• The Better Angels of Our Nature

  • Why Violence Has Declined
  • By: Steven Pinker
  • Narrated by: Arthur Morey
  • Length: 36 hrs and 39 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (6,307 ratings)

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The Better Angels of Our Nature  By  cover art

The Better Angels of Our Nature

By: Steven Pinker
Narrated by: Arthur Morey
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Publisher's summary

“If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this - the most inspiring book I've ever read." - Bill Gates (May, 2017)

Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year

The author of Enlightenment Now and The New York Times bestseller The Stuff of Thought offers a controversial history of violence.

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence. For most of history, war, slavery, infanticide, child abuse, assassinations, programs, 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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2011 by Steven Pinker. (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

What listeners say about The Better Angels of Our Nature

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Probably the best book I have ever read.

What did you love best about The Better Angels of Our Nature?

The book changed the way I look at the world. I had false preconceptions about the changing nature of violence through out history and where we are today. The book opened my eyes to how we really are progressing better and gives me hope about the future. The book is probably the book that has changed my world view more than any other book. Pinker's "The Blank Slate" also changed my world view. That book also opened my eyes to the false preconceptions I had developed while growing up about man. And to show that I'm not a Pinker sycophant, I would just only moderately recommend Pinker's 'How the Mind Works".

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A feel good book...for sure!

If the condition of the world is getting you down than you must listen to this wonderfully researched and written font of knowledge! I have listened to this book several times and cannot give Mr. Pinker enough praise. Steven Pinker leads you down a time line of well researched information and statistics on man's journey from brute to civilized and caring creature. I must recommend this work to all parents as it is a great relief to find that our world, and the world that we are leaving our children, is not the death trap of misery the news media and powers that be lead us, and want us, to believe. It is a long read, but a wonderful read, and I hope it reaches a great number of people. As I said before, I recommend it to all.

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Somewhat misnamed

This book is advertised as being a hopeful book about how violence is decreasing in society. In practice it becomes a lurid celebration of the most horrifying aspects of human nature. It is a very well researched and organized book. However, I finally could not continue with it after the fifteen minute mark of obsessively detailed, almost fetishized descriptions of medieval torture and dismemberment techniques.

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A flimsy debate

Any additional comments?

I wish I could say I was surprised by this fascist diatribe masquerading as a scholarly work. What does surprise me is the praise heaped upon it by critics who should know better.The author's main assumption that violence has declined is a sound theory, backed by credible data. It seems almost self explanatory for a student of history. It's when the writer tries to explain modern changes in violent behavior that his political aims show through.The author attests that the decline in violence after the 1980s was caused by increased rates of imprisonment, and the tightening up of social norms after the 1960s. Yet, as the author points out himself, most of the rest of the world saw a decline in violence without an increase in incarceration as we had in the US. He gives this only a hand wave, and says it doesn't really mean anything. Except it does. Second, he provides no data whatsoever about changes in social norms. I would bet that he would find an increased liberalization of social conventions across the board, if he ever bothered to check. But since that doesn't fit his theory, it is easily ignored. All data and historical evidence supports the writer's main thesis, that violence had declined. However, he really needs to go back and really think about his theories of causation. Which I suspect her will not because they do not fit his political agenda.It's really a shame because he is an engaging author, and knows how to get a point across.

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For those who love torture and gore.

This book loving depicts every horrible torture and sadistic punishment in the history of humanity. The author does mention how nice it is that we do not approve of these things today. However he then goes on to depict these horrors in great detail -- hour after hour. He is clearly fixated on all the ways we can torture people to death and takes great pains to describe every detail. He wastes little time in explaining how these tortures fell out of fashion. I finally just turned it off and deleted it. Only a sadist would like this book

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excellent Audio

Its a great experience listening this Audio Book, Now I am hooed with Audio book

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My Historian friends were right...

...Steven Pinker is a hack. Steven Pinker spends the majority of the book covering the revolutionary thesis that we have made progress? How does he do this? By describing in multiple accounts in vivid detail medieval tortures. I'm done reading Pinker.

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Ok, ok, I get it. You're an atheist and a pacifist

I was intrigued by the premise, but after 20 minutes of listening to the inflammatory rhetoric chosen by the author for certain topics, I could not continue to listen with any expectation the the information provided was objectively gathered, interpreted, or documented. I'm not one to take the Bible literally, but the author's hostility and condescension toward Christianity is palpable. He makes it clear that he does not believe, which is fine, but then goes on to criticize the myths. For instance, he chooses to say that Sodom was annihilated for anal sex and similar sins, that Lot's wife was "executed" for the crime of turning her head, and that the ten commandments mandate the death penalty for sins like children talking back to their parents. I've listened to plenty of books written by atheist scientists. This was the first one that I had to fast forward through due to the author's tone and word choices. I wasn't holding my breath for a chapter on Islam or Hinduism, and wasn't surprised when the Christianity bashing ended without a segway to any other religion. The next chapter described honor as a concept that exists because everyone thinks that everyone else thinks that it exists. Then spankings were discussed. First, some parents even removed the pants and underwear to "maximize pain and humiliation." Spankings with a belt were described as "floggings." Other disciplinary measures "intended to inflict pain" include washing a mouth out with soap or sending a child to bed without dinner.

That's as far as I got. At that point I was certain that the author was unable to be nuetral or objective, and I was unwilling to subject myself to 36 more
hours of his opinion.

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Talk about violence.

This is one of the most violent books I have ever read. I would think an audience who desired to read about the decline in violence wouldn't be interested in the gory details of historical torture and ill will of mankind (interesting word) against our own. Honestly, I couldn't finish the book - it was just to awful to take in. My only other comment is the author has to do an occasional dig against conservatives. If I want to buy a book about your political opinions then title one that way so I know what I am getting. When an author does this either way I am less inclined to every purchase another book they write.

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An overall good books with a few caveats

Steven Pinker does use a lot of time to in almost all cases very thoroughly argue his points, most of them I think seem very solidly founded, and more than that, different theories and explanations are frequently discussed and I think given a quite fair observation.

This is all very laudable for a popular science book, which this of course ultimately is.

I admit, I frequently felt the wish to examine some of his sources, I do wish there maybe was a pdf with lists of references and such included, but to be fair, that is likely expecting too much (Many popular science podcasts will nowadays be meticulous about linking sources, so I may be spoiled there).

I do want to point to a couple of points that I found to leave me unconvinced or critical:

1. The problem of historic and prehistoric data:
This is more minor, because I felt that Steven Pinker was pointing out sufficiently, that there are problems with this, but as someone who has taken a good amount of courses in prehistory, I want to strongly stress that any observation of prehistoric violence is HIGHLY speculative.
We have a limited archeological record, one that only shows a fraction of the population of its day. We are limited in how accurately we can asses details about day to day life that transcend the pure material record.
As an example, Ötzi, a quite famous neolithic ice mummy is discussed, and Pinker goes with a single interpretation of his cause of death and reconstructed life, without, as I think, sufficiently making it clear that this theory is not without competitors. He portrays him as being a raider, frankly, we do not know that, neither whether it is true, nor whether it can be seen as unlikely.
And this also goes for preserved bodies found in bogs.
There is a lot of uncertainty in this area which, frankly, makes any quantifying of data on violence very unreliable.
Similarly, ethnographic parallels, using contemporary hunter gatherer cultures and similar to understand prehistoric cultures is a method with several flaws, some of which are thankflly addressed in the book.

2. Historic phenomena being discussed:
Sometimes the book will discuss certain historical practices to argue its claim without, I think, sufficiently providing a nuanced view on them.
I shall use the example of the with hunts and witch trials which Pinker mentions in his books. The height of witch trials falls in the same era as the Renaissance, and in this context, I think it might have been useful, for understanding the phenomenon, to look at how people tried to rationalize it. There is quite some interesting information on arguments about witchcraft, like the the question of whether it was "real", or whether it consisted of what we today would call hallucinations and similar psychological effects.
Pinker instead presents a rather simplistic model of "crazy superstition" - an also fails to mention the strongly ambivalent role the church played in it. More than one pope illegalized witch trials, unsurprisingly denouncing the idea of witches as scapegoats for famines and other natural disasters.
I do feel that it is at least a fair argument to point out that something like that at least gives the impression of deliberately using this portrayal to enhance the impression of historic inhumanity and irrationality.
This does not quite sit well with me.

3. The feminization hypothesis for the reduction in violence:
Steven Pinker does mention his believe in women / femininity / the emancipation of women being a causal factor in reducing violence.
I am rather critical here mostly because I feel that he gives much less alternative interpretations, facts, detailed arguments and data for this than for many other claims.
Steven Pinker often is very methodical about pointing out the danger of misinterpreting correlation as causation, he does not show the same rigor when it comes to this theory.
More than that, when he describes states basing social systems strongly on authority ranking - and then also using the same model for marriage and family relations, by his own logic,he would be forced to identify men as a pacifying force in part responsible for the lower rate of violence in women - while making the contrary claim.
I think that had he given more space to a nuanced view on this theory, he could at least have addressed inconsistencies like this or made a better case for it, but frankly I think he overall fails to make an argument for feminism, women's rights and similar being a cause of reduction of violence, instead of being a positive consequence of the factors responsible for providing us with better living standards on the whole.
His reasoning seems more ideological than factual here, and that is I think a problem in a scientist.

In conclusion, I still think this is a good book which provides interesting and useful information and is definitely worth your time, but I strongly advise a critical attitude.
Steven Pinker definitely seems to be correct in his overall thesis, but I feel much less convinced when it comes at some of his explanations for this trend.

Lastly, the narration is clear, easy to listen to and well suited for a scientific book, I would rate it as a great production.

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