The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined Read Online Free

worthwhile. Man’s inhumanity to man has long been a subject for moralization. With the knowledge that something has driven it down, we can also treat it as a matter of cause and effect. Instead of asking, “Why is there war?” we might ask, “Why is there peace?” We can obsess not just over what we have been doing wrong but also over what we have been doing right. Because we have been doing something right, and it would be good to know what, exactly, it is.
     
    Many people have asked me how I became involved in the analysis of violence. It should not be a mystery: violence is a natural concern for anyone who studies human nature. I first learned of the decline of violence from Martin Daly and Margo Wilson’s classic book in evolutionary psychology, Homicide , in which they examined the high rates of violent death in nonstate societies and the decline in homicide from the Middle Ages to the present. In several of my previous books I cited those downward trends, together with humane developments such as the abolition of slavery, despotism, and cruel punishments in the history of the West, in support of the idea that moral progress is compatible with a biological approach to the human mind and an acknowledgment of the dark side of human nature. 3 I reiterated these observations in response to the annual question on the online forum www.edge.org , which in 2007 was “What Are You Optimistic About?” My squib provoked a flurry of correspondence from scholars in historical criminology and international studies who told me that the evidence for a historical reduction in violence is more extensive than I had realized. 4 It was their data that convinced me that there was an underappreciated story waiting to be told.
    My first and deepest thanks go to these scholars: Azar Gat, Joshua Goldstein, Manuel Eisner, Andrew Mack, John Mueller, and John Carter Wood. As I worked on the book, I also benefited from correspondence with Peter Brecke, Tara Cooper, Jack Levy, James Payne, and Randolph Roth. These generous researchers shared ideas, writings, and data and kindly guided me through fields of research that are far from my own specialization.
    David Buss, Martin Daly, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, David Haig, James Payne, Roslyn Pinker, Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington, and Polly Wiessner read most or all of the first draft and offered immeasurably helpful advice and criticism. Also invaluable were comments on particular chapters offered by Peter Brecke, Daniel Chirot, Alan Fiske, Jonathan Gottschall, A. C. Grayling, Niall Ferguson, Graeme Garrard, Joshua Goldstein, Capt. Jack Hoban, Stephen Leblanc, Jack Levy, Andrew Mack, John Mueller, Charles Seife, Jim Sidanius, Michael Spagat, Richard Wrangham, and John Carter Wood.
    Many other people responded to my inquiries with prompt explanations or offered suggestions that were incorporated into the book: John Archer, Scott Atran, Daniel Batson, Donald Brown, Lars-Erik Cederman, Christopher Chabris, Gregory Cochran, Leda Cosmides, Tove Dahl, Lloyd deMause, Jane Esberg, Alan Fiske, Dan Gardner, Pinchas Goldschmidt, Cmdr. Keith Gordon, Reid Hastie, Brian Hayes, Judith Rich Harris, Harold Herzog, Fabio Idrobo, Tom Jones, Maria Konnikova, Robert Kurzban, Gary Lafree, Tom Lehrer, Michael Macy, Steven Malby, Megan Marshall, Michael McCullough, Nathan Myhrvold, Mark Newman, Barbara Oakley, Robert Pinker, Susan Pinker, Ziad Obermeyer, David Pizarro, Tage Rai, David Ropeik, Bruce Russett, Scott Sagan, Ned Sahin, Aubrey Sheiham, Francis X. Shen, Lt. Col. Joseph Shusko, Richard Shweder, Thomas Sowell, Håvard Strand, Ilavenil Subbiah, Rebecca Sutherland, Philip Tetlock, Andreas Forø Tollefsen, James Tucker, Staffan Ulfstrand, Jeffrey Watumull, Robert Whiston, Matthew White, Maj. Michael Wiesenfeld, and David Wolpe.
    Many colleagues and students at Harvard have been generous with their expertise, including Mahzarin Banaji, Robert Darnton, Alan Dershowitz, James Engell, Nancy Etcoff, Drew Faust, Benjamin