Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

12. Goldstein 2015. The numbers are for “refugees,” who cross international borders; the number of “internally displaced persons” has been tracked only since 1989, so a comparison of those displaced by the Syrian war and by earlier wars is impossible.

13. Genocides as old as history: Chalk & Jonassohn 1990, p. xvii.

14. Peak death rate in genocides: From Rummel 1997, using his definition of “democide,” which includes the UCDP’s “one-sided violence” together with deliberate famines, deaths in internment camps, and the targeted bombing of civilians. Stricter definitions of “genocide” also result in counts during the 1940s in the tens of millions. See White 2011; Pinker 2011, pp. 336–42.

15. The calculations are explained in Pinker 2011, p. 716, note 65.

16. Numbers are for 2014 and 2015, the most recent years for which a breakdown is available. Though these are the “high” estimates in the UCDP One-Sided Violence Dataset version 1.4–2015 (http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/datasets/ucdp_one-sided_violence_dataset/), the numbers tally only the verified deaths and should be considered conservative lower bounds.

17. Problems in estimating risks: Pinker 2011, pp. 210–22; Spagat 2015, 2017; M. Spagat, “World War III—What Are the Chances,” Significance, Dec. 2015; M. Spagat & S. Pinker, “Warfare” (letter), Significance, June 2016, and “World War III: The Final Exchange,” Significance, Dec. 2016.

18. Nagdy & Roser 2016a. Military spending in all countries but the United States has decreased in inflation-adjusted dollars from their Cold War peaks, and in the United States it is lower than the Cold War peak as a proportion of GDP. Conscription: Pinker 2011, pp. 255–57; M. Tupy, “Fewer People Exposed to Horrors of War,” HumanProgress, May 30, 2017, http://humanprogress.org/blog/fewer-people-exposed-to-horrors-of-war.

19. Enlightenment-era denunciations of war: Pinker 2011, pp. 164–68.

20. Declines and hiatuses in war: Pinker 2011, pp. 237–38.

21. Gentle commerce vindicated: Pinker 2011, pp. 284–88; Russett & Oneal 2001.

22. Democracy and peace: Pinker 2011, pp. 278–94; Russett & Oneal 2001.

23. Possible irrelevance of nuclear weapons: Mueller 1989, 2004; Pinker 2011, pp. 268–78. For new data see Sechser & Fuhrmann 2017.

24. Norms and taboos as a cause of the Long Peace: Goertz, Diehl, & Balas 2016; Goldstein 2011; Hathaway & Shapiro 2017; Mueller 1989; Nadelmann 1990.

25. Civil wars less deadly than interstate wars: Pinker 2011, pp. 303–5.

26. Peacekeepers keep peace: Fortna 2008; Goldstein 2011; Hultman, Kathman, & Shannong 2013.

27. Richer countries have fewer civil wars: Fearon & Laitin 2003; Hegre et al. 2011; Human Security Centre 2005; Human Security Report Project 2011. Warlords, guerrillas, and mafias: Mueller 2004.

28. Contagion of war: Human Security Report Project 2011.

29. Romantic militarism: Howard 2001; Mueller 1989, 2004; Pinker 2011, pp. 242–44; Sheehan 2008.

30. Quotes are from Mueller 1989, pp. 38–51.

31. Romantic nationalism: Howard 2001; Luard 1986; Mueller 1989; Pinker 2011, pp. 238–42.

32. Hegelian dialectical struggle: Luard 1986, p. 355; Nisbet 1980/2009. Quote from Mueller 1989.

33. Marxist dialectical struggle: Montgomery & Chirot 2015.

34. Declinism and cultural pessimism: Herman 1997; Wolin 2004.

35. Herman 1997, p. 231.

CHAPTER 12: SAFETY

1. In 2005, between 421,000 and 1.8 million people were bitten by poisonous snakes, and between 20,000 and 94,000 of them died (Kasturiratne et al. 2008).

2. Relative toll of injuries: World Health Organization 2014.

3. Accidents and causes of death: Kochanek et al. 2016. Accidents and the global burden of disease and disability: Murray et al. 2012.

4. Homicides more lethal than war: Pinker 2011, p. 221; see also p. 177, table 13–1. For updated data and visualizations on homicide rates, see the Igarapé Institute’s Homicide Monitor, https://homicide.igarape.org.br/.

5. Medieval violence: Pinker 2011, pp. 17–18, 60–75; Eisner 2001, 2003.

6. The Civilizing Process: Eisner 2001, 2003; Elias 1939/2000; Fletcher 1997.

7. Eisner and Elias: Eisner 2001, 2014a.

8. 1960s crime boom: Latzer 2016; Pinker 2011, pp. 106–16.

9. Root-causism: Sowell 1995.

10. Racism in decline in the 1960s: Pinker 2011, pp. 382–94.

11. Great American Crime Decline: Latzer 2016; Pinker 2011, pp. 116–27; Zimring 2007. The 2015 uptick was likely caused in part by a retreat in policing following nationally publicized protests against police shootings in 2014; see L. Beckett, “Is the ‘Ferguson Effect’ Real? Researcher Has Second Thoughts,” The Guardian, May 13, 2016; H. Macdonald, “Police Shootings and Race,” Washington Post, July 18, 2016. For reasons why the 2015 uptick is unlikely to reverse the progress of the years before, see B. Latzer, “Will the Crime Spike Become a Crime Boom?” City Journal, Aug. 31, 2016, https://www.city-journal.org/html/will-crime-spike-become-crime-boom-14710.html.