Bill Gates Calls This "the Most Inspiring Book" He's Ever Read

When Bill Gates, a multi (multi) billionaire offers life advice, you listen. So when the business magnate took to Twitter to express his feelings about a novel he enjoyed, people headed straight over to Amazon and starting buying up copies. So what's "the most inspiring book" Bill Gates has ever read? He praised Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, a book that explores in depth the (arguably surprising) notion that violence in the world is actually on the decline.

The Better Angels of Our Nature, published in 2010, explores the facets of human nature, in what The New York Times calls "a supremely important book." Pinker uses the timelines in history to support the controversial idea — especially in light of our current political climate — that contradict fatalistic ideas about humankind's "inherent violence and the curse of modernity." Amazon sales of the book have skyrocketed since his verbal endorsement.

"If you think the world is getting better, you want to spread the progress to more people and places," said Gates. "It doesn't mean you ignore the serious problems we face. It just means you believe they can be solved."

Read Gates's tweets about why he loved the book.