The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

“A delightful and fascinating book filled with insight and wit, which will make you think twice and cheer up.” — Steven Pinker

In a bold and provocative interpretation of economic history, Matt Ridley, the New York Times-bestselling author of Genome and The Red Queen, makes the case for an economics of hope, arguing that the benefits of commerce, technology, innovation, and change—what Ridley calls cultural evolution—will inevitably increase human prosperity. Fans of the works of Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel), Niall Ferguson (The Ascent of Money), and Thomas Friedman (The World Is Flat) will find much to ponder and enjoy in The Rational Optimist.

For two hundred years the pessimists have dominated public discourse, insisting that things will soon be getting much worse. But in fact, life is getting better—and at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down all across the globe. Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people's lives as never before.

An astute, refreshing, and revelatory work of nonfiction that covers the entire sweep of human history—from the Stone Age to the Internet—The Rational Optimist will change your way of thinking about the world for the better.

• The Collective Brain: Discover how the uniquely human habit of exchange and specialisation created a collective intelligence, sparking innovation and driving prosperity for the last 100,000 years.
• An Economics of Hope: Read the counterintuitive and evidence-based argument that challenges centuries of pessimism, proving that food availability, income, and lifespan are up while disease, child mortality, and violence are down.
• The Evolution of Prosperity: Journey through the entire sweep of human history, from the Stone Age to the Internet, to understand how commerce, technology, and the division of labour have consistently raised our standard of living.
• Escaping Malthus’s Trap: Uncover why humanity’s progress is an accelerating and sustainable process, and why—despite crises and catastrophes—our future is brighter than we think.

Matt Ridley's books―including The Red Queen, Genome, The Rational Optimist, The Evolution of Everything, How Innovation Works, and most recently, Viral: the Search for the Origin of Covid-19 (with Alina Chan)―have sold over a million copies, been translated into 31 languages, and won several awards. He sat in the House of Lords from 2013 and 2021, and was founding chairman of the International Centre for Life in Newcastle. He created the “Mind and Matter” column in the Wall Street Journal in 2010, and was a columnist for the Times. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Northumberland.