NOTES AND REFERENCES (#litres_trial_promo)Ībout the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) PROLOGUE When ideas have sex (#u7f14852e-f9e1-5e0f-80ac-8e9cf1869186)ĬHAPTER 1 A better today: the unprecedented present (#u59348f30-72a7-5c8d-a044-0c61ad7434b1)ĬHAPTER 2 The collective brain: exchange and specialisation after 200,000 years ago (#u3c4f8a41-25a7-517c-98ec-f320dc203ddd)ĬHAPTER 3 The manufacture of virtue: barter, trust and rules after 50,000 years ago (#u0d377451-3d93-5647-8d5d-cbd51088bf51)ĬHAPTER 4 The feeding of the nine billion: farming after 10,000 years ago (#litres_trial_promo)ĬHAPTER 5 The triumph of cities: trade after 5,000 years ago (#litres_trial_promo)ĬHAPTER 6 Escaping Malthus’s trap: population after 1200 (#litres_trial_promo)ĬHAPTER 7 The release of slaves: energy after 1700 (#litres_trial_promo)ĬHAPTER 8 The invention of invention: increasing returns after 1800 (#litres_trial_promo)ĬHAPTER 9 Turning points: pessimism after 1900 (#litres_trial_promo)ĬHAPTER 10 The two great pessimisms of today: Africa and climate after 2010 (#litres_trial_promo)ĬHAPTER 11 The catallaxy: rational optimism about 2100 (#litres_trial_promo) It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.
This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. Thanks to the unique human habits of exchange and specialisation, our species has found innovative solutions to every obstacle it has faced so far.In ‘The Rational Optimist’, acclaimed science writer Matt Ridley comprehensively refutes the doom-mongers of our time, and reaches back into the past to give a rational explanation for why we can – and will – overcome the challenges of the future, such as climate change and the population boom.Bold and controversial, it is a brilliantly confident assertion that the 21st century will be the best for humankind yet. Shortlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction 2011.Life is on the up.We are wealthier, healthier, happier, kinder, cleaner, more peaceful, more equal and longer-lived than any previous generation. The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
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