The Battle for Kindness: Constructing Empathy in a Fractured World

Insightful, engaging, moving, and important
What a fantastic book—a tapestry of science, human interest stories, and personal memoir to understand empathy as a key force in our lives and make the case that it’s a skill we can grow. A few things I loved about it:
-It’s engaging and the science is made clear.
-The science is interwoven with interviews and stories from former hate group members, police officers, actors, doctors, and others. Their stories are fascinating and moving in turn. One chapter in particular (about empathy in medical settings) made me tear up. I can’t recall another popular science book having that effect on me.
-It’s important. So much in our society seems broken right now, and Zaki explores how and why empathy matters—across policing, political divides, school discipline, health care, and our digital lives. He considers negative trends and shows how empathy can yield better outcomes for us—whether to improve people’s social lives, help doctors avoid burnout, or help police officers hold the trust of their communities.
The author is clear early on that it isn’t a self-help book, so don’t go into it expecting a 10-step program or anything like that. (Although, the book does still outline a lot of evidence on what works to build people’s empathy; it offers plenty enough that I’ve been thinking about how to incorporate it into my life.) But if you want a scientific perspective on what empathy is and how it works, how individuals and societies can build it, and why that matters for making our lives better, this book is a must-read.

An important book on empathy, a superpower we’d all do well to cultivate
How does an Aryan Nation white supremacist turn into a peace activist? Does throwing Palestinian and Israeli kids in summer camp together really improve relations in a troubled region? With vivid, unforgettable stories like these, Dr Jamil Zaki of Stanford brings to life today’s cutting edge research on empathy, altruism, cooperation and how it all relates to behavioral change.
The findings are often encouraging, sometimes counterintuitive, always fascinating. For example, even though humans are the kindest animal species on the planet, their sense of empathy has been decreasing over the past few decades. Well-intentioned programs like Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) either don’t work or backfire. Patients of empathic physicians tend to be more satisfied with their care and fare better overall, but too much empathy results in physician burnout.
This is a new science that affects the life of everyone that deals with other humans — from the microscale of family, friendships and romance, to the macroscale of racism, war, and peace. Empathy is a superpower, and if you’d like to know about its subtle workings, Prof Zaki’s book is an excellent place to start.
— Ali Binazir, M.D., M.Phil., Happiness Engineer and author of The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman’s Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible, the highest-rated dating book on Amazon, and Should I Go to Medical School?: An Irreverent Guide to the Pros and Cons of a Career in Medicine

Full of surprises
Jamil Zaki’s “The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World” is a fascinating look at a subject we think we understand. Zaki shows how empathy can change throughout a person’s life, and how specific activities like mediation, reading, and deliberately engineered “nudges” can increase a person’s empathy. To me, the most surprising part of his argument is that far from being a categorical evil, technology can actually increase a person’s empathy if it is designed to do so. In other words, technology is what we design it to be.
Far from a recitation of the sorry state of empathy in America, “The War for Kindness” is a gripping, beautifully-written account that is full of surprises.

Bringing hope for a more empathetic world — great read!
In this good read, Dr. Zaki argues that we can “choose empathy” in an unjust and complex world. Zaki thoughtfully integrates scientific findings with compelling stories making this a fun and informative read. As a scientist in a related field of psychology, I was delighted to see that he provides a realistic overview of what scientists have learned about empathy. In making his argument that empathy is a skill which can be trained, nudged, and chosen, is heartwarming and true. I would recommend this book to anyone who believes that people “are the way they are” and/or who seeks to understand what scientists have to say about our capacity to increase kindness in ourselves and the world around us.

Well done Jamil, this book is a fusion of love and science which is hard to get right but you should be proud that you have identified thinking that can become distorted through our own viewpoints, and have offered us ways of taking another look. I really recommend this book to anyone who wants a fresh view on the subject of kindness, it’s both timely and needed.

Books that connect with our life and thoughts are not readily available, or might not satisfy the bracket expectations.
Empathy is a Topic that must be discussed in daylight and its unexplored terrain are deeper than mere comprehension or imagination.
Appreciating the author for putting forward such an important and sensitive topic which albeit is alas is one 9f the most compromised pillars of humanity