'Progress? Yes, really.' A personal blog post by Dan Smith

‘Humanity’s social progress is real. More people live longer, healthier lives than ever. Fewer live in extreme poverty than 30 years ago and a much smaller proportion of the total population than 100 or 200 years ago. The store of human knowledge continues to enlarge. Human rights are respected now in a way that was not dreamed of 200 years ago. More people live in democratic political systems today than ever. And in the first two decades of the 21st century, warfare has taken far fewer human lives than it did in the first two decades of the 20th.”

Read Dan Smith’s new blog post about the state of the world HERE.

Buy a copy of The State of the World Atlas  by Dan Smith. Now in it’s 10th edition, this is a groundbreaking atlas and milestone of graphic reporting. Dan Smith is the Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and is also author of The State of the Middle East Atlas.

Dan Smith OBE

Dan Smith is the Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. From 2003 to 2015 he was Secretary General of the London-based international peacebuilding organization International Alert, and before that Director of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo. From 2014 to 2017 he was also a Professor at the University of Manchester’s Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute.

He has held fellowships at the Norwegian Nobel Institute and Hellenic Foundation for Foreign and European Policy. He was Chair of the Advisory Group for the UN Peacebuilding Fund in 2010 and 2011 and from 1992 to 2006 was the Chair of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

Smith has been writing on peace and security issues for 40 years and, among other works, is the author of The State of the Middle East Atlas, as well as successive editions of The State of the World Atlas and The Atlas of War and Peace.

Smith was awarded the OBE in 2002, and blogs on international politics  at www.dansmithsblog.com.