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.
馬特·裏德利
Matt Ridley
著名科普作傢、牛津大學動物學博士,曾任《經濟學人》專欄編輯。著有多部獲奬作品,包括《人類基因組》、《靈敏基因》、《紅色皇後》等。目前居住在英國。
记得几年前,有一段时间东北老家突然开始流行吃所谓的野菜,有大饭店专门供作各种野菜和生蔬,饭店门前停满了各路豪车,然而各路食客来吃的却是蔬菜,很多菜连一丝肉丁都没有,这群从饥饿记忆中走出不到30年的人群真是让人啧啧称奇。不过时至今日,其实也算见怪不怪了,好像更...
評分知道人类在稳步前进,是看了《繁荣的背后》之后。记得那本书中开头有个记载很让人惊讶----自从工业革命以来,全球的经济基本上都在以2% 的速度增进,哪怕是期间经历了多少次毁灭性的大战、瘟疫等各种大灾难,却丝毫不能挡住这股前进的洪流。叫人不由得感慨----2,可真是...
評分震荡平衡的人类历史,以为这两件事:首先不会太离谱,总会是沿着某一个均线震荡;其次,可以说每时每刻都是挺离谱的,因为不是太过这样了,就是太过那样了。 这个时代的中国是怎么回事呢?是个言论和思想自由的初期,所以人们补偿性的大声说话,而说粗话和说批评的话,显然更...
評分震荡平衡的人类历史,以为这两件事:首先不会太离谱,总会是沿着某一个均线震荡;其次,可以说每时每刻都是挺离谱的,因为不是太过这样了,就是太过那样了。 这个时代的中国是怎么回事呢?是个言论和思想自由的初期,所以人们补偿性的大声说话,而说粗话和说批评的话,显然更...
評分作者提出的许多观点几乎完全没有得到有力的论证。。。 1.物物交换绝对不是智人的专利,很多动物都有互惠和交换的行为,比如吸血蝙蝠会在自己吃饱的时候把血吐给饿的蝙蝠,换来自己饿的时候的帮助。甚至耶鲁大学的经济学教授keith chen 已经在实验中证明,卷尾猴完全可以学会使...
Not worth reading for me, feel like that it’s easily dwarfed by those books like Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel”.
评分這本書講的東西非常 counter-intuitive,但假如你認真看完瞭,會徹底改變你的三觀!
评分這本書講的東西非常 counter-intuitive,但假如你認真看完瞭,會徹底改變你的三觀!
评分對環保控,可再生能源控,田園牧歌控,全球變暖控,“今不如昔”控等各種末世悲觀小清新的有理有據的駁斥。《Quest》似的的科普大百科全書。
评分這本書講的東西非常 counter-intuitive,但假如你認真看完瞭,會徹底改變你的三觀!
本站所有內容均為互聯網搜索引擎提供的公開搜索信息,本站不存儲任何數據與內容,任何內容與數據均與本站無關,如有需要請聯繫相關搜索引擎包括但不限於百度,google,bing,sogou 等
© 2025 book.quotespace.org All Rights Reserved. 小美書屋 版权所有