Books — hermiene.net

"From the multiplication tables to calculus in less than an hour. It's like five years at Caltech in less than fifteen seconds!"

Back to Books

The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity

Authors:
Steven Pinker (author) and Jim Stoddart (covers)
Language:
English
Original language:
English
Publisher:
Penguin Books
Categories:
History and psychology
Publication year:
2012
Original publication year:
2011
ISBN:
978-0-141-03464-5
Has read?
No
Images:
Back of The Better Angels of Our Nature.Spine of The Better Angels of Our Nature.Front of The Better Angels of Our Nature.
High-res images:
[Back (4.07 MB)] [Spine (1.19 MB)] [Front (3.18 MB)]
Table of Contents:
[Toggle visibility]
  • List of Figures
  • Preface

1. A Foreign Country

  • Human Prehistory
  • Homeric Greece
  • The Hebrew Bible
  • The Roman Empire and Early Christendom
  • Medieval Knights
  • Early Modern Europe
  • Honor in Europe and the Early United States
  • The 20th Century

2. The Pacification Process

  • The Logic of Violence
  • Violence in Human Ancestors
  • Kinds of Human Societies
  • Rates of Violence in State and Nonstate Societies
  • Civilization and Its Discontents

3. The Civilizing Process

  • The European Homicide Decline
  • Explaining the European Homicide Decline
  • Violence and Class
  • Violence Around the World
  • Violence in These United States
  • Decivilization in the 1960s
  • Recivilization in the 1990s

4. The Humanitarian Revolution

  • Superstitious Killing: Human Sacrifice, Witchcraft, and Blood Libel
  • Superstitious Killing: Violence Against Blasphemers, Heretics, and Apostates
  • Cruel and Unusual Punishments
  • Capital Punishment
  • Slavery
  • Despotism and Political Violence
  • Major War
  • Whence the Humanitarian Revolution?
  • The Rise of Empathy and the Regard for Human Life
  • The Republic of Letters and Enlightenment Humanism
  • Civilization and Enlightenment
  • Blood and Soil

5. The Long Peace

  • Statistics and Narratives
  • Was the 20th Century Really the Worst?
  • The Statistics of Deadly Quarrels, Part 1: The Timing of Wars
  • The Statistics of Deadly Quarrels, Part 2: The Magnitude of Wars
  • The Trajectory of Great Power War
  • The Trajectory of European War
  • The Hobbesian Background and the ages of Dynasties and Religions
  • Three Currents in the Age of Sovereignty
  • Counter-Enlightenment Ideologies and the Age of Nationalism
  • Humanism and Totalitarianism in the Age of Ideology
  • The Long Peace: Some Numbers
  • The Long Peace: Attitudes and Events
  • Is the Long Peace a Nuclear Peace?
  • Is the Long Peace a Democratic Peace?
  • Is the Long Peace a Liberal Peace?
  • Is the Long Peace a Kantian Peace?

6. The New Peace

  • The Trajectory of War in the Rest of the World
  • The Trajectory of Genocide
  • The Trajectory of Terrorism
  • Where Angels Fear to Tread

7. The Right Revolutions

  • Civil Rights and the Decline of Lynching and Racial Pogroms
  • Women's Rights and the Decline of Rape and Battering
  • Children's Rights and the Decline of Infanticide, Spanking, Child Abuse, and Bullying
  • Gay Rights, the Decline of Gay-Bashing, and the Decriminalization of Homosexuality
  • Animal Rights and the Decline of Cruelty to Animals
  • Whence the Rights Revolutions?
  • From History to Psychology

8. Inner Demons

  • The Dark Side
  • The Moralization Gap and the Myth of Pure Evil
  • Organs of Violence
  • Predation
  • Dominance
  • Revenge
  • Sadism
  • Ideology
  • Pure Evil, Inner Demons, and the Decline of Violence

9. Better Angels

  • Empathy
  • Self-Control
  • Recent Biological Evolution?
  • Morality and Taboo
  • Reason

10. On Angels' Wings

  • Important but Inconsistent
  • The Pacifist's Dilemma
  • The Leviathan
  • Gentle Commerce
  • Feminization
  • The Expanding Circle
  • The Escalator of Reason
  • Reflections
  • Notes
  • References
  • Index

Back to Books