Steven Pinker's new book worth a look

Coming out in October: The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, by Steven Pinker.

Apparently Pinker in this book develops and defends the claims he made in his TED talk a few years ago:



In the talk Pinker says that an inflection point in the downward trend of violence happened in Britain and the Netherlands around the beginning of "the Age of Reason" in "the 16th Century," which sounds about a century too early to me. Hmm. More evidence to support the speculations of the philosophes in the Radical Enlightenment? And more evidence to support the thesis that we've constructed ever-growing networks of trust and tribal inclusiveness through expanding trade?

FM-2030 also asserted, in his usual, hand-waving way based on flimsy evidence or wishful thinking, that we can look forward to declining violence in "the future." This time he might have made a reasonably accurate forecast, if Pinker's presentation of the case holds up to criticism: