Recently many people have assumed that we are shaped by our environment: a blank slate waiting to be inscribed by upbringing and culture, with innate abilities playing little part. This title shows that this view denies the heart of our being: human nature.

Why do so many swear words involve topics like sex, bodily functions or the divine? Why do some children's names thrive while others fall out of favour? Why do we threaten and bribe and seduce in such elaborate, often comical ways? This title looks at how the relationship between words and thoughts can help us understand who we are.

“In our uncertain age, which can so often feel so dark and disturbing, Steven Pinker has distinguished himself as a voice of positivity.” – New York Times

Can reading a book make you more rational? Can it help us understand why there is so much irrationality in the world? Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now (Bill Gates’s "new favorite book of all time”) answers all the questions here

Today humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding--and also appears to be lo...

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018

ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR

AND A PERFECT HOLIDAY GIFT

"My new favorite book of all time." --Bill Gates

If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science.

Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In th...

Stefan Sagmeister’s newest project encourages long-term thinking and reminds us that many things in the world are improving

Initially conceived in 2020 as the world entered pandemic lockdown, Stefan Sagmeister has created a book that looks at the state of the world today, illuminating, through collected data, how far we’ve come, and encouraging us to think about where we can go from here. Statistics are vividly brought to life, as numbers are transformed into graphs, inlaid into nineteent...

A definitive account of how language works, how we learn it and how it evolves, from an award-winning cognitive scientist and public intellectual. New edition, including an afterword on the book's origins and influence, and re-jacketed as part of a backlist redesign.

"If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this-the most inspiring book I've ever read."

-Bill Gates (May, 2017)

A provocative history of violence-from the New York Times bestselling author of The Stuff of Thought, The Blank Slate, and Enlightenment Now.Believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species' existence. In his gripping and controversial new work, New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows that despite the ceaseless n...

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.