Gregg Easterbrook’s The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse is not an easy read. The first several chapters nearly suffocate under page after page of statistics, poll results, and findings by researchers and other academic heavyweights. However, if the reader sticks with the book long enough, it proves itself to be a fascinating and thought-provoking study of how quality of life has continued to trend upwards, while personal happiness continues to decline.

The author’s investigation of how quality of life continues to improve is decidedly heavy, and is by far the most difficult and overwhelming part of the book. It’s fairly academic and dry. People who suffer from insomnia could try these first few chapters as non-pharmaceutical sleeping aids. Nevertheless, Easterbrook eventually shows how key areas in quality of life — including income, medical care, and housing — have all improved in the last several decades. He includes many examples of how people, especially in the Western world, by and large live with comforts previous generations could only dream of, and how these luxuries are taken for granted.

To his credit, Easterbrook does acknowledge that some trends are troubling: many in the world still live below the poverty line, and there has been an increase in obesity, especially among children, in the United States. The author is also clearly concerned with unchecked, excessive wealth. He rails against the appalling greedy practices of corporate CEOs while millions across the world still suffer from malnutrition, high rates of disease, and short life spans.

Easterbrook then turns to a sometimes-rambling discussion regarding the possible reasons personal happiness has not increased in step with an improved quality of life. The usual suspects are mentioned: genetics (people might be evolutionarily conditioned to focus on the negative); accumulation of material goods (having carpeted steps for your doggie might not make you any happier); popular entertainment (watching reruns of Walker, Texas Ranger won’t fill the void in your life); and SUVs (driving an armored tank across America’s highways and byways might not shield you from feeling miserable).

Cynics could of course argue that Easterbrook doesn’t say anything more than the accepted and tired cliché that “money doesn’t buy happiness.” Nevertheless, this middle section is by far the most engaging and interesting element of the book.