GATES HELPS PUSH BETTER ANGELS UP AMAZON’S CHARTS

Since stepping down from Microsoft, Bill Gates’s reputation has gone from hard-nosed businessman to inspiring philanthropist. He admits it took him “decades” to learn about inequality, and he says he no longer believes there is only one way to measure intelligence. The argument for that, said Gates, pictured, is laid out in the book The Better Angels of Our Nature. Written by psychology professor Steven Pinker, the book attempts to explain why, as the New York Times put it, “our era is less violent, less cruel and more peaceful than any previous period of human existence,” despite headlines that may scream to the contrary. So it’s no surprise Better Angels is surging. As of Monday afternoon, it had risen in Amazon’s sales rankings by more than 6,000 per cent in the previous 24 hours.