main-image-1800×12002010.jpg

Reading lists

Where to start with Steven Pinker

What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters

Rationality

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021 
 
 'Punchy, funny and invigorating ... Pinker is the high priest of rationalism' Sunday Times 
 
 'If you've ever considered taking drugs to make yourself smarter, read Rationality instead. It's cheaper, more entertaining, and more effective' Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind 
 
 In the twenty-first century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that discovered vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, quack cures and conspiracy theorizing? 
 
 In Rationality, Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply an irrational species - cavemen out of time fatally cursed with biases, fallacies and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives and set the benchmarks for rationality itself. Instead, he explains, we think in ways that suit the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we have built up over millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, causal inference, and decision-making under uncertainty. These tools are not a standard part of our educational curricula, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book - until now. 
 
 Rationality matters. It leads to better choices in our lives and in the public sphere, and is the ultimate driver of social justice and moral progress. Brimming with insight and humour, Rationality will enlighten, inspire and empower. 
 
 'A terrific book, much-needed for our time' Peter Singer

Steven Pinker is the high priest of rationalism ... [This book] is an impassioned and zippy introduction to the tools of rational thought ... Pinker wants probability theory and psychological biases to be taught in schools and universities. Punchy, funny and invigorating, this could be the textbook.

Steven Pinker is among the best science writers in history, and with Rationality he applies his talents to one of the most important and misunderstood human abilities - tracking reality with a brain that was designed to do so under some circumstances but not others. If you've ever considered taking drugs to make yourself smarter, read Rationality instead. It's cheaper, more entertaining, and more effective.

Jonathan Haidt, NYU-Stern School of Business and author of The Righteous Mind

The Enlightenment torchbearer is eloquent in his defence of clear thinking ... [reason] is a tool that human beings have to learn to use with care, something this book will help any reader to do.

Rationality ­- like all of Pinker's work - [is] a paen to human potential... what Pinker really trades in are profoundly refreshing, energising sets of explanations for why we do and think the way we do ... harnessing reason is not just useful in all kinds of ways both personal and universal, but a wondrous property of being human.

Almost every sentence in Rationality is crisp and intelligible, which is quite a feat, given that explaining logic to humans is like teaching them Sanskrit. Pinker suggests various ways to run our collective affairs more rationally.

A reader-friendly primer in better thinking through the cultivation of that rarest of rarities: a sound argument.

Rationality is a terrific book, much-needed for our time. In addition to drawing together the tools for overcoming obstacles to rational thinking, Pinker breaks new ground with the evidence he provides linking rationality and moral progress.

Steven Pinker is an experimental cognitive scientist. Currently Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has also taught at Stanford and MIT. He has won many prizes for his research, teaching, and his eleven books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and Enlightenment Now. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Humanist of the Year, a recipient of nine honorary doctorates, one of Foreign Policy's 'World's Top 100 Public Intellectuals' and Time's '100 Most Influential People in the World Today'.

In the twenty-first century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that discovered vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, quack cures and conspiracy theorizing? 
 
 In Rationality, Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply an irrational species. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives and set the benchmarks for rationality itself. Instead, he explains, we think in ways that suit the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we have built up over millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, and decision-making under uncertainty. These tools are not a standard part of our educational curricula, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book - until now. 
 
 Rationality matters. It leads to better choices in our lives and in the public sphere, and is the ultimate driver of social justice and moral progress. Brimming with insight and humour, Rationality will enlighten, inspire and empower.

The Modern Denial of Human Nature

The Blank Slate

'A passionate defence of the enduring power of human nature ... both life-affirming and deeply satisfying' Daily Telegraph 
 
Recently many people have assumed that we are blank slates shaped by our environment. But this denies the heart of our being: human nature. Violence is not just a product of society; male and female minds are different; the genes we give our children shape them more than our parenting practices. To acknowledge our innate abilities, Pinker shows, is not to condone inequality, but to understand the very foundations of humanity. 
 
'Brilliant ... enjoyable, informative, clear, humane' New Scientist 
 
'If you think the nature-nurture debate has been resolved, you are wrong ... this book is required reading' Literary Review 
 
'An original and vital contribution to science and also a rattling good read' Matt Ridley, Sunday Telegraph 
 
'Startling ... This is a breath of air for a topic that has been politicized for too long' Economist

A passionate defence of the enduring power of human nature ... both life-affirming and deeply satisfying

Brilliant ... enjoyable, informative, clear, humane

If you think the nature-nurture debate has been resolved, you are wrong ... this book is required reading

An original and vital contribution to science and also a rattling good read

Steven Pinker is one of the world's most influential thinkers and writers on the human condition. His popular and highly praised books include The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, The Stuff of Thought, The Blank Slate, How the Mind Works, and The Language Instinct. The recipient of several major awards for his teaching, books, and scientific research, Pinker is Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He also writes frequently for The New York Times, the Guardian and other publications. He has been named Humanist of the Year, Prospect magazine's "The World's Top 100 Public Intellectuals," Foreign Policy's "100 Global Thinkers," and Time magazine's "The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today."

Recently many people have assumed that we are blank slates shaped by our environment. But this denies the heart of our being: human nature. Violence is not just a product of society; male and female minds are different; the genes we give our children shape them more than our parenting practices. To acknowledge our innate abilities, Pinker shows, is not to condone inequality, but to understand the very foundations of humanity.

The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

Enlightenment Now

THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'Bristles with pure, crystalline intelligence, deep knowledge and human sympathy' Richard Dawkins 
 
Is modernity really failing? Or have we failed to appreciate progress and the ideals that make it possible? 
 
If you follow the headlines, the world in the 21st century appears to be sinking into chaos, hatred, and irrationality. Yet Steven Pinker shows that this is an illusion - a symptom of historical amnesia and statistical fallacies. If you follow the trendlines rather than the headlines, you discover that our lives have become longer, healthier, safer, happier, more peaceful, more stimulating and more prosperous - not just in the West, but worldwide. Such progress is no accident: it's the gift of a coherent and inspiring value system that many of us embrace without even realizing it. These are the values of the Enlightenment: of reason, science, humanism and progress. 
 
The challenges we face today are formidable, including inequality, climate change, Artificial Intelligence and nuclear weapons. But the way to deal with them is not to sink into despair or try to lurch back to a mythical idyllic past; it's to treat them as problems we can solve, as we have solved other problems in the past. In making the case for an Enlightenment newly recharged for the 21st century, Pinker shows how we can use our faculties of reason and sympathy to solve the problems that inevitably come with being products of evolution in an indifferent universe. We will never have a perfect world, but - defying the chorus of fatalism and reaction - we can continue to make it a better one.

This is the biggest story of our time. It's about the many ways in which the world is improving, and why we don't believe it

Pinker is right. Not just a bit right, but completely, utterly, incontrovertibly right ... for most people, life is better, even if they don't realise it

Awesome. The confidence with which Pinker tears through the issues that cause such deep anxiety today is compelling

A characteristically fluent, decisive and data-rich demonstration of why, given the chance to live at any point in human history, only a stone-cold idiot would choose any time other than the present

A new, optimistic view of the world ... Things are not as bad as your Facebook news feed makes them seem ... a cheerful, contrarian tract for dark times

A goldmine of startling graphs and killer facts about the way we live now. Everyone should read this book and, just for once, be enthralled by what humankind has achieved

Brimming with surprising data and entertaining anecdotes ... a genuinely enlightening book

Today we are living healthier, wealthier lives - and it's thanks to the values of the Enlightenment ... a passionate book in praise of Enlightenment values

In Enlightenment Now, Steven Pinker extols the amazing achievements of modernity, and demonstrates that humankind has never been so peaceful, healthy and prosperous. There is of course much to argue about, but that's what makes this book so interesting.

A salutary reminder of the material progress modern science and commerce have delivered

Words can hardly do justice to the superlative range and liveliness of Pinker's investigations

Pinker is a paragon of exactly the kind of intellectual honesty and courage we need

If 2017 was a rough year for you, look no further than Steven Pinker's engaging new book, Enlightenment Now, to cheer you up. Conceived before Donald Trump even announced his candidacy, it could not have been better timed to clarify - and, for some, refute - the habits of mind that brought Trump and the GOP to power ... Pinker's gift is to challenge us not only to update the Enlightenment, but to think beyond it

A valuable book ... Enlightenment Now can hardly be bettered

Persuasive... Pinker's book focuses on the Enlightenment as a philosophical perspective, as a distinctive way of looking at the position of individuals within modern society. Enlightenment Now is a spirited defence of the enduring ideals of this tradition

A careful and deeply researched piece of work ... Pinker is bravely prepared to be the bearer of good news

The most uplifting work of science I've ever read

Pinker is ahead of his critics... [he] is in no way complacent.  To accuse him of smugly sipping cocktails at the End of History café is simply to ignore his repeated calls to work for the better future that is there for the taking, but also for the losing

In his new book, Enlightenment Now, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker makes a more convincing case for the sciences benefiting the arts

An excellent book, lucidly written, timely, rich in data and eloquent in its championing of a rational humanism that is - it turns out - really quite cool.

It's easy to feel dour about the future of mankind. But constant, widespread doomsday prophecies are not going to help - it's only going to make matters worse. If every doomsday scenario feels possible, then people are actually disincentivized to take action, says Steven Pinker ... Things like nuclear war and climate change can, with careful and diligent work, be mitigated

Pinker has a coherent theory of progress.

[Steven Pinker has] become a deep and important critic of the visceral hostility to nature and science now so sadly prevalent on the left and right, a defender of reason and the Enlightenment against the 'social justice' movements on campus, and his new book is a near-relentless defense of modernity.

[ENLIGHTENMENT NOW] proves that much of the handwringing and doom-saying promulgated in the popular press, academia, and politics can't be justified on the facts. . . it's both a manifesto of ideas that [Bill] Gates himself has espoused through the years, as well as a paean to individuals, like Gates, who have committed their time and money to changing the world for the better.

A forceful defense of the democratic, humanist institutions that [Pinker] says brought about these changes, and a declaration that reason, science and humanism can solve the problems to come.

Vindication has arrived in the form of Steven Pinker's latest book. ENLIGHTENMENT NOW: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress is remarkable, heart-warming, and long overdue.

Pinker offers numbers to show that the world has, on the whole, become safer, healthier and wealthier. These benefits are more pronounced in the West, but even in developing countries conditions have improved ... His optimism is resilient

Extremely hopeful... Steven Pinker argues that people are happier, healthier, wealthier, and safer than they've ever been ... we're living in the best moments humans have experienced yet

Pinker is a deep and important critic of the visceral hostility to nature and science now so sadly prevalent on the left and right, a defender of reason and the Enlightenment ... Pinker is right

Modern life has gotten much better despite ever-present complaints. Technology has reduced the need for physical labor. Mortality rates are down. IQ scores are on the rise. Wars are less frequent and less deadly ... the Enlightenment's championing of reason, science, humanism and moral progress is a model for our own times

Pinker is right ... Much good news today tends to be underreported, even unreported. Human beings today lead longer, safer, healthier, wealthier and indeed happier lives than at any point in recorded history ... Pinker surveys the stupendous advancements that the human race has made in modern times according to a dizzying range of metrics

An engaging, compelling set of reasons to be cheerful ... it is a welcome antidote

The world is better than ever before. And Steven Pinker can prove it.

A substantial and wide-ranging book on the state of our world today ... In forensic detail, Pinker enumerates the myriad ways in which life is getting better ... The book is packed with statistics vaunting the gifts of progress

After devouring all 453 pages and 75 graphs of psychologist Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now, I admit defeat. The defeat of defeatism. This man has done the math. Since the 18th century things have been getting better in pretty much every dimension of human wellbeing.

Steven Pinker has a cure for your despair ... life is better than it has ever been. Pinker's case is compelling

Useful and exciting ... Pinker doesn't declaim, he demonstrates - with dozens of graphs and charts - that humankind has spent two centuries winning the battle against entropy in all fields: from health to peace, the environment to democracy, wealth to happiness, to equality between men and women. He asks us crucial questions ... Steven Pinker is right

Enlightenment Now seeks to undo, with facts and figures, the pessimism that has paralysed the world ... We must read this book and absorb its message

Guys, it's really not that bad. In fact, it's the best it's ever been ... Pinker urges people to look at the bigger picture and dive into the data

Things are not as bad as your Facebook news feed makes them seem ... a cheerful, contrarian tract for dark times

Compelling ... At a moment when liberal Enlightenment values are under attack, from the right and the left, this is a very important contribution ... An impressive and useful accomplishment

Is modernity really failing? Or have we failed to appreciate progress and the ideals that make it possible? 
 
If you follow the headlines, the world in the 21st century appears to be sinking into chaos, hatred and irrationality. Yet, as Steven Pinker shows, if you follow the trendlines, you discover that our lives have become longer, healthier, safer and more prosperous - not just in the West, but worldwide. Such progress is no accident: it's the gift of a coherent value system that many of us embrace without even realizing it. These are the values of the Enlightenment: of reason, science, humanism and progress. The challenges we face today are formidable. But the way to deal with them is not to sink into despair or try to lurch back to a mythical idyllic past; it's to treat them as problems we can solve, as we have solved other problems in the past. This is the case for an Enlightenment newly recharged for the 21st century.

The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century

The Sense of Style

Steven Pinker, the bestselling author of The Language Instinct, deploys his gift for explaining big ideas in The Sense of Style - an entertaining writing guide for the 21st century 
 
What is the secret of good prose? Does writing well even matter in an age of instant communication? Should we care? In this funny, thoughtful book about the modern art of writing, Steven Pinker shows us why we all need a sense of style. 
 
More than ever before, the currency of our social and cultural lives is the written word, from Twitter and texting to blogs, e-readers and old-fashioned books. But most style guides fail to prepare people for the challenges of writing in the 21st century, portraying it as a minefield of grievous errors rather than a form of pleasurable mastery. They fail to deal with an inescapable fact about language: it changes over time, adapted by millions of writers and speakers to their needs. Confusing changes in the world with moral decline, every generation believes the kids today are degrading society and taking language with it. A guide for the new millennium, writes Steven Pinker, has to be different. 
 
Drawing on the latest research in linguistics and cognitive science, Steven Pinker replaces the recycled dogma of previous style guides with reason and evidence. This thinking person's guide to good writing shows why style still matters: in communicating effectively, in enhancing the spread of ideas, in earning a reader's trust and, not least, in adding beauty to the world. Eye-opening, mind-expanding and cheerful, The Sense of Style shows that good style is part of what it means to be human.

Bad writing can't be blamed on the Internet, or on 'the kids today'. Good writing has always been hard: a performance requiring pretense, empathy, and a drive for coherence. In The Sense of Style, cognitive scientist and linguist Steven Pinker uses the latest scientific insights to bring us a style and usage guide for the 21st century. Can we distinguish the myths about language from rules that enhance clarity and grace? As Pinker shows, everyone can improve their mastery of writing and their appreciation of the art (yes, 'their').

How the Mind Works

Why do we laugh? 
What makes memories fade? 
Why do people believe in ghosts? 
 
How the Mind Works explores every aspect of mental life, showing that our minds are not a mystery, but a system of organs of computation designed by natural selection.

"Presented with extraordinary lucidity, cogency and panache... Powerful and gripping... To have read [the book] is to have consulted a first draft of the structural plan of the human psyche.. .a glittering tour de force" - Spectator 
 
"Why do memories fade? Why do we lose our tempers? Why do fools fall in love? Pinker's objective in this erudite account is to explore the nature and history of the human mind... He explores computations and evolutions, and then considers how the mind lets us "see, think, feel, interact, and pursue higher callings like art, religion and philosophy" - Sunday Times

How the Mind Creates Language

The Language Instinct

'Dazzling... Pinker's big idea is that language is an instinct...as innate to us as flying is to geese... Words can hardly do justice to the superlative range and liveliness of Pinker's investigations' 
- Independent 
 
'A marvellously readable book... illuminates every facet of human language: its biological origin, its uniqueness to humanity, it acquisition by children, its grammatical structure, the production and perception of speech, the pathology of language disorders and the unstoppable evolution of languages and dialects' - Nature

Steven Pinker

If Pinker's ideas become common knowledge, we'll be far better equipped to handle the massive disruptions already arriving in our hyper-networked world

An expository masterpiece. Steven Pinker explains, with beautiful clarity, how common knowledge is critical to successful human interaction

When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows…is one of the most insightful books I’ve read about what makes us human and how we understand each other. It changed how I think about the interactions I have, and I bet it will do the same for you

Think you know what others think about what you are thinking? It turns out you’re probably wrong. And thanks to When Everyone Knows, now we know why. Once you read this book, you’ll never view human behavior quite the same way again

Jonah Berger, New York Times bestselling author of Contagious and The Catalyst

A masterful look behind the curtain at the calculations that propel us forward. With his brilliant knack for exposing what we take for granted, celebrated cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker explores, among many phenomena, our very human tendency to reveal information strategically, only letting others see what we want them to see

Annie Duke, bestselling author of Thinking in Bets and How to Decide

A lively exposition of one of the most important and basic concepts in game theory, and the surprising ways it plays out in human affairs

Robert Aumann, Nobel Laureate in Economics and Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Insight packed. With brisk authority, Pinker shows that a key aspect of being human, sociality, depends on a mutual understanding of intentions, which allows us to make sense of responses like laughing and blushing and phenomena as various as myth-making and online cancel culture

Daron Acemoglu, Nobel Laureate in Economics and New York Times bestselling author of Why Nations Fail

Common Knowledge and the Science of Harmony, Hypocrisy and Outrage

As a cognitive scientist, the ultimate subject of Steven Pinker’s fascination is how we think about each other’s thoughts, ad infinitum. It sounds impossible, but Steven Pinker shows that we do it all the time. This awareness, which we experience as something that is public or “out there,” is called common knowledge, and it has a momentous impact on our social, political, and economic lives. 
 
Common knowledge, Pinker shows, can make sense of many of life’s enigmas: financial bubbles and crashes, revolutions that come out of nowhere, the posturing and pretence of diplomacy, the eruption of social media shaming mobs and academic cancel culture, the awkwardness of a first date. But people also go to great lengths to avoid common knowledge—to ensure that even if everyone knows something, they can’t know that everyone else knows they know it. And so we get rituals like benign hypocrisy, veiled bribes and threats, sexual innuendo, and pretending not to see the elephant in the room. 
 
In exploring the paradoxes of human behaviour, When Everyone Knows that Everyone Knows… invites us to understand the ways we try to get into each other’s heads, and the harmonies, hypocrisies, and outrages that result.

Steven Pinker

Praise for When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...

If Pinker's ideas become common knowledge, we'll be far better equipped to handle the massive disruptions already arriving in our hyper-networked world

An expository masterpiece. Steven Pinker explains, with beautiful clarity, how common knowledge is critical to successful human interaction

When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows…is one of the most insightful books I’ve read about what makes us human and how we understand each other. It changed how I think about the interactions I have, and I be ...

If Pinker's ideas become common knowledge, we'll be far better equipped to handle the massive disruptions already arriving in our hyper-networked world

An expository masterpiece. Steven Pinker explains, with beautiful clarity, how common knowledge is critical to successful human interaction

When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows…is one of the most insightful books I’ve read about what makes us human and how we understand each other. It changed how I think about the interactions I have, and I be ...

If Pinker's ideas become common knowledge, we'll be far better equipped to handle the massive disruptions already arriving in our hyper-networked world

An expository masterpiece. Steven Pinker explains, with beautiful clarity, how common knowledge is critical to successful human interaction

When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows…is one of the most insightful books I’ve read about what makes us human and how we understand each other. It changed how I think about the interactions I have, and I be ...

Books by Steven Pinker

Articles featuring Steven Pinker

Where to start with Steven Pinker

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter