Steven Pinker
Enlightenment Now
Steven Pinker asks whether the modern world is genuinely getting better—and what made that improvement possible. Enlightenment Now traces progress through reason, science, humanism, institutions, and evidence across health, wealth, safety, rights, knowledge, happiness, and risk, offering a way to recognize gains without mistaking them for guarantees.
18 chapters
The Better Angels of Our Nature
Why has violence fallen across homicide, war, genocide, terrorism, and everyday life? Pinker combines historical records, quantitative comparisons, moral psychology, and institutional analysis to explain the decline, its reversals, and the fragile forces—law, commerce, empathy, reason, and expanding rights—that make peace possible.
9 chapters
The Blank Slate
The Blank Slate asks whether human beings are formed entirely by culture or possess an evolved, flexible mental nature. Pinker connects genes, brains, learning, and culture, then tests what that view means for equality, morality, politics, violence, family life, and art—offering a way to defend humane values without denying human limits.
13 chapters