“We are better off than anytime in history”

In an age of fear, The Atlantic Monthly journalist and prolific book author Gregg Easterbrook takes on doomsday theories and makes an unexpected case for optimism.

Spring has finally arrived. We ache to spread our arms, stretch our winter bodies in the warming sun, and breathe deeply of the reawakening of nature — if only the news of the world was not so depressing.
Tensions are rising between the US and Iran. The US-China trade war is heating up. Venezuela is descending into civil war. The glorious Notre Dame cathedral went up in flames. And that is only a small sampling of the disasters besetting the world. Christians are slaughtered in Sri Lanka. ISIS is back. Europe and the US are facing mass migration crises. Authoritarianism is on the rise, along with global health and wealth inequalities. And then there are the weather catastrophes many sc ...