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    The better angels of our nature : why violence has declined / Steven Pinker.

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    • Title:The better angels of our nature : why violence has declined / Steven Pinker.
    •    
    • Variant Title:Why violence has declined
    • Author/Creator:Pinker, Steven, 1954-
    • Published/Created:New York, New York : Penguin Books, 2012.
      ©2011

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    • Library of Congress Subjects:Violence--Psychological aspects.
      Violence--Social aspects.
      Nonviolence--Psychological aspects.
    • Medical Subjects: Psychology, Social
      Social Conditions--history
      Violence--psychology
    • Description:xxviii, 802 pages : illustrations, maps, charts ; 23 cm
    • Summary:Overview: 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' 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.
    • Notes:Originally published in hardcover in 2011 by Viking.
      Includes bibliographical references (pages 697-771) and index.
    • ISBN:9780143122012 (pbk.) :
      0143122010 (pbk.) :
    • Contents:List of figures
      Preface
      Foreign Country:
      Human prehistory
      Homeric Greece
      Hebrew bible
      Roman Empire and early Christendom
      Medieval knights
      Early modern Europe
      Honor in Europe and the early United States
      20th century
      Pacification process:
      Logic of violence
      Violence in human ancestors
      Kinds of human societies
      Rates of violence in state and nonstate societies
      Civilization and its discontents
      Civilizing Process:
      European homicide decline
      Explaining the European homicide decline
      Violence and class
      Violence around the world
      Violence in these United States
      Decivilization in the 1960s
      Recivilization in the 1990s
      Humanitarian Revolution:
      Superstitious killing: human sacrifice, witchcraft, and blood libel
      Superstitious killing: violence against blasphemers, heretics, and apostates
      Cruel and unusual punishments
      Capital punishment
      Slavery
      Despotism and political violence
      Major war
      Whence the humanitarian revolution?
      Rise of empathy and the regard for human life
      Republic of letters and enlightenment humanism
      Civilization and enlightenment
      Blood and soil
      Long Peace:
      Statistics and narratives
      Was the 20th century really the worst?
      Statistics Of Deadly Quarrels, Part 1: Timing of wars
      Statistics Of Deadly Quarrels, Part 2: Magnitude of wars
      Trajectory of great power war
      Trajectory of European war
      Hobbesian background and the ages of dynasties and religious
      Three currents in the age of sovereignty
      Counter-enlightenment ideologies and the age of nationalism
      Humanism and totalitarianism in the age of ideology
      Long Peace: Some numbers
      Long Peace: Attitudes and events
      Is the long peace a nuclear peace?
      Is the long peace a democratic peace?
      Is the long peace a liberal peace?
      Is the long peace a Kantian peace?
      New Peace:
      Trajectory of war in the rest of the world
      Trajectory of genocide
      Trajectory of terrorism
      Where angels fear to tread
      Rights Revolutions:
      Civil rights and the decline of lynching and racial pogroms
      Women's rights and the decline of rape and battering
      Children's rights and the decline of infanticide, spanking, child abuse, and bullying
      Gay rights, the decline of gay-bashing, and the decriminalization of homosexuality
      Animal rights and the decline of cruelty of animals
      Whence the rights revolutions?
      From history to psychology
      Inner Demons:
      Dark side
      Moralization gap and the myth of pure evil
      Organs of violence
      Predation
      Dominance
      Revenge
      Sadism
      Ideology
      Pure evil, inner demons, and the decline of violence
      Better Angles:
      Empathy
      Self-control
      Recent biological evolution?
      Morality and taboo
      Reason
      On Angel's Wings:
      Important but inconsistent
      Pacifist's dilemma
      Leviathan
      Gentle commerce
      Feminization
      Expanding circle
      Escalator of reason
      Reflections
      Notes
      References Index.
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