The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves - Softcover

Ridley, Matt

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007378904 ISBN 13: 9780007378906

Verlag: Harper Collins Publ. UK, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

Life is getting better, and at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income and lifespan are up; disease, child mortality and violence are down - all across the globe.
Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the internet, the mobile phone and container shipping are enriching people's lives as never before. The pessimists who dominate public discourse insist that we will soon reach a turning point and things will start to get worse. But they have been saying this for 200 years.
Matt Ridley does more than describe how things are getting better. He explains why.
Prosperity comes from everybody working for everybody else. The habit of exchange and specialisation - which started more than 100,000 years ago - has created a collective brain that set human living standards on a rising trend.
This bold book covers the entire sweep of human history, from the Stone Age to the internet, from the stagnation of the Ming empire to the likely consequences of climate change. Thanks to the ceaseless capacity of the human race for innovative change, and despite inevitable disasters, the twenty-first century will see both human prosperity and natural biodiversity enhanced.
Acute, refreshing and revelatory, The Rational Optimist will tip your way of thinking about the world for the better.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Matt Ridley received his BA and D. Phil at Oxford researching the evolution of behaviour. He has been science editor, Washington correspondent and American editor of The Economist. He is the author of bestselling titles The Red Queen (1993), The Origins of Virtue (1996), Genome (1999) and Nature via Nurture (2003). His books have sold over half a million copies, been translated into 25 languages and been shortlisted for six literary prizes. In 2004 he won the National Academies Book Award from the US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine for Nature via Nurture. In 2007 Matt won the Davis Prize from the US History of Science Society for Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code. He is married to the neuroscientist Professor Anya Hurlbert.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Harper Collins Publ. UK
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0007378904
• ISBN 13: 9780007378906
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 448
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar