A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright

A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright

A brilliant, sobering, highly readable, and utterly fascinating rumination on the hubris at the heart of human development and the pitfalls we still may have time to avoid

Each time history repeats itself, the cost goes up. We live at a time of runaway growth in human numbers, consumption, and technology. The great question we now face is how, and whether, this can go on. Ronald Wright argues that our modern predicament, though new in scale, is as old as humankind.

A Short History of Progress is nothing less than a concise history of the world since Neanderthal times, elegantly written, brilliantly conceived, and stunningly clear in its warming to us now. Wright shows how human beings have a way of walking into progress traps, beginning with the worldwide slaughter of big game in the Stone Age. The same pattern of overconsumption then took a new form as many of the world's most creative civilizations--Mesopotamia, the Maya, the Roman Empire--fell victim to their own success.

Only by understanding our pattern of progress and disaster, Wright contends, can we hope to change our ways and ensure that civilization has a longterm future.

Ronald Wright] is an historical philosopher with a profound understanding of other cultures.--Jan Morris

A wise, timely, and brilliant book.--Toronto Globe and Mail

Wright, Ronald: - Ronald Wright is the author of ten books of fiction, history, essays and travel published in eighteen languages and more than forty countries. His first novel, A Scientific Romance, won Britain's David Higham Prize for Fiction and was chosen as a book of the year by the Sunday Times and the New York Times. Wright's CBC Massey Lectures, A Short History of Progress, won the Libris Award for Nonfiction Book of the Year and inspired Martin Scorsese's 2011 documentary film Surviving Progress. His other bestsellers include Time Among the Maya and Stolen Continents, chosen as a book of the year by the Independent and the Sunday Times. His latest work is The Gold Eaters, a novel set during the Spanish invasion of the Inca Empire. Born in England to British and Canadian parents, Wright lives on Canada's west coast.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780887847066
ISBN 10	0887847064
Title	A Short History of Progress
Author	Ronald Wright
Series	Massey Lectures
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	House of Anansi Press
Year published	2004-11-03
Number of pages	211
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable