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by: Ronald Wright  List Price: $14.95 Price: $11.24 You Save: $3.71 (25%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.4409 Format: Bargain Price Label: Carroll & Graf Manufacturer: Carroll & Graf Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 208 Publication Date: February 24, 2005 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Studio: Carroll & Graf Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Amazon.com Review: No hope, just an awareness of what's being done now and what's been done in the past, is what Ronald Wright will permit in A Short History of Progress, his grim, ammoniacal Massey Lectures, the 43rd in the series. In five lucid, meticulously documented essays, Wright traces the rise and plummet of four regional civilizations--those of Sumer, Rome, Easter Island, and the Maya--and judges that most, perhaps all, of humanity is making and will continue to make mistakes equally disastrous as theirs. He gives general reasons first for not reckoning we'll pull back from the brink. Important among them is an anthropological observation. As individuals, we live long lives. We evolve more slowly than we should, given our lack of vision and our aggressive, selfish nature. We seem to lack the collective wisdom and the insight into cause and effect to realize the limits to what Wright calls the "experiment" of civilization. What Wright calls natural "subsidies" underwrite civilizations' successes. The squandering of those gifts presages inevitable failure, but with careful, canny stewardship, a civilization can manage to muddle through eons. Wright cites Egypt's submission to the limits set by the Nile's annual floods and China's windblown "lump-sum deposit" of topsoil, used for hillside paddies instead of being put to the plough. Wright observes with unrelenting eloquence that our planetary civilization lives precariously, far beyond its means. "Hope drives us to invent new fixes for old messes," he acknowledges, neither claiming nor wanting to be a prophet. We certainly have the tools for change and remediation; we also know what our ancestors did wrong and what happened to them. We're faced, our author observes, with two choices: either do nothing--what he calls "one of the biggest mistakes"--or try to effect "the transition from short-term to long-term thinking." His evidence suggests we're taking the first alternative, which will include a swift, final ride into the dark future on the runaway train of progress. Wright's account tempts one to bet on the rats and roaches. --Ted Whittaker Product Description: Each time history repeats itself, the cost goes up. The twentieth century—a time of unprecedented progress—has produced a tremendous strain on the very elements that comprise life itself: This raises the key question of the twenty-first century: How much longer can this go on? With wit and erudition, Ronald Wright lays out a-convincing case that history has always provided an answer, whether we care to notice or not. From Neanderthal man to the Sumerians to the Roman Empire, A Short History of Progress dissects the cyclical nature of humanity's development and demise, the 10,000-year old experiment that we've unleashed but have yet to control. It is Wright's contention that only by understanding and ultimately breaking from the patterns of progress and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we avoid the onset of a new Dark Age. Wright illustrates how various cultures throughout history have literally manufactured their own end by producing an overabundance of innovation and stripping bare the very elements that allowed them to initially advance. Wright's book is brilliant; a fascinating rumination on the hubris at the heart of human development and the pitfalls we still may have time to avoid. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Of "Progress Traps" and inflexible thinkingA concise, readable, and punchy description of the manner in which a number of historical societies rendered their way of life obsolete and destroyed themselves by failing to adapt and to think ahead. He describes as "progress traps" the apparent improvements of technology or culture which are too effective for the survival of the society which deploys them. For example, when hunting societies moved from catching individual animals to wiping out whole herds by driving ... Read More Rating: - Wright is rightThe fact Wright attacks popular concepts of progress is enough to merit five stars. Until 1955, when I was 25, I naively believed progress was inevitable, natural, and simply a part of human nature and society. I attended the Earl Lectures that year. Swiss Theologian Emil Brunner presented three addresses on "Faith, Hope, and Love" at Berkeley, California. Westminster Press published his series in a book given the same title. I shall quote a few remarks. Brunner traced the burgioning ... Read More Rating: - Delivering What It PromisesThe author has not tried to write a thorough textbook on the massive subject of anthropology, but has succeeded instead in creating an entry-level eye-opener to the specific notion of human progress. The question is: does the scale of the modern single heirarchal civilization necessarily mean that human beings enjoy a greater quality of life than we have in any other given period of history and pre-history? A complaint some could make is that the author offers little in the way of solutions to obvious ... Read More Rating:  - intrestingthis was an interesting book discussing the possibility of collapse. wright makes a point that there is a tendency for something to bring itself to an end, whether this is intentional or not. there is the extinction aspect, sometimes a species or group of people just can't cope with a change and they die out, like the sabre toothed tiger, as wright discusses. sabre toothed tigers survive on big game, thats why they need those big teeth to rip into the huge animals, but those teeth get in the way if they were hunting ... Read More Rating: - History of ProgressThis book is a great read for leisure, not only does it give you a basic history lesson, it also leads you to every civilizations' end. If you enjoy reading about how cultures and civilization grow, and how their people slowly destroys themselves, this is a must read. 
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