Why 2017 was the best year in human history

WE all know that the world is going to hell. Given the rising risk of nuclear war with North Korea, the paralysis in the US Congress, warfare in Yemen and Syria, atrocities in Myanmar and an American president who may be going cuckoo, you might think 2017 was the worst year ever.

But you'd be wrong. In fact, 2017 was probably the very best year in the long history of humanity.

A smaller share of the world's people were hungry, impoverished or illiterate than at any time before. A smaller proportion of children died than ever before. The proportion disfigured by leprosy and blinded by diseases like trachoma or suffering from other ailments also fell.