The Myth of Increasing Violence

[Thorne]

btw... Thorne... most life expectancy figures include infant and childhood mortality dragging the numbers down for times past. I would suggest that those who made it to adulthood (13 y.o.?) lived a relatively long life.

You're right, of course, in that childhood mortality would have made a big difference. But this table shows that the life expectancy at specific age groups has also increased. For example, at my age in 1904 I could have expected to live another 14 years. In 2004 that expectancy was almost 21 years. That's nearly a 10% increase!