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Original Title:	The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
ISBN:	006145205X (ISBN13: 9780061452055)
Edition Language:	English URL http://www.rationaloptimist.com/
Literary Awards:	Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Nominee for Longlist (2010), Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction Nominee (2011)

The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves Hardcover | Pages: 448 pages

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Title	:	The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
Author	:	Matt Ridley
Book Format	:	Hardcover
Book Edition	:	Deluxe Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 448 pages
Published	:	May 18th 2010 by Harper (first published 2010)
Categories	:	Nonfiction. Economics. History. Science. Business. Philosophy. Psychology

Narrative In Pursuance Of Books The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

Life is getting better—and at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span 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; population growth is slowing; 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 two hundred years.

Yet 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 specialization—which started more than 100,000 years ago—has created a collective brain that sets human living standards on a rising trend. The mutual dependence, trust, and sharing that result are causes for hope, not despair.

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 invention of the steam engine, from the population explosion to the likely consequences of climate change. It ends with a confident assertion that thanks to the ceaseless capacity of the human race for innovative change, and despite inevitable disasters along the way, the twenty-first century will see both human prosperity and natural biodiversity enhanced. Acute, refreshing, and revelatory, The Rational Optimist will change your way of thinking about the world for the better.

Rating Regarding Books The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

Ratings: 3.97 From 8102 Users | 789 Reviews

Rate Regarding Books The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

Every so often you come across a book that causes you to reevaluate the way you view the world. The Rational Optimist is definitely one of those books. Personally, I think this may be one of the most important books of the last 10 years. In many ways I am an optimist, but when it comes to the bigger picture of the world I would have to admit I have been a pessimist for some time. While I certainly am pessimistic about the short-term in America, we are going to have to feel some pain at some

Some really interesting ideas and thoroughly amazing facts.... but in the end, it undermines itself. I even agree with the central tenet that the world is getting better, and could go with the argument that specialization and trade are at the center of progress. But it's a good example of how not to make an argument - it takes a persuasive theory and carries it way, way too far, mocking those who disagree and not admitting to any grey areas. Every single cause for pessimism in the modern world

Very valuable read overall. Apart from the secularism and the evolutionary assumptions, Ridley does a great job of describing things in a way that counteracts the very common and insistent cultural pessimistic narrative. Postmillenialists need to read this kind of stuff together with their scriptural studies. Eschatology, markets and progress all go together.

A libertarian propaganda manifesto written by a convinced/convicted capitalist. The author shows evident climate-change skeptism, denies any significant contribution of scientific research and public funding policies to world prosperity, and instead attributes all the merit to free market and capital.I will not comment any further. Here's some insightful background about the author :https://www.theguardian.com/commentis...https://www.theguardian.com/commentis...

Here is the central thesis of The Rational Optimist: What is uniquely human is that our intelligence is collective and cumulative in a way that is true of no other animal. (Richard Dawkins, of "The Selfish Gene" fame, dubbed the units of cultural imitation that comprise this heritage as "memes".) Evolution in sexually reproducing species is driven by genetic exchange. Culture evolution is much the same, but the unit of exchange is the idea. The truly Big Bang idea was that of division of labor,

3.5. I loved the first two chapters of this. After that, it got steadily worse and I ended up skipping the last 100 pgs. The premise is that human culture is very adept at innovating and solving problems; as such, the author believes that, despite the pessimism of most people, one can very rationally feel quite optimistic over the future of humanity. We will find solutions to climate change and the other great problems that our species faces. I am sympathetic to this argument and I thought that

Ridley's books on genetics and evolution are clear, well-supported books on the topic, so I was looking forward to his newest piece of non-fiction. Instead it is a conflation of economics, anthropology, genetics, gaming and a half-dozen other disciplines that argues "don't worry, be happy" about human progress. Though he's right about human progress over centuries, the book would have been laughed off the market had it appeared in a period like that after World War II, when tens of millions had