The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Pinker argues that violence has declined dramatically over the course of human history, from prehistoric tribal warfare and medieval homicide rates to the two world wars and the present day. He rejects the widespread intuition that we live in uniquely dangerous times, attributing that perception to the negativity bias and media sensationalism rather than actual trends. The book documents declines across multiple categories: homicide, war, genocide, torture, and violence against women and children. Pinker contends this is not a matter of human nature changing—genetic evolution is far too slow—but of changing circumstances that altered the incentives and disincentives for violence.

Pinker centers his explanation on Norbert Elias's theory of the "civilizing process," first articulated in the late 1930s. Elias proposed that European societies became less violent through two linked developments: the consolidation of state authority that monopolized legitimate violence and arbitrated disputes, and the growth of commerce that created mutual gains from cooperation. Pinker applies this framework to history, describing it as the synergistic impact of "Leviathan" and "gentle commerce" that diminished the utility of violence and hence its appeal. A Nature review noted that Pinker credits Elias as "the most important thinker you have never heard of" for providing the intellectual architecture of the argument.

Reception among historians has been sharply critical. In The Darker Angels of Our Nature (2022), fifteen historians evaluated Pinker's arguments and found them lacking. Daniel Lord Smail examined Pinker's sources and found them "not at all in keeping with the historical mainstream"—his information on the Inquisition, for example, came from a coffee table book rather than academic volumes. Dag Lindström criticized Pinker's use of statistics, noting that his division between state and non-state actors does not apply to the long swaths of history he claims to analyze. Eric D. Weitz argued that Pinker ignores the actual actors in history, such as slaves who resisted through rebellion, in favor of a narrative of Enlightened progress. The editors concluded that Pinker "has not even done due diligence" in engaging historical methodology.

Pinker's framework distinguishes between different categories of violence, each with its own trajectory. He acknowledges that the world wars and genocides of the twentieth century were catastrophic, but argues that in longer historical perspective, even these were less novel than they appear—the Mongol conquests, for example, killed an estimated 40 million people in a world with one-seventh the population of the mid-twentieth century. Since 1945, Pinker identifies a "long peace" among great powers and a "new peace" following the Cold War, with declines in civil wars, genocides, and terrorism. Critics including Philip Dwyer and Elizabeth Roberts-Pedersen have argued that Pinker downplays World War II and the Holocaust to highlight declining one-on-one homicides during the Nazi era, a move they find historically distorting.

Pinker argues that human nature contains both "inner demons"—propensities toward violence, dominance, revenge, and tribalism—and "better angels"—capacities for empathy, self-control, and cooperation. These are products of evolution, shaped by natural selection in ancestral environments. Because genetic evolution operates on timescales far too slow to explain changes across centuries, Pinker contends that the decline of violence must be attributed to changes in circumstances that allow the better angels to gain the upper hand over the inner demons. The state's monopoly on force, the incentives of commerce, and the empowerment of women are among the environmental changes that have tipped the balance. This framework positions Pinker against both blank-slate cultural determinism and genetic determinism, arguing that evolved psychology and cultural change interact to produce historical trends.

Enlightenment Now (2018) is explicitly positioned as a sequel that broadens the analysis of The Better Angels beyond violence. A Science review described it as an "estimable sequel" that extends Pinker's case for progress across all dimensions of human flourishing—life expectancy, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness. Where Better Angels focused on the decline of violence, Enlightenment Now attributes broad human progress to "Enlightenment humanism," a secular worldview that values science and reason over superstition and dogma. Pinker presents the two books as complementary: Better Angels documents one dramatic instance of progress, while Enlightenment Now makes the broader case that the Enlightenment project has worked and requires vigorous defense.