Subtitled: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference
(2024 in Dutch; Little, Brown, 2025, 285pp, including 53pp of Thanks, Notes, and Index)
Here’s the third book by Rutger Bregman, a Dutch historian and thinker. First was UTOPIA FOR REALISTS (2017 in English, review here), which promoted the idea of a universal income, explained why the GDP is outdated, why we need to get over the dogma that you have to work for a living, and the benefits of open borders, and remembering that the Overton Window can shift – ideas that would horrify most conservatives of course, but which Bregman backed up with evidence and examples, echoing Harari and Rosling and others. Second was HUMANKIND (2020 in English, review here), whose thesis was that most people are pretty decent (despite what many conservatives are taught), coming down on the opposite side of the Hobbes/Rousseau as many other thinkers, as he reviewed incidents from history and even the novel LORD OF THE FLIES and concluded that most people have been peaceful, while famous incidents of savagery are rare or have been exaggerated.
The latest book is a call for ambition, for building a better world, and aligns roughly with ideas of some of the effective altruism (EA) crowd: think long-term, do good, don’t cruise through life. Continue reading













