If you feel like the world is going downhill, take a look around. People are now living longer, healthier, freer and happier than ever before.

In a breathtaking overview of the state of humanity in the third millennium, psychologist and science communicator Steven Pinker urges us to take a break from sensational news headlines and catastrophic predictions that so deftly play on the cognitive distortions inherent in our thinking. Instead, he proposes to turn to numbers and, using seven dozen amazing graphs, demonstrates unprecedented progress not only in the West, but throughout the world in all areas, from health and wealth to security, peace and human rights.

This progress - not an accident and not the result of external forces. This is a gift to the modern world from the figures of the Enlightenment, who were the first to think that knowledge can be used for the sake of the prosperity of all mankind.

The ideas of the Enlightenment are not at all naive dreams. On the contrary, they worked - and this is an indisputable fact. Yet right now, these ideas are especially in need of our defense, as they stand up to the characteristic flaws of human nature - tribalism, authoritarianism, the demonization of outsiders, and magical thinking - that modern demagogues are so fond of exploiting. Yes, the problems facing humanity are enormous, but all of them can be solved if, continuing the work of Enlightenment, we use reason, trust science and are guided by the ideals of humanism.

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