Summary
It's a belief that unites the left and
right, psychologists and philosophers, writers and historians. It
drives the headlines that surround us and the laws that touch our
lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Dawkins, the roots of
this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings,
we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed by self-interest.
Humankind makes a new argument: that it is realistic, as well as
revolutionary, to assume that people are good. The instinct to
cooperate rather than compete, trust rather than distrust, has an
evolutionary basis going right back to the beginning of Homo
sapiens. By thinking the worst of others, we bring out the worst in
our politics and economics too. In this major book, internationally
bestselling author Rutger Bregman takes some of the world's most
famous studies and events and reframes them, providing a new
perspective on the last 200,000 years of human history. From the
real-life Lord of the Flies to the Blitz, a Siberian fox farm to an
infamous New York murder, Stanley Milgram's Yale shock machine to
the Stanford prison experiment, Bregman shows how believing in
human kindness and altruism can be a new way to think – and act as
the foundation for achieving true change in our society. It is time
for a new view of human nature.
