Enlightenment Now

Around a year or so ago I recommended a book called Progress by Johan Norberg. Well, I have recently read another book which is on a similar theme but is more expansive and for me more impactful.

This book is called “Enlightenment Now” by Steven Pinker – it is a large book and might not be the sort of book you take on holiday but time spent absorbing the messages this book sends is time well spent.

What I particularly like are the sections where the author debunks most of the negative information we receive from the conventional media on a daily basis. One of my favourite sections is where to book states the media could have said: “number of people in extreme poverty fell by 137,000 since yesterday” every day for the last twenty-five years.

The author is realistic in that there are clearly issues we face (with climate change being the major one) but he provides balanced viewpoints on how we may deal with these.

This book is not about blind optimism either with a section from the book reading;

“The economist Paul Romer distinguishes between complacent optimism, the feeling of a child waiting for presents on Christmas morning, and conditional optimism, the feeling of a child who wants a treehouse and realises that if he gets some wood and nails and persuades other kids to help him, he can build one”

So if you fancy a thoughtful, thought-provoking and feel good book all rolled into one this does it all.

Have a great weekend
 
Neil

Share this post