Journalism usually focuses on what’s going wrong, not what’s going right. As a result, newspapers can give an unduly negative view of the world. I try to remedy this in my Daily Telegraph column today by pointing out that 2014 has been the best year ever – just as 2013 was, and just as 2015 will be. It is something that is, now, true every year but the point cannot be made enough. We’re living through a period of amazing progress – in medicine, prosperity, health and even conquering violence.
One of the most significant studies I’ve seen in this is in the current edition of The Lancet showing how the world has been since the end of the Cold War. The above graph, taken from the Lancet article, shows the waning of disease. The below chart, from a WSJ article by the Canadian academic Steven Pinker, shows the waning of war. And some more graphs below it.
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