# The Rational Optimist

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/books/the-rational-optimist/
- Published: 2011-06-18T11:03:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Journalist Matt Ridley explains why there are good reasons to face the future 
with optimism. **

Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence
are down all across the globe, and he demonstrates this with research findings.

He accepts that there is nothing inevitable about a positive future of course but
points to the driving forces that can and are contributing to this, and at a faster
rate than most people recognise.

A positive guide to inspire fundraisers in contributing to positive social change.

Life is on the up.

We are wealthier, healthier, happier, kinder, cleaner, more peaceful, more equal
and longer-lived than any previous generation. Thanks to the unique human habits
of exchange and specialisation, our species has found innovative solutions to every
obstacle it has faced so far.

In _‘The Rational Optimist’_, acclaimed science writer Matt Ridley comprehensively
refutes the doom-mongers of our time, and reaches back into the past to give a rational
explanation for why we can – and will – overcome the challenges of the future, such
as climate change and the population boom.

Bold and controversial, it is a brilliantly confident assertion that the 21st century
will be the best for humankind yet.

![Publisher's promotion of The Rational Optimist](https://wfay6x.infiniteuploads.
cloud/2021/12/the-rational-optimist-publisher-promotion.png)

## Reviews

“No other book has argued with such brilliance against the automatic pessimism that
prevails”
**Ian McEwan**

“His theory is, in a way, the glorious offspring that would result if Charles Darwin’s
ideas were mated with those of Adam Smith”
**The Economist**

WATCH: The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley

Video: Talks at Google