made humanitarian reforms: gloved fist and blunted foil replaced gladiatorial battle axe; Adlerian therapy sessions for the criminal replaced breaking him on the wheel. Indeed, although still as wired for violence as ever, the better angels of our nature--empathy, self-control, moral sense, fairness, reason--have overtaken our more negative makeup.

At least, so says Steven Pinker's, much discussed book, The Better Angels of Our Nature. In this stout 800 page book--full of graphs and figures and 200 pages of notes-- he reveals to the scoffer, who suffers from historical myopia, how violence has drastically declined over history.

Pinker sets the process out through several sections. After presenting a perceptual contrast between present peaceful times and the profoundly violent archaic times of non-state societies, he examines six major declines of violence: The Pacification Process, The Civilizing Process, The Humanitarian Revolution, The Long Peace, The New Peace, The Rights Revolution. I will let the earnest reader discover for himself the fascinating particulars and engrossing historical details that Pinker devotes 700 pages, but some important points from the book can be stated and given interesting comment. I'll begin with a few contributors to non violence and conclude with couple of things that keep it going:

*Civilization and the consolidation of central states were important steps toward lessening violence.

As civilization emerged, tribes coalesced into chiefdoms and villages grew into city-states. Rulers, annoyed and hampered by domestic aggression and feuding, implemented their own brand of criminal justice and attempted to monopolize the violence. Justice, uniformly administered and consistently enforced, allowed for efficient governing while cutting down the causes of violence--predation, self defense, revenge. (These 3 causes come from Thomas Hobbes' book, Leviathan, and Pinker gives a good discussion of these.) The consolidation of petty states and fiefdoms into central states brought long stretches of relative peace. These "paxes" allowed centralized states to build an infrastructure of commerce, finance, and transportation improvements. Economic systems with smooth operating commerce and trade meant those involved had to give consideration to the intentions and desires of the other. Certainly, one would not exploit someone he must deal with routinely and expect good business from them. Moreover, these improvements, along with the nationalizing of jurisprudence, made plunder more risky and less profitable than trade.

* The Enlightenment and ease of printing was a significant step towards non violence.

Ideas from The Age of Reason and The Enlightenment flourished with the catalyzing effects of publishing. After Gutenberg's invention of mechanical movable type, printing became easy and books multiplied. Ideas began to spread like never before, and the reader so influenced changed habits of thought and action. On the scene came new or improved forms of literature: the Montaigne type essay, scientific treatise, political pamphlet, the novel. Of these, notable was the sentimental novel, which became endemic in the age of Reason, where the captivated reader might tremble in fear, shudder in disgust, and snigger out loud with the lead character's experience. Make believe or not, people sympathize with the individuals as the pages turn and the plot unfolds. So, the novel as a literary genre fostered habits of taking others position--perspective taking. Many came to the realization that folks outside family, friends and community are just like them.

The published word, along with widespread trade, made a variety of views available, and made cosmopolitism prevalent and fashionable. (People noted the cultural values of people east of Christendom). Soon enough, Europe witnessed the end of the slave trade, and carried out humanitarian reforms such as the abolition of judicial torture. Humanitarianism like this required a shifting in moral relational foundations.

The effect of cosmopolitism and the influence of the philosophe was a moral trend away from Divine authority and sanctity, while success of the individual and self-sufficiency grew in emphasis. Together with democratic views, the "Republic of Letters" (as the starring Enlighten establishment were also known) promoted science and the application of reason to all questions. Religious experience and authority was found suspect and it was criticized. Few were atheists, many were Deists, but nearly all harbored an existential worldview which emphasized living and that dismissed concern for the soul and the hereafter. This emphasis led to a greater regard for the suffering sentient being, and humanitarian reform soon marched onward--ever taking the high ground--reaching the Rights Revolution and beyond.

*The cultural morality and taboo structure that guide ethical belief and behavior has retracted from traditional spheres to produce a reduction of violence.

Pinker discusses, at some length, Shweder's Ethics, Haidt's Moral Foundations, and Fiske's Relational Models. People within a culture have universal traits including moral. Yet, a people's moral repertoire follows a structure that guides the "super-ego" and molds the mentality of taboo. It tells one what immoral acts are disgusting and sets what infractions are punishable. A tribal society from Old Testament times can be examined to illustrate a culture where the moral relational model encourages violent ways--typical of most cultures until recently. These were a herding people that felt guided by the dictates of a sacred God. The authority of God and the patriarchal head was held in sanctity as well as the In-group loyalty to family and clan. These were collective societies, hierarchical in structure, where members were hair-wired sensitive to questions of honor. Highest regard was given first to the family head, then, the Patriarch's brothers--then his sons. Considered property and possessing little as far as rights, were the female members of the community. In Fiske's relational models, this tribal morality structure is labeled Communal sharing. Their circle of empathy was a narrow one, and if one is not of their kin, violation of moral codes is especially tough and unforgiving. Wars were chronic and severe and those involved were prone to committing heavy carnage on the outside group. Presently, the Islamic fundamentalist found in "the war on terror" epitomizes this Communal Sharing/Authority Ranking model.

Contrastly, there is the modern European society, in Fiske's relational model it is labeled Equality Matching/ Market Pricing/ Rational Legal, where people believe in fairness and reciprocity, and they value the cultivation of kindness and compassion. Not surprisingly, they find aggression repulsive. Such societies are feminized (A world without testosterone would be a world that studied war no more.) Moreover, this moral relational model, as practiced by Europeans, place little stock in divine guidance or religious practice. The world, according to Pinker, is turning into the latter relational model. America, however, is a blend of several models, though it too is gradually retracting from the traditional spheres.

- Religious morality and political ideology often are deleterious to a peaceful world.

Morality and political ideology are packaged in their own scared belief system. Religion, Pinker suggests, is only partially conducive to creating a peaceful world. Often, it is the reason violence cycles onward. With the sway of religious authority behind them, the believer will see heaven as a paradise infinitely good, and one can justify any means to that precious end. If it gets the wayward soul to heaven to torture him or massacre his friends, it is worth the effort to do it. If in a war with a heretical or infidel country, one cannot compromise with the enemy because it would risk the chance of getting to the promise land. (So, war goes without end.) To commit martyrdom or suicide to get oneself and family to blessed eternity is worth the act. If you look at history, it is apparent that religious zealotry was the cause of many a conflict: religious war, crusaders, heretic abuse, inquisitions, burning at the stake and massacres.

Still, ideology has been more than equal to religion in killing and harming people. The Enlightenment, after the French Reign of Terror, sparked a reaction against it with the Counter-Enlightenment. Rationality was played down while emotion was played up. Political pursuit oriented toward seeking the perfection of man and the building of an utopia, and it was a goal worth everything. Like the religious zealots, they too desired to reach a heaven that was infinitely good--but, this one on earth. All persons in opposition were considered evil. Like the desperate worshiper, it was permissible to carry out any means to reach the goal. Eliminate those that bar the way but encourage the doubter to believe. Bloody Napoleonic Wars, Nazi and Stalinist death camps, Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution--all followed counter Enlightenment ideals--all sought utopia.

-Any loss of government administration or consistent application of law and order will quickly return a society to a world of violence.

One need only to see the anarchy of banana republics, or African countries that, just decades ago, broke from European colonization to see chronic civil wars, coup d'états, and chaos. Too, when sub cultures, such as criminal gangs, cannot turn to the state for enforcement of law, their isolated territory returns to the days of non-state societies: becoming rife with predation, preemptive attacks, retaliation and the seeking of dominance over an adversary. We are wired for violence and it takes little to reveal the devil in our nature.

I discussed just a small number of salient points composing the content of his book; but, far from being unsupportable speculation, the thesis stands the test of his evidence. Indubitably, the book is grounded on data that would interest the serious historiographer, social psychologist, and political scientist. Although I thought there were too many graphs and too few pictures, it was a wonderful read.

”今”を生きる我々は、20世紀の二つの大戦を筆頭とする戦争、紛争、内乱、暴力の歴史、冷戦後の世界の新たな混迷を目の当たりにしてきて、つい「昔は良かった／良かったんじゃないか」的なノスタルジアや、「長い歴史の中で、人類は発展、進化すればするほど、破壊的、暴力的になってきている／なっていくんじゃないか」という悲観的な考えをどこか持っている。

しかし、ピンカーは、人類は、過去（昔）いかに暴力的であったか、しかも、それがいかに残酷、凄惨、身近なものであったか？　そして、それが、長い年月／歴史の中で、長期的視点で、いかに”量的”、”質的”に劇的に減少／低下してきているか、なぜそうなってきたのか？を、豊富なデータとあらゆる角度からのアプローチで検証し説明しきっている。。。まさに大作である。

「なぜそうなってきたのか？」をしっかり認識することが、現代社会を形作っている我々一人一人にとって重要だと痛感させられた1冊。

総数約800頁、本編部分だけでも700頁に達っし、一部、自分に縁遠い分野の単語も出てくるので、読破するのに1ヶ月強と時間は要したが、文章は平易で、内容は興味深くカロリー満点であるため、飽きずに快読。

この本に限らずだが、英語原著で読むことを敬遠する人が多いかもしれないが、著者が訴えたいことを直接感じれる。少しでも、歴史、社会、政治等々に興味のある方には、是非おすすめしたい1冊である。

著者に感謝。

A very thought provoking and extremely well researched book. I'd love to know if the author's opinions have altered at all with the dramatic changes in world affairs since this book was published.

Just perfect.

Good news, folks. Violence has been declining. We are getting kinder and gentler as a species. That doesn't just go for us in the West. Critics who have accused Pinker of only focusing on advanced countries are mistaken. He shows the decline of violence is across the board: war, genocide, terrorism, riots, and homicide. The trend was and is led by Western Europe but wasn't and isn't confined there. It is not a uniform progress and regression has, can and will happen but just because journalists have missed it, that doesn't mean it isn't so.

Pinker has noticed it and others have, too. But for the first time we have a book that has compiled and interpreted the works of anthropologists, political scientists, historians, neuroscientists, psychologists and many others to tell a story that is as gripping as a murder-mystery, albeit one in which the mystery is why the bodies are not piling up.

It is impossible to do this book justice in a review. The argument is nuanced and works on many levels. A variety of factors account for this decline, but to summarise: humans living in a state of nature (i.e. before the state) were not necessarily brutish, but led lives that short, and led lives far likelier to be cut short by war or homicide. The rise of the state, Hobbes' Leviathan, begins a pacification process, which is achieved by imposing an impersonal system of justice on its subjects. The law of the state may be an ass, but it is a disinterested ass. It curbs vigilantism and imposes peace. Hence murder rates in England have dropped from 100 in 100,000 of the population in the 14th Century to 1 in 100,000 in the 20th. Similar drops extended to most of Western Europe and gradually to the United States. This trend, despite the current Great Recession, continues to drive violence down.

The rise of the Leviathan is a necessary but not sufficient condition. The state itself perpetrated numerous horrors, burning heretics and witches at the stake, slavery, genocide, capital punishment and torture of the grisliest kind, and in public. The state itself had to be pacified.

Pacification is complemented by a normative shift: the humanitarian and rights revolutions. The humanitarian revolutions arose out of the rationalist and Enlightenment philosophies that inspected established practices in the light of reason, and demanded justifications for the supposed goods these practices were supposed to serve. The rights revolutions of the second half of the 20th Century, with campaigns for sexual and racial equality, to curb violence against women and children and even animals, cemented earlier accomplishments.

So the decline of violence is two fold. It's down to institutions in part but it's also down to moral progress, a widening of the circle of empathy and sympathy. Empathy alone is not enough. One can have plenty of empathy and sympathy for those of one's own tribe, but still embark on a dawn raid against the neighbouring tribe on the other side of the river and think oneself no worse for it. The testimonies of former slaves did much to turn opinion against the institution in the 18th and 19th Centuries for example. But for this to happen, reason needs to make the bridge and subject oppressive and violent practices to critical scrutiny.

It is fashionable to denigrate the accomplishments of the Enlightenment. If you are one of those people, then ask yourself these questions: would you justify the reestablishment of slavery? Which is the better way to establish guilt or innocence - trial by jury or trial by fire? If someone told you that a child's epileptic fit was the devil's work, would you be appalled? If you are appalled, and you wouldn't dream of justifying slavery or trial by fire, then you are a child of the Enlightenment as much as I am. And the fact that you are partially accounts for the decline of violence, for it demonstrates that both you and I can be reasoned with.

We humans share a common nature, and that nature is partially given to violence. Pinker does not say that we walk around seething with a murderous rage like the zombies in the film `28 Days Later'. It's a lot more complicated than that. Violence can be predatory or sadistic but in certain circumstances it can be rational. A preemptive strike to neutralise a perceived aggressor is a case in point. Violence can be motivated for moral reasons, because a taboo has been violated, or to exact revenge for an injustice suffered. Epithets like the `Killer Ape' with all its connotations of mindless bloodlust are too crude.

But that is not the entire story, as you can infer from the title of the book. We have the power of reason, of sympathy, of being able to transcend our parochial tribal perspective and see things from a disinterested point of view, from the viewpoint of others, to assess and predict the consequences of our actions and reflect accordingly. The evidence Pinker presents is that this aspect of our nature has strengthened over time and this is a result of both the development of institutions and the rise of progressive ideas.

But this is a simplified summary that I fear does little justice to the richness of this book. There is much, much more that can be said. The discussions of the long peace, the decline of genocide, riots and terrorism, fascinating discussions about what actually occurs in the brain when we are in thrall to both our better and our worse angels, discussions as to why it is considered rude to eat off a knife at the dinner table, discussions of why democracies do not go to war with each other, discussions of how trade fosters peace. There is a scarcely a dull sentence in this book.

You may think that this is Whiggish nonsense. You may well recoil from a claim that violence is in decline. It certainly has not vanished. But, over the long term, it has declined. Whether this will carry on is, of course a moot point. This book tells us what has happened, but cannot tell us whether it will continue to happen. But, in the last analysis, the fundamental point of the book is to show that, despite our inherent propensity for violence, our better angels can and do get the upper hand over our inner demons. This is good news, is it not?

This is the second time in a short while that I've read a book by a famous psychologist that turned their attention to a new topic- evil/violence. This time it's Steven Pinker, a cognitive/evolutionary/linguistic psychologist, who decides to turn to the topic of evil and violence. The result is, in my opinion, a really good piece of work. The scope of the topics covered is reflected in its 700+ page length, with around 30 pages (small font) of references. Clearly, if nothing else, Pinker has done a LOT of reading on the topic. Briefly, the book argues that human violence has declined over time and outlines social and psychological reasons why that's so.

Almost the first half of the book is spent discussing the evidence for how violence has declined in the form of homicides, torture, war, genocide, and terrorism. Frankly, as someone who's read a lot of anthropological accounts of violence, as well as historical accounts, I didn't need to be convinced of this. We live in a candy cake la-la land compared to just about any of our ancestors. The section on torture alone is enough to make your toes curl. Water-boarding in Gitmo was (is?) terrible, but it's a walk in the park compared to the regular torture methods of medieval Europe. Or the Mongols, Huron, Iroquois, Aztecs, etc. War, especially larger wars, have all but disappeared since WW2. For all these data, Pinker tries to offer explanations why. For example, Pinker is reluctant to give much credit to nukes for the drop in wars since WW2, but I have to disagree with him here. Nukes bring something to the table that's entirely new- Mutually Assured Destruction. They take the uncertainty out of war (e.g, Hitler's Soviet gamble) and replace it with certain death for both winner and loser. No thanks!

Overall, Pinker points to three main social forces driving these drops in violence. First, reason as a result of The Enlightenment. In the face of reason, violence generally seems wasteful, futile, and/or morally questionable. No doubt that's had a significant effect. It's hard to argue that being more educated, more thoughtful, and more rational aren't related to lower average levels of violence. Second, the Leviathan of the state has usurped the need for people to defend themselves with lethal violence, allowing for much lower levels of overall violence. This removes a lot of incentives for homicides, particular over honor (which Daly & Wilson have shown to be so powerful). Finally, democracy and commerce have opened up countries within themselves and made them more open and dependent on others. Commerce is not a zero-sum game, so it's in everyone's interest to trade rather than to fight. "Make money, not war" is a quote from the book. This is all very Hobbesian. It's also very obvious to me. Like a lot of Canadians, I question why we are spending money on a stealth fighter when the only people we'd need a supersonic stealthy jet against are either our neighbors, serious trading partners, or have nukes to retaliate with. For the same reason, I find that the talk of a US/China war in the future is ridiculous. Who would buy China's goods and who would hold US debt? Not to mention that if one got a serious upper hand the other could just nuke them to even the score. It's silly to even think about.

The rest of the book focuses on psychological reasons behind individual behaviors that have led to this drop in violence. This section of the book is adequate, and certainly covers the major social and evolutionary psychology theories of violent behavior. But I wish more of the book focused on this, as we have much better experimental data on things like Milgram's study than we do on the causes of 18th/19th Century wars. I also wish this area had been fleshed out more, as ultimately, the causes of wars, homicides, and other kinds of violence are individual human beings. Only by understanding individuals can we fully understand the larger forces that also contribute to violence. Pinker does make some tentative hints about the future, but generally notes that explaining the past is hard enough without trying to explain the future. I'd argue that a good theory is predictive as well as explanatory, so this is a bit of a cop-out in my opinion, even though he does offer modest predictions. So it's a humble cop-out, given the scope of the topic, the difficulty of prediction, and his newness to it, but still a bit of a cop-out.

Overall then, this is a very good book that is packed with data. I'm sure just about anyone who reads it will find statistics, arguments, and/or theories they don't quite agree with. I certainly did. There's also areas I'm sure you'll feel could have been better explained. I certainly did too. But the sheer amount of information and explanatory effort, combined with a relatively open and honest scientific/historical approach to the topic makes this a very good read indeed. Whether you agree 80-90% with Pinker (like me) or more like 50-60% with him, there's a lot of meat on the bone here to work over in one's mind. And as Pinker notes, "blood sells" when it comes to media. Violence is a topic that interests almost everyone, and for very good reason- we don't want to be victims of it! This book offers two great antidotes for that fear. First, we live in what is overall the most peaceful period of human history. Second, the book offers some really solid numbers and theories into which people can sink their rational teeth and start seriously thinking about the topic. Because as good as the trend has been, I think we'd all agree that we'd like to see serious violence (i.e., much more than a good hockey hit) continue trending all the way down to zero!