If you’re looking to start 2018 in a positive vein, the brilliant Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now (February, Allen Lane, 256 pp, £14.99) argues that our lives have in recent years become longer, safer, happier, more peaceful, more stimulating and more prosperous, not just in the West but worldwide.
In Reimagining Britain (March, Continuum, 320 pp, £16.99), Justin Welby draws on Christian social teaching to help us reimagine, and put into place, a hopeful future. In February, T&T Clark publishes What Did Jesus Look Like? (288 pp, £17.99), in which Christian Origins scholar Joan E. Taylor suggests an entirely new vision of Christ.