On a similar vein, I'd also recommend the book Factfulness by the fantastic Hans Rosling (who, sadly, died last year). It is full of exciting anecdotes from the real world and much-needed reminders with lots of informative and fun statistics (one of the amusing ones: "guitars per capita"), and it's a fun read. Rosling isn't all theory; he actually worked as a doctor in Africa (at one point he was the only doctor for 300,000 people!) and many adventures across the world, educating people about Global Health and helping create sensible policies.

I like the term: "possibilistic", which Rosling uses as a less-naive alternative to "optimistic".

The book is college-level reading, though, and not as rigorous as Steven Pinker's book. (Bill Gates was giving away a free digital copy of Factfulness to all graduates in the U.S.)