No War

Hard as this is to believe, we live in one of the most peaceful periods of human history.1 Homicides have been falling in most parts of the world for centuries.2 Despite the horrors beamed across the internet, violent deaths from wars between states are at historic lows.3 Civil war deaths have risen in recent years owing to the conflicts principally in Afghanistan, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, but they had fallen so far since the end of the Cold War that they are still a fraction (in per capita terms) of what they were at any time before.4 After rising for a decade and a half, even violent extremist–related fatalities are on the decline.5