Steven Pinker

In this enlightening book, the author argues how the world is in fact getting better, not worse, thanks to values of the Enlightenment such as reason, science, and humanism. He provides abundant data indicating improvement in health, wealth, safety, peace, and happiness which run contrary to the prevailing negativism in today's media. The book calls on its readers to appreciate the strides made by humanity and keep on supporting Enlightenment principles in order to correct present and future ills. It is a very persuasive appeal for optimism and reasoned thinking in a world that all too frequently tends towards pessimism.

It is a very engaging book that argues that violence has declined through the centuries. The author presents a formidable case, based upon an analysis of history, psychology, and the data, to make the case that the human condition has improved, and not worsened, due to the forces of civilization and enlightenment. This book looks at what has been creating this positive trend and pins it down to empathy, self-control, and moral sense. It changes common perceptions about the state of the world, giving one hope and explaining how society can continue to move forward to peace.

Challenging the notion of the mind as a blank slate that the environment draws on, "The Blank Slate" argues for the complex interplay of genetic, societal, and personal determinants of life. It gets right to the heart of the wrangling over the nature of human nature, intelligence, language, and violence, offering in its pages a full and naked account of the

This section calls on evidence of an innate capacity for language, structuring the case against a view that language is acquired as a "pure" learning experience and for the view that it is, in substantial part, an instinct and part of human biology. Blending linguistics, psychology, and evolutionary theory, he makes a strong case for the notion that language is actually part and parcel to instinct: a profound understanding of how language forms human experience and cognitive development.