Bregman Rutger - Utopia for Realists

If youre bored with hackneyed debates, decades-old right-wing and left-wing clichs, you may enjoy the bold thinking, fresh ideas, lively prose, and evidence-based arguments in Utopia for Realists.

Steven Pinker, author of The Blank Slate and The Better Angels of Our Nature

Obligatory reading for everyone worried about the wrongs of present-day society and wishing to contribute to their cure.

Zygmunt Bauman, author of Consuming Life and Liquid Modernity

This book is brilliant. Everyone should read it. Bregman shows us weve been looking at the world inside out. Turned right-way out we suddenly see fundamentally new ways forward. If we can get enough people to read this book, the world will start to become a better place.

Richard Wilkinson, coauthor of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better

An excellent read and full of well-told stories and details I didnt know.

Tim Harford, senior columnist at the Financial Times and author of The Undercover Economist

Learning from history and from up-to-date social science can shatter crippling illusions. It can turn allegedly utopian proposals into plain common sense. It can enable us to face the future with unprecedented enthusiasm. To see how, read this superbly written, upbeat, insightful book.

Philippe Van Parijs, cofounder of the Basic Income Earth Network and author of Real Freedom for All

A wonderful call to utopian thinking around incomes and the workweek, and a welcome antidote to the pessimism surrounding robots taking our jobs.

Charles Kenny, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and author of The Upside of Down: Why the Rise of the Rest Is Great for the West

A bold call for utopian thinking and a world without worksomething needed more than ever in an era of defeatism and lack of ambition. Highly recommended!

Nick Srnicek, coauthor of Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work

The impact of this book in the Netherlands has been huge. Not only did Rutger Bregman launch a highly successful and long-running debate in the media, he also inspired a movement across the country that is putting his ideas into practice. Now its time for the rest of the world.

Joris Luyendijk, bestselling author of Swimming with Sharks: My Journey into the World of the Bankers

Utopia for Realists is an important book, a wonderfully readable breath of fresh air, a window thrown open to a better future. As politicians and economists are asking how to increase productivity, ensure full employment, and downsize government, Bregman asks: What actually makes life worth living and how can we get there? The answers, it turns out, are already there, and Bregman combines deep research with wit, challenging us to think anew about how we want to live and who we want to be. Required reading.

Philipp Blom, historian and author of The Vertigo Years: Europe, 19001914 and A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment

If energy, enthusiasm, and aphorism could make the world better, then Rutger Bregmans book would do it. Even in translation from the Dutch, the writing is powerful and fluent. A boisterously good read.

John Rentoul, The Independent (UK)