The Rational Optimist_ How Prosperity Evolves - Matt Ridley [222]
ALSO BY MATT RIDLEY
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation
Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns On Nurture
(Originally published as Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes us Human)
Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code
Copyright
THE RATIONAL OPTIMIST. Copyright © 2010 by Matt Ridley. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Originally published in Great Britain in 2010 by Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
FIRST U.S. EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ridley, Matt.
The rational optimist : how prosperity evolves / Matt Ridley.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-06-145205-5
1. Wealth. 2. Practical reason. 3. Optimism. I. Title.
HB251.R54 2010
339.2—dc22
2010004907
EPub Edition © 2010 ISBN: 9780062025371
10 11 12 13 14 OFF/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Table of Contents
Epigraph
Prologue: When Ideas have Sex
Chapter One - A better today: the unprecedented present
Chapter Two - The collective brain: exchange and specialisation after 200,000 years ago
Chapter Three - The manufacture of virtue: barter, trust and rules after 50,000 years ago
Chapter Four - The feeding of the nine billion: farming after 10,000 years ago
Chapter Five - The triumph of cities: trade after 5,000 years ago
Chapter Six - Escaping Malthus’s trap: population after 1200
Chapter Seven - The release of slaves: energy after 1700
Chapter Eight - The invention of invention: increasing returns after 1800
Chapter Nine - Turning points: pessimism after 1900
Chapter Ten - The two great pessimisms of today: Africa and climate after 2010
Chapter Eleven - The catallaxy: rational optimism about 2100
Notes and references
Index
Acknowledgements
Also by Matt Ridley
Copyright
About the Publisher