Category Archives: Book Notes

Johan Norberg, PROGRESS

Posted on Tuesday 3 March 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future (UK: Oneworld, Oct 2016, 246pp, including 28pp notes, acknowledgements, and index) Rather as I did with Rutger Bregman a few days, here’s an author who has a new book out recently, … Continue reading →

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Rutger Bregman: HUMANKIND

Posted on Wednesday 25 February 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “A Hopeful History” (2019 Dutch; 2020 Little, Brown, xviii+461pp, including 64pp acknowledgements, notes, and index) Still catching up posting about big books I’ve read in recent years. This book came out in 2020 (in the US) and I blogged … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker, ENLIGHTENMENT NOW, post 6

Posted on Tuesday 23 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress” (Viking, Feb. 2018, xix+556pp, including 102pp of notes, references, and index.) Posts about this book: Post 1; Post 2; Post 3; Post 4; Post 5; Post 6. The final chapter considers humanism as the … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker, ENLIGHTENMENT NOW, post 5

Posted on Monday 22 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress” (Viking, Feb. 2018, xix+556pp, including 102pp of notes, references, and index.) Posts about this book: Post 1; Post 2; Post 3; Post 4; Post 5. Expanded below. Part I of this book outlined the … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker, ENLIGHTENMENT NOW, post 4

Posted on Sunday 21 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress” (Viking, Feb. 2018, xix+556pp, including 102pp of notes, references, and index.) Here are the remaining ten chapters in the long middle section of the book that focuses on Progress. Some of these … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker, ENLIGHTENMENT NOW, post 3

Posted on Friday 19 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress” (Viking, Feb. 2018, xix+556pp, including 102pp of notes, references, and index.) Here are the first seven of the 17 chapters in the long middle section of the book.  The first one … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker: ENLIGHTENMENT NOW, post 2

Posted on Wednesday 17 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress” (Viking, Feb. 2018, xix+556pp, including 102pp of notes, references, and index.) The first three chapters of this book are crisp summaries of themes shared with two or three dozen other books … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker: ENLIGHTENMENT NOW, post 1

Posted on Thursday 11 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress” (Viking, Feb. 2018, xix+556pp, including 102pp of notes, references, and index.) This is the last of the ‘big’ Steven Pinker books that I’ve read but not yet written up here. Though … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker, THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE, post 7

Posted on Friday 5 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “Why Violence Has Declined” (Viking, Oct. 2011, xxvii + 802pp, including 106pp of notes, references, and index.) Summary: Chapter 9 concerns four ways in which humanity’s “better angels” turn people away from violence and toward cooperation and altruism. These … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker, THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE, post 6

Posted on Thursday 4 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “Why Violence Has Declined” (Viking, Oct. 2011, xxvii + 802pp, including 106pp of notes, references, and index.)   Summary: Chapter 8 concerns five forces that drive violence: Predation, Dominance, Revenge, Sadism, and Ideology. Humans are not innately aggressive, except … Continue reading →

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