'The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined' by Steven PInker

The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined, Steven Pinker (2.0)

I was hoping that this book would be uplifting, but should have realized that with over 1000 pages, we likely would need to review the violence in detail in order to establish that it has declined. I found that to be very painful. For those who want a scholarly review of all the violence of human history, Pinker does an extremely thorough job. Unfortunately I did not need 10-20 cases reviewed for every act of genocide, type of torture and incentive for murder. I almost never do this – but I skipped through many examples. I believe I got the point by reading the first two chapters and the last. One interesting note is that this was published in 2012. There was a particularly prescient comment about narcissistic leaders that should scare us all!