The Rational Optimist

How Prosperity Evolves

By: Matt Ridley

Narrated by: L. J. Ganser

Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

Life is getting better at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down all across the globe. Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; population growth is slowing; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people's lives as never before.

The pessimists who dominate public discourse insist that we will soon reach a turning point and things will start to get worse. But they have been saying this for 200 years.

Yet Matt Ridley does more than describe how things are getting better. He explains why. Prosperity comes from everybody working for everybody else. The habit of exchange and specialization, which started more than 100,000 years ago, has created a collective brain that sets human living standards on a rising trend. The mutual dependence, trust, and sharing that result are causes for hope, not despair.

This bold book covers the entire sweep of human history, from the Stone Age to the Internet, from the stagnation of the Ming empire to the invention of the steam engine, from the population explosion to the likely consequences of climate change. It ends with a confident assertion that thanks to the ceaseless capacity of the human race for innovative change, and despite inevitable disasters along the way, the 21st century will see both human prosperity and natural biodiversity enhanced. Acute, refreshing, and revelatory, The Rational Optimist will change your way of thinking about the world for the better.

©2010 Matt Ridley (P)2010 HarperCollins Publishers

One of my 20 lifetime most useful reads

Rarely do you have the pleasure of a writer who quotes and synthesizes archaeology, economics,, anthropology,, biochemistry, history and law to weave a tale as amusing as it is inspiring.

A different view of human history

Forget all those great battles and rulers! What was really important was the commercial interchange among people. Read at least the Introduction, and I’ll bet you finish the book.
The middle can (and probably should) be skipped as it is just too many pages without much to make you think, but overall this book may change the way you understand our history.

A fresh breath of air from 24 hours News

it is a good analysis with historical context for the realest optimist person that believe in long-term success and does not focus on the short term 24/7 news cycle. I would recommend this book to whoever is worried about current events and current times.

When Rational wisdom becomes beautiful

I believe this book is a must read to understand our human collective civilization evolution.
You will learn allot from it..

A rational response to chicken little

Wow. After listening to this book for a third time in the last year, I decided I needed to write a review.

This book provides a well constructed, reasonable walk through time to give the reader some true perspective about our current condition relative to all those that have come before us.

At a time when media coverage is based around telling us what's wrong with us, our planet and our country, this book provides a practical antidote. Part historical narrative, part social anthropological study and part defense for science, technology and capitalism, this should be required reading for every high school student so they have something to balance their exposure to an almost completely reactionary media without any historical perspective.

It's true, there is a reason to believe mankind has a bright future! Who knew?

An eye opener

Ridley starts with the dawn of man and describes how society has evolved to now. He describes everything from evolution, to food production, to divisions of labor, to prosperity. He challenged my current beliefs about the world with arguments that make great sense. This is a very influential book!

awesome book!

Great book start to finish, highly recommend to everyone to listen to it. Lots of great thoughts.

Too much cherry picking and very unbalanced

Too much cherry picking and very unbalanced argument. His case would have been much stronger if he had been more fair to the other side instead of the constantly disparaging market regulation.

Excellent arguments, even with minor flaws

This is a valuable resource for discovering why much of society keeps improving even while intellectual elites decry the very capitalism and technology that is the source of the improvements.

Excellent buildup, but over zealous conclusion.

What did you love best about The Rational Optimist?

Excellent way to see the positive side of human progress in standard of living.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

The book shows how true progress has been made by the human race. The caveman never had it better, and couldn't, even considering pollution and myths such as the gental caveman or modern increase of cancer rates.

Any additional comments?

Though climate change is not completely dismissed, some layman falsehoods are introduced at the end of the book after saying more than once that he would "get to climate change in a later chapter" of the book. He also dismisses "science" as the source of "most" improvements in standard of living. This is true socially. But then goes on to describe the process of science (hypothesis and experiment) as the way humans learn and improve technology all while saying that this is not science. His point is much more narrow in intension that what comes accross, which may be guessed to be: science in the academic environment rarely leads to improvements in standard of living. This he proves well and I agree with but doesn't explain well.