A short history of progress
by Ronald Wright
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"The twentieth century was a time of runaway growth in human numbers, consumption, and technology, placing a colossal load on all natural systems, especially earth, air, and water - the very elements of life. The great question of the twenty-first century is how, or whether, this can go on." "In A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright shows how our modern predicament is as old as civilization, a 10,000-year experiment we unleashed but have seldom controlled. Only by understanding the patterns of progress and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we recognize the inherent dangers, and, with luck and wisdom, shape its outcome."--Back cover.
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Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. 187-199) and index.
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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.
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