This chapter explores the dangers of utopian thinking and the lessons to be learned from the tragedies of the 20th century, including the Holocaust, the Gulag, and World War II. It discusses how people often overlook their own flaws when driven by the belief that their ideologies can save mankind, referencing Reinhold Niebuhr's writings on idealism and its contributions to catastrophes.
Historian and author Walter Russell Mead of Bard College and the Hudson Institute talks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about how innovation and religion can help us make sense of the current state of the world.