Rutger Bregman is determined to make us believe again in the “kind” part of humankind; he dissects the accepted science and philosophy that tried to convince us otherwise and finds them less than rigorous. He even tracks down the real incident behind William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies.’ What happened to persuade us that humans are greedy, violent, and untrustworthy? Bregman’s thesis is that ‘Homo Puppy,’ as he dubs us—the kind, cooperative, generous humans that emerged from hunter-gathering—was ruined by agriculture and land ownership, and the need to defend them. He doesn’t say this explicitly, but with the dominance of competitive capitalism, we became invested in a worldview that sees people as predatorial, someone from whom we must defend ourselves, and this tendency is reinforced, first by the regular media and then social media. In the concluding section of the book, the author musters opposing evidence, to convince us that if we want it to be so, humans can be trusted to take care of one another and of the world. An uplifting book that ends with prescriptions for a happier life and a better world.