Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian and thinker, who has a reputation for being rather contrarian. His previous book Utopia For Realists was a significant seller, and hugely influential. In this new book he extends his hopeful thinking by reassessing the current belief that humans are by nature selfish, and governed by self interest. Bregman looks back over thousands of years of human history, and pits the pessimism of Thomas Hobbes against the optimism Jean-Jacques Rousseau to establish whether humans are fundamentally good or bad. He is provocative, intelligent and well read, and extremely persuasive. You will finish this book more positive than when you started it, it is supremely optimistic, very readable, and highly recommended.