Ada Palmer
Historian of the Renaissance at the University of Chicago and a science-fiction novelist; wrote Terra Ignota and Inventing the Renaissance.
Ada Palmer did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
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What they believe
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The Renaissance and early modern period were not a better time to be alive than the Middle Ages they are said to have rescued Europe from.
As a Renaissance historian, I feel it’s my job to shoulder the other half of the load by talking about what the Renaissance was like, confirming that our Medievalists are right, it wasn’t a better time to live than the Middle Ages
exurbe.comSaid 4 Jun 2020This on korrents
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The idea of progress is a recent invention: Francis Bacon created it in the early seventeenth century, and no earlier society had it.
Then in the early seventeenth century, Francis Bacon invented progress.
exurbe.comSaid 4 Jan 2017This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
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16 June
From one piece Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer 15 beliefs · youtube.com
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Their words
If there is a system, then you have liberty. That system may be unfair. It may be biased. It may be, in Machiavelli's case, the very system that tortured and exiled him.
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Their words
And everyone says, "Why are they liking this man? He is a cruel murdering tyrant." And the answer is for the first time in generations, they have had something close to fair justice.
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Their words
And the reason that trial goes all the way to a capital sentence is that he doesn't have a patron. He's the 99th case that time.
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The ideal of this period's justice which is much more shaped by Christianity is the purpose of the trial is the spiritual interior correction of the soul of the sinner.
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And then you look at the actual trial records, and maybe one in a hundred convictions for that crime actually ends in a capital sentence. And almost all of the other ones end in a fine or a public flogging, but not in the sentence that's on the books.
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Their words
Therefore, by popular demand, the people want more nepotism because the system depends on it.
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Well, it's it's not that it was just more prominent, but it was the fundamental glue of the society as opposed to one of several glues of the society.
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All institutions are gradually corrupted and need to be reformed and returned to their foundations, or they will collapse under the weight of their corruption.
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Their words
It even becomes a kind of a prisoner's dilemma system because if you're the duke and you don't manipulate the papacy, if you don't bribe the pope, if you don't work hard to get your brother to be bishop, and your enemies do, you're screwed.
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Their words
These are the two factions for which these parties fought originally. 300 years ago, these days what these factions actually mean is those jerks murdered Uncle Tibalt and we will never forgive them.
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Machiavelli is the first person that we have ever in the European tradition to suggest that it could be viable for there to be more than one political party in a state at the same time.
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And so his power base was fragile vis-a-vis untruth. And for him because of the specific shape of his power and then the specific way he handled his contradictions, that did hurt him.
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They fell because half of what happens in the world is never in our control. And you can do everything right and it's out of your control, but we have to evaluate what would have happened and therefore we should imitate them, because everything they did was right.
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Their words
And soon we have a precedent that every new pope feels he has the authority to knock down every pawn upon the chessboard if he feels like it. Once that is the norm, even a fairly nice pope still inherits the idea that the pope is going to overthrow and replace governments. And this creates a unique instability within Italy that no other part of Europe is subject to
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Their words
When you break that, when you overthrow the ruler, when you dissolve the republic, when you put in a new thing, it doesn't have that same staying power. And so, it's very common when there's one regime change for there to then be five regime changes rapid-fire over and over.
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Clerical Households in Late Medieval ItalyTheir words
Book cover of Roisin Cossar's brilliant book "Clerical Households in Late Medieval Italy." It's packed with fantastic stories about efforts to enforce clerical celibacy, and the myriad people who flouted them!
12 February 2025
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance FlorenceTheir words
My friend Michael Roche's brilliant book "Forbidden Friendships" shows how 40% to 60% of Florence's male population was indicted for sodomy (a capital offense!) at some point in their lives, yet practically all indictments ended with a fine. I cannot recommend this book enough!!!!
3 February 2025
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Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 37 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
A government only has legitimacy through long continuity, and once that thread is cut one regime change reliably becomes five.
When you break that, when you overthrow the ruler, when you dissolve the republic, when you put in a new thing, it doesn't have that same staying power. And so, it's very common when there's one regime change for there to then be five regime changes rapid-fire over and over.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
The papacy made Italy uniquely unstable in Europe, because each new pope inherited a precedent that he could overthrow any government he liked.
And soon we have a precedent that every new pope feels he has the authority to knock down every pawn upon the chessboard if he feels like it. Once that is the norm, even a fairly nice pope still inherits the idea that the pope is going to overthrow and replace governments. And this creates a unique instability within Italy that no other part of Europe is subject to
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
The moral Machiavelli draws from the Borgias is that we should imitate them: they fell to fortune, not to their choices.
They fell because half of what happens in the world is never in our control. And you can do everything right and it's out of your control, but we have to evaluate what would have happened and therefore we should imitate them, because everything they did was right.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
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Whether breaking your word destroys you depends on the shape of your power: Savonarola’s rested on never erring, so his contradictions ruined him.
And so his power base was fragile vis-a-vis untruth. And for him because of the specific shape of his power and then the specific way he handled his contradictions, that did hurt him.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
Machiavelli is the first person in the European tradition to suggest that two political parties could exist in one state at once and be viable.
Machiavelli is the first person that we have ever in the European tradition to suggest that it could be viable for there to be more than one political party in a state at the same time.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
By Machiavelli's day the Guelph and Ghibelline split had no doctrinal content left in it: it meant only that those people murdered Uncle Tibalt.
These are the two factions for which these parties fought originally. 300 years ago, these days what these factions actually mean is those jerks murdered Uncle Tibalt and we will never forgive them.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
Corrupting the church was a prisoner's dilemma: a duke who declined to bribe the pope while his enemies bribed him was simply beaten.
It even becomes a kind of a prisoner's dilemma system because if you're the duke and you don't manipulate the papacy, if you don't bribe the pope, if you don't work hard to get your brother to be bishop, and your enemies do, you're screwed.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
Machiavelli held that every institution is gradually corrupted and must be reformed back to its foundations or collapse under the weight of that corruption.
All institutions are gradually corrupted and need to be reformed and returned to their foundations, or they will collapse under the weight of their corruption.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
Patronage in Renaissance Italy was not merely more prominent than in our world — it was the fundamental glue of the society rather than one glue among several.
Well, it's it's not that it was just more prominent, but it was the fundamental glue of the society as opposed to one of several glues of the society.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
Romans rioted to demand more nepotism from their pope, because only a man's own son could be trusted not to turn the army against him.
Therefore, by popular demand, the people want more nepotism because the system depends on it.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
Medieval law codes prescribed death for almost everything and almost never delivered it, and the reason is patronage rather than mercy.
And then you look at the actual trial records, and maybe one in a hundred convictions for that crime actually ends in a capital sentence. And almost all of the other ones end in a fine or a public flogging, but not in the sentence that's on the books.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
Before the Enlightenment the point of a trial was not proportional justice but the interior spiritual correction of the sinner's soul.
The ideal of this period's justice which is much more shaped by Christianity is the purpose of the trial is the spiritual interior correction of the soul of the sinner.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
Giordano Bruno went to the stake because he had lost his patron, not because his thought had finally grown too radical.
And the reason that trial goes all the way to a capital sentence is that he doesn't have a patron. He's the 99th case that time.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
Cesare Borgia's conquered cities loved him because an outsider with no local faction gave them the first neutral justice they had seen in generations.
And everyone says, "Why are they liking this man? He is a cruel murdering tyrant." And the answer is for the first time in generations, they have had something close to fair justice.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
For Machiavelli a man who can be killed on somebody's word is a slave, and a man protected by a system — however unfair that system is — is free.
If there is a system, then you have liberty. That system may be unfair. It may be biased. It may be, in Machiavelli's case, the very system that tortured and exiled him.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
Renaissance art was not made out of a surplus left over from war — it was diplomacy, and diplomacy was cheaper than the armies Florence could never afford.
They're using the art to do diplomacy and so in one sense if you're not doing the art you would have to spend more on the war. It's not that the art is being made from a surplus of the war.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
The Renaissance did not put human potential in the future: backwards was forwards, and the highest thing people could imagine being was Rome again.
this is a period in which backwards is forwards, which is to say this is not a period that like us thinks of the future as where potential is and humanity might get better and better over time. The potential of humanity is recapturing Rome.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
Renaissance Christianity assumed that nobody was ever pure — everybody sins constantly, repents, and sins again — which is why its hypocrisy looks so strange to us.
The assumption is everybody sins all the time. There is no such thing as purity. Everybody sins every 5 minutes.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
The word Machiavellian means self-serving, and Machiavelli himself was one of the most selfless men in recorded history.
This is why it's so weirdly ironic to me that the reputation, the word Machiavellian, right, means self-serving. When Machiavelli himself is one of the most selfless men I've ever read about in the history of the earth.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
The Prince is not a manual for getting ahead: it is a manual for how a government keeps power and protects the lives of its people.
It shouldn't It shouldn't be shelved next to How to Win Friends and Influence People because it's a manual not of how to gain power, but of how to keep power.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
A book of radically unusual ideas drifts unread for centuries until a decade's new questions happen to be answered inside it, and then everyone reads it at once.
It is often the case that a work which contains radically unusual ideas will drift along being not particularly zoomed in on by society and not widely read until it hits a moment that the new questions being asked in that century or that decade are answered by something in that text.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
Every new information technology is followed by a wave of censorship in which a great many books are banned at once.
mini thesis, every time there's a new information technology, there's a subsequent wave of censorship to try to censor the new technology and a bajillion books get banned all at once.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
Machiavelli's first surge in readership came from people trying to refute Hobbes, not from anybody who agreed with him.
And so Machiavelli is suddenly useful not to people who sympathize with him but to people who see him as an enemy.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
The Renaissance is not two hundred years of people being wrong about Plato; it is two hundred years of original thought using the ancients as a trellis.
What it is is 200 years of original thought using the ancients as the trellis up which the rose climbs in order to bloom.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
Copyright was born out of the Inquisition: the record of having passed censorship was the first document proving an exclusive right to print.
and you may now use the actual Inquisition record of you having gone through censorship as the document to prove that you and only you have the right to print the book and therefore you can sue people for plagiarizing it or printing an unauthorized edition. And so, the very first version of copyright is the Inquisition.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
The Inquisition's image as one centralised power is its own propaganda: it was scattered isolated men who could act only as far as a local government would fund them.
The Inquisition, the Vatican, it controls everything, which is completely untrue and is propagandistic. The Inquisition is overseen by a whole bunch of isolated guys who are in isolated towns and it takes weeks or months to even communicate with the Vatican and they're making their own decisions.
Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer Said 16 Jun 2026
The Renaissance and early modern period were not a better time to be alive than the Middle Ages they are said to have rescued Europe from.
As a Renaissance historian, I feel it’s my job to shoulder the other half of the load by talking about what the Renaissance was like, confirming that our Medievalists are right, it wasn’t a better time to live than the Middle Ages
Black Death, COVID, and Why We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Ages Said 4 Jun 2020
Life expectancy in Italy fell sharply between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from 35-40 years in the 1200s to 18 by 1500.
In Italy, average life expectancies in the solidly Medieval 1200s were 35-40, while by the year 1500 (definitely Renaissance) life expectancy in Italian city states had dropped to 18.
Black Death, COVID, and Why We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Ages Said 4 Jun 2020
The plague did not pass through in 1348 and leave: it stayed endemic in Europe for nearly four centuries afterwards.
in school they talk as if the plague swept through in 1348 then went away, but the bubonic plague did not go away, it remained endemic, like influenza or chickenpox today, a fact of life.
Black Death, COVID, and Why We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Ages Said 4 Jun 2020
Plague receded from Europe through fourteen generations of natural selection, not through any advance in medicine.
when plague finally diminished in Europe, not because of any advance in medicine, but because fourteen generations of exposure gave natural selection time to work
Black Death, COVID, and Why We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Ages Said 4 Jun 2020
The golden-Renaissance myth damages our understanding of the Renaissance itself as badly as it damages our understanding of the Middle Ages.
while the myth of the golden Renaissance does terrible damage to how we understand the Middle Ages, it does just as much damage to how we understand the Renaissance.
Black Death, COVID, and Why We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Ages Said 4 Jun 2020
A mass death does not by itself produce a boom afterwards: expecting a pandemic to renew an economy on its own misreads what followed the Black Death.
Using history to understand our present is a great impulse, but it means some of the false myths we tell about the Black Death and Renaissance are doing new damage, one of the most problematic in my view being the idea that sitting back and letting COVID kill will somehow by itself naturally make the economy turn around and enter a period of growth and rising wages.
Black Death, COVID, and Why We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Ages Said 4 Jun 2020
The idea of progress is a recent invention: Francis Bacon created it in the early seventeenth century, and no earlier society had it.
Then in the early seventeenth century, Francis Bacon invented progress.
On Progress and Historical Change Said 4 Jan 2017
Bacon’s scientific project produced almost nothing useful for two hundred years after it began.
It really took two hundred years for Bacon’s academy to develop anything useful.
On Progress and Historical Change Said 4 Jan 2017
History teaches complexity rather than prediction: it can explain the mechanisms of change without licensing any claim about what comes next.
history is a lesson in complexity not predictability
On Progress and Historical Change Said 4 Jan 2017
Treating history as a march of progress makes whole eras and regions disappear, dismissed for having failed to advance it.
In such a history whole eras can be dismissed as unworthy of study for failing to forward progress (The Middle Ages did great stuff, guys!) while other eras can be disproportionately celebrated for advancing it (The Renaissance did a lot of dumb stuff too!).
On Progress and Historical Change Said 4 Jan 2017
Anything in the past that feels revolutionary, modern or comfortable should be treated as a warning sign of presentism until the evidence has been checked again.
Presentism is sometimes conscious, but often unconscious, so mindful historians will pause whenever we see something that feels revolutionary, or progressive, or proto-modern, or too comfortable, to check for other readings, and make triple sure we have real evidence.
On Progress and Historical Change Said 4 Jan 2017
Beliefs others hold too
The Renaissance and early modern period were not a better time to be alive than the Middle Ages they are said to have rescued Europe from. 2 hold this
As a Renaissance historian, I feel it’s my job to shoulder the other half of the load by talking about what the Renaissance was like, confirming that our Medievalists are right, it wasn’t a better time to live than the Middle Ages
Black Death, COVID, and Why We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Ages Said 4 Jun 2020
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 10 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
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Loved Clerical Households in Late Medieval Italy
Book cover of Roisin Cossar's brilliant book "Clerical Households in Late Medieval Italy." It's packed with fantastic stories about efforts to enforce clerical celibacy, and the myriad people who flouted them!
exurbe.com 14 Feb 2025
What others say about Clerical Households in Late Medieval Italy →
Recommends Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence
My friend Michael Roche's brilliant book "Forbidden Friendships" shows how 40% to 60% of Florence's male population was indicted for sodomy (a capital offense!) at some point in their lives, yet practically all indictments ended with a fine. I cannot recommend this book enough!!!!
exurbe.com 5 Feb 2025
Loved The Noisy Renaissance
A terrific book about the soundscape of Renaissance Florence. This is well written, thorough, scholarly, and also a ton of fun.
exurbe.com 5 Jan 2022
Show 7 more
Loved The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
One of the most entertaining primary sources ever written.
exurbe.com 5 Jan 2022
What others say about The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini →
Loved The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism
Peter Gay has a beautifully warm and human way of writing about history that makes him a joy to read.
exurbe.com 5 Jan 2022
What others say about The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism →
Loved The Birth of the Modern Mind: The Intellectual History of the 17th and 18th Centuries
This is not a book but a set of lectures, an absolutely brilliant overview of the changes in western thought over the course of the 17th to 18th centuries that were so pivotal to the development of the modern world, especially science, democracy, and current ideas of ethics and politics.
exurbe.com 5 Jan 2022
Loved The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe
Matthew Gabriele & David M. Perry, The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe, freshly published 2021 and so so fun and so so brilliant!
exurbe.com 5 Jan 2022
What others say about The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe →
Liked The Reformation
This particular Reformation overview is thorough, well written, comprehensive, and reliable.
exurbe.com 5 Jan 2022
Loved Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy
Giant comprehensive masterful examination of what Renaissance humanists & philosophers were really trying to achieve.
exurbe.com 5 Jan 2022
What others say about Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy →
Loved The Renaissance in Italy: A Social and Cultural History of the Renaissance
It's hard to express how good this book is — comprehensive, well written, illuminating and thought provoking on both small and large points.
exurbe.com 5 Jan 2022
What others say about The Renaissance in Italy: A Social and Cultural History of the Renaissance →
Where they publish
Blog Ex Urbe Her blog on Renaissance history, philosophy, books and fandom. Has a feed.
Posts on Renaissance history, philosophy and fandom. The feed bylines her posts “exurbe” or “assistant” rather than her name — both are hers, filed under the site’s own accounts.
Recent
- How is Inventing the Renaissance an SFF-Related Work? 29 Jan 2026 It’s a surprisingly fun question. This year, the British Science Fiction Association Awards included my nonfiction history, Inventing the Renaissance: Myths of a Golden Age, on its long list of nominees for Best Non-Fic…
- Beatrice Twice Queen of Hungary 4 Mar 2025 Time to meet one of the coolest Renaissance queens no one has heard of: Beatrice of Naples TWICE Queen of Hungary. She’s one of the awesome people who didn’t quite get a chapter to herself in “Inventing the Renaissance”…
- LGBTQIA+ Renaissance 14 Feb 2025 As we resist those who claim diversity distorts scholarship, let’s run through the acronym & show how easy it is to find the rainbow in every era. We don’t even need to look beyond the Renaissance celebrities that are h…
Show 7 more
- Rags to Riches Stories Fake & Real, or Always Look Up Everybody’s Mom! 12 Feb 2025 Rags to Riches stories were popular long before modern iterations like the “American Dream” or “self-made man”, or even early modern ones like Jack the Giant-Killer or Cinderella. And they were also always used as propa…
- History’s Largest & Most Famous Disability Access Ramp 11 Feb 2025 Time for the largest, most famous disability access ramp in the world, paired with a twist about how our feelings about a piece of history can reverse completely based, not just on the historian’s point of view, but wha…
- Clarice Orsini de Medici’s Extremely Illegal Hat 10 Feb 2025 Time to share my current historical obsession: Clarice Orsini de Medici’s EXTREMELY ILLEGAL HAT! A cool reflection on performing social class (and part of my release countdown to the release of Inventing the Renaissance…
- Gonzaga vs Sanseverino: I Fart in Your General Direction 5 Feb 2025 Buckle up, friends, it’s time for the real life “I fart in your general direction”: Marquis Francesco Gonzaga’s unforgettable reply to the 1503 duel challenge from Galeazzo Sanseverino. (Part of my countdown to “Inventi…
- Galeazzo Sanseverino & Milan’s Sovereign Polycule-Threesome 3 Feb 2025 Time to meet one of my favorite Renaissance friends: Galeazzo Sanseverino, a mercenary whom contemporary sources describe as the sexiest thing in pants in Italy, part of the badass polycule threesome that ruled Milan in…
- Resistance when the Tyrant is in Power: Florence’s Vasari Corridor 27 Jan 2025 Let’s talk about resistance after a conqueror takes power. Specifically let’s talk about this bendy yellow building, and what it shows us about the moment the Florentine Republic finally fell to its kleptocratic/proto-c…
- The Lost Towers of the Guelph-Ghibelline Wars 15 Jan 2025 Looks fake, doesn’t it? This implausible Medieval forest of towers, as dense as Manhattan skyscrapers, is our best reconstruction of the town of Bologna at its height, toward the end of the Medieval Guelph-Ghibelline wa…
Link verified 20 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
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Recent
- COVER REVEAL!!! "AND LOKI IN HIS PRISON" book 1 of "HANGED GOD'S GAME" Jon Sideriadis's intricate painting is perfect for a book which aims to give grown-up readers that old sense of wonder we felt as kids opening a myth book Pre-orders open USA & UK: 21 Oct 2026
- Re: Hugo eligibility, my essay about how "Inventing the Renaissance" is an SFF-related work. Many asked me if I think it is, & it was fun mulling! https://t.co/JGkrZMbAK1 Another great "Best Related": Henry Lien's brilliant "Spring Summer Asteroid Bird"! 23 Mar 2026
- Simple technologies bent outcomes too. In the last decade deaths from air pollution, the thing that kills more people than anything else, have dropped by 21 percent, driven largely by billions of people gaining access to cleaner stoves. https://t.co/8zxAQFMetQ #ShareGoodNewsToo 5 Jan 2026
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- The Lancet released a report: since 2010, humanity’s total burden of illness and early death has dropped by 12.6 percent, driven by declining deaths from the world's deadliest infectious diseases: all down by between 25 and 49 percent. https://t.co/8zxAQFMetQ #ShareGoodNewsToo 3 Jan 2026
- In August, the WHO and UNICEF released data showing that over the last decade 961 million people gained access to safe drinking water, 1.2 billion gained safe sanitation, and 1.5 billion gained basic hygiene services. https://t.co/8zxAQFMetQ #ShareGoodNewsToo 2 Jan 2026
- Global hunger is falling for the first time since the pandemic, driven by gains in Asia and the Americas. In 2025 the world produced record harvests of wheat, rice and soybeans, pushing grain prices down 8 percent. https://t.co/8zxAQFMetQ #ShareGoodNewsToo 1 Jan 2026
- Every year, Gallup surveys around 1,000 people each in 142 countries, asking about their lives and expectations. In its most recent edition, 33 percent of respondents said they were thriving, the highest proportion on record. https://t.co/8zxAQFMetQ #ShareGoodNewsToo 31 Dec 2025
- Fix the News published 38 editions of their newsletter this year, "featuring 1,932 stories from 170 countries, and what we found was that while the headlines kept insisting on collapse, the data ... kept showing stubborn progress." https://t.co/8zxAQFMetQ #ShareGoodNewsToo 30 Dec 2025
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- (Energy transitions can happen faster than we think): In 2000 almost 90% of Denmark’s electricity was from fossil fuels, but in 2024, that number was a mere 10%. No addition, just transition. Jan Rosenow https://t.co/1EB5TPrQb6 #ShareGoodNewsToo 24 Dec 2025
- 400 years ago, Jubilee Marsh was walled off from the sea. Mid-2000s, the Royal Society for the Protection Of Birds decided to ‘rewet’ the marsh. The Crossrail project needed a place for dirt. Cue collaboration & a successful bird refuge https://t.co/Y5CF2T5ugM #ShareGoodNewsToo 23 Dec 2025
- In Canada, along British Columbia’s Highway 93 and the Rocky Mountains corridor, new overpasses, fencing and retro-fitted bridges are being built to cut animal collisions on roads. https://t.co/xsPp2fQJAr #ShareGoodNewsToo 22 Dec 2025
- Across South Africa, invasive species are being removed, restoring water flow, reviving native vegetation and creating green jobs. One such campaign, “Working for Water” has cleared over a million hectares across the country. https://t.co/c7nwksoggF #ShareGoodNewsToo 21 Dec 2025
- Greece’s brown bears rebound as protections reshape rural landscapes. Brown bear numbers in northern Greece have risen to an estimated 870, roughly four times their 1990s population, after hunting bans and long-term conservation efforts. https://t.co/CUhRojyJPL #ShareGoodNewsToo 20 Dec 2025
- Turtles stage a million-nest comeback on India’s coasts. Two decades after conservationists feared collapse, olive ridley turtle nests in India have jumped from under 100,000 to about one million a season. https://t.co/qKvhfaDv2k #ShareGoodNewsToo 19 Dec 2025
Link verified 23 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
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