Books › A short history of progress
A short history of progress
First published 2004 · 211 pages
A sobering, sweeping look at the ghosts of fallen empires that serves as a chilling mirror for our modern world.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like standing in the shadow of ancient ruins while a brilliant, slightly cynical professor explains exactly how the builders engineered their own doom. It is a brisk, intellectually thrilling experience that moves with the polished cadence of a master lecture, sweeping you through millennia of human history with elegant, razor-sharp prose. The mood is undeniably sobering, as a creeping sense of foreboding settles in when the patterns of progress traps become impossible to unsee in our modern world. Yet, it never feels like a heavy slog; instead, it is an eye-opening journey. It will deeply satisfy readers who love big history syntheses and leave them staring thoughtfully out the window, forever changed in how they view the trajectory of human innovation.
- Mood
- sobering
- foreboding
- contemplative
- intellectually stimulating
- Tone
- cautionary
- erudite
- urgent
- analytical
- wry
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- civilizational hubris · ecological collapse · the double-edged sword of innovation · cyclical history · human shortsightedness
- The writing
- Elegant, concise, and sharply argued, delivering profound historical insights with the punchy clarity of a masterclass lecture.
- The arc
- Begins with a fascinating exploration of ancient mysteries and steadily builds into a chilling, urgent confrontation with our own precarious future.
- Who it's for
- Thinkers and environmentalists who crave big history syntheses that connect ancient archaeological mysteries to contemporary global crises.
Content notes
- environmental degradation
- societal collapse
- mass extinction
About the book
Palaeolithic hunters who learnt how to kill two mammoths instead of one had made progress. Those who learnt how to kill 200 by driving a whole herd over a cliff had made too much. Many of the great ruins that grace the deserts and jungles of the earth are monuments to progress traps, the headstones of civilisations which fell victim to their own success. The twentieth-century ́s runaway growth has placed a murderous burden on the planet. A Short History of Progress argues that this modern predicament is as old as civilisation. Only by understanding the patterns of progress and disaster that humanity has repeated since the Stone Age can we recognise the inherent dangers, and, with luck, and wisdom, shape its outcome.
Description from Open Library.
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