THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERBristles with pure crystalline intelligence deep knowledge and human sympathy Richard Dawkins Is modernity really failing Or have we failed to appreciate progress and the ideals that make it possibleIf you follow the headlines the world in the 21st century appears to be sinking into chaos hatred and irrationality. Yet Steven Pinker shows that this is an illusion a symptom of historical amnesia and statistical fallacies. If you follow the trendlines rather than the headlines you discover that our lives have become longer healthier safer happier more peaceful more stimulating and more prosperous not just in the West but worldwide. Such progress is no accident its the gift of a coherent and inspiring value system that many of us embrace without even realizing it. These are the values of the Enlightenment of reason science humanism and progress.The challenges we face today are formidable including inequality climate change Artificial Intelligence and nuclear weapons. But the way to deal with them is not to sink into despair or try to lurch back to a mythical idyllic past its to treat them as problems we can solve as we have solved other problems in the past. In making the case for an Enlightenment newly recharged for the 21st century Pinker shows how we can use our faculties of reason and sympathy to solve the problems that inevitably come with being products of evolution in an indifferent universe. We will never have a perfect world but defying the chorus of fatalism and reaction we can continue to make it a better one.