Review: The Rational Optimist

The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some times you just need to put on some rose-colored glasses. I picked this one up to read positive news, something I rarely get on the local TV news here, or in much of my reading. I was surprised the author took a long view, going back to pre-history to set a baseline for growth of the species, starting with the birth of homo sapiens and waning of other humanoids. So you start off with a win for our team. And each chapter is another chapter where the author makes a case for a win for the "home" team, through issues of trade, population explosion, food shortages, etc. I enjoyed the trip, and the author provided some different ways to frame progress that I hadn't considered. At times, though, the writing seemed a bit off. For instance, the author kept making assumptions about violent males and passive females that lead into his theses on prehistory and trade, presenting in a flip way. That makes things readable, but it made it a bit questionable. So I got the rose-colored glasses here, and maybe a bit more. There seems to have been a number of these kinds of books written in the recent past, I need to see if the newer ones are better than this or not.

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