'The message of this book is both highly liberating and optimistic', Rory SutherlandDrawing on six decades of pioneering research and a sweeping reexamination of the last 2500 years-from Periclean Athens and the Hebrew Torah to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Civil Rights Movement-Martin Seligman shows how rises and falls in agency have steered the course of history. Agency is the big idea for our times: when individuals have confidence, optimism and imagination, civilizations leap forward. In their absence, societies stagnate-no matter how rich their resources or how brilliant their citizens. This remarkable book shows how individuals can act with agency and, with a clear-eyed view of an AI-transformed future, argues that we are entering the next great era of human flourishing.