Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think this is the most violent age ever seen. Yet as bestselling author Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true.

In the years after the First World War both Ulster and Upper Silesia saw violent conflicts over self-determination. Examining the nature of communal boundaries, such as religion and language, Timothy Wilson explains the profound contrasts in these experiences of plebeian violence.

The 2015 edition of the Global Burden of Armed Violence provides a wealth of data relevant to security and the post-2015 sustainable development framework. It estimates that 508,000 people died violently - in both conflict and non-conflict settings - every year in 2007–12, down from 526,000 in 2004–09. This trend is visible in non-conflict settings, where the proportion of women and girls is also slightly reduced, from 17 to 16 per cent. Yet, the number of direct conflict deaths is on the rise: from 55,000 to 70,000 per year over the same periods. Firearms are used in close to half of all homicides committed and in almost one-third of direct conflict deaths. Nearly USD 2 trillion in global homicide-related economic losses could have been saved if the homicide rate in 2000–10 had been reduced to the lowest practically attainable levels - between 2 and 3 deaths per 100,000 population.