Bill Gates reveals his new favorite book of all time
The world's not all bad, we just hear more about the depressing stuff. Steven Pinker's "Enlightenment Now" explains why.
- Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year" award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Bill Gates loves to read, and he often shares his favorite recent books. On Friday, the Microsoft co-founder revealed that a new book has made its way to the top of his favorites-of-all-time list.
Gates dubbed "Enlightenment Now" by cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker his new fave.
In "Enlightenment Now," Pinker "(tracks) violence throughout history and applies it to 15 different measures of progress (like quality of life, knowledge, and safety)," Gates writes. "The result is a holistic picture of how and why the world is getting better."
So why don't we hear as much about the improvements in the world as we do about the terrible events? As Pinker points out in a video chat with Gates, the nature of news is to report what happens, not what doesn't happen.
"So there's never a Thursday in March where you say, well, hunger has plummeted, or diseases have been decimated," Pinker said. "Whereas things that go wrong, go wrong all at once."
You can't read the book yet -- it comes out Feb. 27 -- but Gates is letting those who sign up at his Gates Notes site download a free chapter.