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Over 10,000 years ago there were fewer than 10 million people on the planet. Today there are more than 6 billion, 99 per cent of whom are better fed, better sheltered, better entertained and better protected against disease than their Stone Age ancestors.The availability of almost everything a person could want or need has been going erratically upwards for 10,000 years and has rapidly accelerated over the last 200 years: calories; vitamins; clean water; machines; privacy; the means to travel faster than we can run, and the ability to communicate over longer distances than we can shout. Yet, bizarrely, however much things improve from the way they were before, people still cling to the belief that the future will be nothing but disastrous.In this original, optimistic book, Matt Ridley puts forward his surprisingly simple answer to how humans progress, arguing that we progress when we trade and we only really trade productively when we trust each other.The Rational Optimist will do for economics what Genome did for genomics and will show that the answer to our problems, imagined or real, is to keep on doing what we've been doing for 10,000 years – to keep on changing.
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Previews available in: English
Subjects
Wealth, Optimism, Practical reason, History, Nonfiction, Reason, Social change, ProgressEdition | Availability |
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1
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
2011, Harper Perennial
Paperback
in English
0061452068 9780061452062
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2
The Rational Optimist CD: How Prosperity Evolves
May 18, 2010, HarperAudio
audio cd
0061992623 9780061992629
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zzzz
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WorldCat
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3 |
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4
The rational optimist: how prosperity evolves
2010, Harper
in English
- 1st U.S. ed.
006145205X 9780061452055
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zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
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5 |
aaaa
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
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6
The rational optimist: how prosperity evolves
2010, Harper
in English
- 1st U.S. ed.
006145205X 9780061452055
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
7
The rational optimist: how prosperity evolves
2010, Fourth Estate, Harper
in English
006145205X 9780061452055
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zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
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8
The rational optimist: how prosperity evolves
2010, Fourth Estate, Harper
in English
006145205X 9780061452055
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
9
The rational optimist: how prosperity evolves
2010, Harper
in English
- 1st U.S. ed.
006145205X 9780061452055
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
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Feedback?August 28, 2020 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
December 27, 2019 | Edited by Drini | Edited without comment. |
July 22, 2019 | Edited by MARC Bot | remove fake subjects |
January 3, 2018 | Edited by Mek | Edited without comment. |
March 12, 2010 | Created by WorkBot | work found |