From the announcement in the March 2021 e-news :

Join us for our online book discussion of ‘Humankind : A Hopeful History’ by Rutger Bregman. If lockdown has taught us anything, it is that people are much kinder and prepared to help each other than anybody had expected. Human beings, we’re taught, are by nature selfish and governed by self-interest. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Dawkins, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought.

This book, Humankind, makes a new argument: that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume that people are good. The instinct to cooperate rather than compete, trust rather than distrust, has an evolutionary basis going right back to the beginning of Homo sapiens. By thinking the worst of others, we bring out the worst in our politics and economics too.

Free ‘Zoom’ event on Thursday 6 May 2021 at 8pm.