The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker
Published 2011 · 300,000 words · about 20 hours at an average pace · History, Nonfiction, Psychology
How hard is The Better Angels of Our Nature to read?
The Better Angels of Our Nature scores 30 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 48 out of 100
- Interdisciplinary vocabulary—psychology, history, statistics, philosophy—explained but demanding.
- Sentence structure: 45 out of 100
- Abstraction: 55 out of 100
- Statistical reasoning and historical theory require abstract thinking, grounded in data.
- Information density: 70 out of 100
- Enormously dense with data, historical evidence, and theoretical framework across 800 pages.
- Narrative indirection: 100 out of 100
- Direct argument. Pinker states his thesis and builds evidence systematically.
- Symbolic density: 15 out of 100
- Lincoln's phrase ('better angels of our nature') provides a frame, but the work is data-driven.
- Ironic distance: 20 out of 100
- Academic detachment. The counterintuitive thesis provides some ironic pleasure.
- Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
- The thesis is stated in the title. Each chapter adds evidence.
- Structural complexity: 40 out of 100
- Ten chapters covering different timescales and forms of violence. Enormous scope but well-organized.
How The Better Angels of Our Nature is regarded
The Better Angels of Our Nature holds a literary regard score of 58 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.