IDEAS, like most things, are subject to fashion. Right now, we are revisiting our contemporary notions about human violence.
In The Better Angels of our Nature, published last month, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker argues that we have misread the evidence, which in fact shows we are becoming less violent as time moves on, due largely to the forces of modernity, or civilisation.
In The End of War, science writer John Horgan also challenges our views on violence. Unlike Pinker, though, he narrows the lens mostly to war, and the possibility of eradicating it. This is a furrow Horgan has…
