A Short History Of Progress
Published on 6. August 2009
224 pages
978-1-84767-661-0 (ISBN)
Description
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.
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.
Reviews / Votes
The author sifts the findings of archaeology and anthropology with thoughtful grace to build a potent argument. * * The Guardian * * A compelling work of distilled wisdom. * * The Times * * Rarely have I read a book that is so gripping, so immediate and so important to our times. Jared Diamond will be jealous. -- Robyn Williams Ronald Wright is both trained academic and an acclaimed novelist and he has used these skills to page-turning effect in this work of non-fiction. * * The Morning Star * *More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
ISBN-13
978-1-84767-661-0 (9781847676610)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Ronald Wright
A Short History Of Progress
Book
09/2006
Canongate Books
€14.00
Shipment within 10-20 days
Person
RONALD WRIGHT is a prize-winning novelist, historian, and essayist, published in ten languages. His nonfiction includes the number-one bestseller Stolen Continents, winner of the Gordon Montador Award and chosen as a book of the year by the Independent and the Sunday Times. His first novel, A Scientific Romance, won the 1997 David Higham Prize for Fiction and was chosen a book of the year by the Globe and Mail, the Sunday Times, and the New York Times.
Content
- Intro
- Excerpt
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Table of Contents
- I: Gauguin's Questions
- II: The Great Experiment
- III: Fools' Paradise
- IV: Pyramid Schemes
- V: The Rebellion of the Tools
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Acknowledgments
- Also By Ronald Wright
- About the Author
- Copyright
