Everything is going to be alllllll right
Thursday, February 28th, 2008I live and work from home which means I don’t get out as often as is probably healthy. A lot of my view of the world is formed by the news I read and sometimes I find myself getting a little pessimistic.
I came across the following statistics last week while reading Freakonomics (thoroughly recommended) which helped put things into perspective. If you think humanity is going to hell in a handbasket I hope these figures help you as much as they did me:
| HOMICIDES [not incl. wars] per 100,000 people | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| En | N+B | Sc | G+S | It | |
| 13th and 14th c. | 23.0 | 47.0 | na | 37.0 | 56.0 |
| 15th c. | na | 45.0 | 46.0 | 16.0 | 73.0 |
| 16th c. | 7.0 | 25.0 | 21.0 | 11.0 | 47.0 |
| 17th c. | 5.0 | 7.5 | 18.0 | 7.0 | 32.0 |
| 18th c. | 1.5 | 5.5 | 1.9 | 7.5 | 10.5 |
| 19th c. | 1.7 | 1.6 | 1.1 | 2.8 | 12.6 |
| 1900-1949 | 0.8 | 1.5 | 0.7 | 1.7 | 3.2 |
| 1950-1994 | 0.9 | 0.9 | 0.9 | 1.0 | 1.5 |
*En = England, N+B = Netherlands and Belgium, Sc = Scandinavia, G+S = Germany and Swizerland, It = Italy
(Source: Manuel Eisner, “Violence and the Rise of Modern Society” Criminology in Cambridge, October 2003, pp 3-7)
