Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data. In seventy-five graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature -- tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking -- which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation. Pinker makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.

The Most Dangerous Book You Were Never Meant to Read A legendary underground classic that reshaped alternative publishing, Apocalypse Culture is a definitive collection of forbidden ideas, shocking theories, and fringe voices from the edge of modern thought. Edited by Adam Parfrey, founder of Feral House, this anthology dives deep into the darkest corners of politics, belief, and human behavior. Combining essays, interviews, and manifestos, Apocalypse Culture explores topics that mainstream media won't touch: government mind control, body modification, ritual abuse, cult psychology, taboo sexuality, social decay, eugenics, Satanic panic, and end-times theology. Many of these texts have been banned, suppressed, or ignored--until now. Since its initial release in the late 1980s, Apocalypse Culture has become a touchstone for readers interested in the occult, true crime, radical politics, and conspiracy theories. Revered by artists, feared by censors, and cited in countless works of film, music, and journalism, this book continues to challenge what it means to be civilized in an age of collapse. Whether you're a student of subversive literature or a newcomer to transgressive nonfiction, Apocalypse Culture remains a vital document of Western civilization's shadow self.