Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
by Steven Pinker
Narrated by Arthur Morey
Why You'll Love This
Pinker dares you to look at the data and feel optimistic — and somehow, over 20 hours, he wins the argument.
- Great if you want: a data-driven antidote to doomscrolling and pessimism
- Listening experience: dense and lecture-like — best absorbed in focused stretches
- Narration: Morey delivers Pinker's dense prose with steady, professorial authority
- Skip if: contrarian optimism feels tone-deaf given your current moment
Listen to Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress on Audible →
About This Book
Steven Pinker mounts a sweeping, data-driven defense of human progress across health, prosperity, safety, and freedom, arguing that the Enlightenment ideals of reason and science have delivered measurable gains even as headlines insist the world is falling apart. Drawing on seventy-five graphs and decades of research, the Harvard cognitive scientist traces how tribalism, authoritarianism, and magical thinking threaten the institutions that made modern life possible — and why defending them matters more than ever.
Arthur Morey navigates the book's dense analytical passages and sharp rhetorical turns with a calm, intelligent authority that never lets the statistics overwhelm the argument. His pacing makes the nearly twenty-hour runtime feel purposeful rather than exhausting, and his delivery of Pinker's pointed rebuttals to doom-and-gloom thinking gives the audiobook a persuasive momentum that works especially well in audio form. Winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Nonfiction in 2018.
