With its world wars, genocides, and innumerable revolutions and civil wars, the 20th century was the bloodiest in human history. World War II alone left some 60 million dead—2.5% of the world's population, or the total number of people who lived in Europe during the Middle Ages. Yet a group of researchers argues that complex industrialized societies, even Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia, are far safer places to live than among smaller groups of hunter-gatherers or farmers, in which tribal feuds and homicide typically felled more than 10% of the population.
Language: en
", language="en", issn="0036-8075", doi="10.1126/science.336.6083.829", url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.336.6083.829" }