Finally finished this book. It was a long read.

This was Bill Gate’s favourite book, till Enlightenment Now, by the same author. The latter is quite recent and I wanted to read it cause the man was raving about it. But since they seem to be of a series, I figured I’d read both of them back to back.

Compared to the other non-fiction I’ve decided here this has been again a long read. Co parable to Guns, German and Steel.

My only criticism of the book is that it’s a bit drawn out. At nearly 800 pages, and relatively dense prose and technical term as that, it’s not the lightest pop science book. I felt that after awhile the pattern of declining violence was established. So many of the anectores or studies references provided weren’t required. I’ll believe it that if x, y, z forms of violance have decreased ,then w has also decreased, and it’s in fact an across the board thing. In fact, the 80-20 rule worked like a charm here. The last 2 chapters were the hardest to slog through, as it was a lot of reinforcement of the earliest parts.

The next book seems smaller, and hopefully an easier read. I won’t do the back to back in the end, cause I can only take so much optimism in the day, and I want to do some fiction in between non-fiction as well.