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
--This text refers to an alternate
kindle_edition edition.
Progress can do us in, or so argues British historian Wright as he embarks on a lively if meandering journey through the development and demise of ancient civilizations to determine whether our current one is doomed. By reading the "black boxes" left by departed societies (like those of the Easter Islanders, the Sumerians and the Mayans), we can learn to avoid the mistakes that led to their downfall, he suggests. Many of those errors revolve around the plundering of natural resources and the development of social hierarchies that allow elite groups to indulge in over-consumption at the expense of the masses. Other errors involve "progress traps," technologies or advances that, like weapons, are initially useful but become dangerous to civilization once fully developed, especially if moral and technical progress diverge. The analogy of civilization as a kind a "pyramid scheme," which, like the sales scheme, thrives only if it grows, is one of several imaginative mnemonic devices Wright uses to round out his argument. Today's culprit, he declares, is "market extremism," which has "cross-bred with evangelical messianism to fight intelligent policy on metaphysical grounds." This laissez-faire capitalism, he reasons, will spell the end of the planet, and our civilization, if it is not controlled. Wright crafts an entertaining tale of eras gone by, incorporating relevant facts on subjects as diverse as the lifestyles of early hominids and recent patterns of climate change, and demonstrating the holistic importance of natural resources to a society. And if he never specifies exactly what the proper choices for modern civilization are, or how they will bring deliverance from the coming storm, his book will nonetheless convince readers that we are at a crossroads where the right choices can still be made.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an alternate
kindle_edition edition.
Review
"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 "The author sifts the findings of archaeology and anthropology with thoughtful grace to build a potent argument." Guardian"
--This text refers to an alternate
kindle_edition edition.
Review
PRAISE FOR RONALD WRIGHT AND A SHORT HISTORY OF PROGRESS
“I don’t care if you have never read and will never read any kind of book at all, but you must read this one.” — Globe and Mail
“A compelling work of distilled wisdom . . . Wright is a pungent phrase-maker and a penetrating thinker. His learning is historical, anthropological and cross-cultural.” — Times Literary Supplement
“Provocative . . . Already a bestseller in Canada, Wright is now making his biggest mark since his debut novel (A Scientific Romance, 1997) attracted wide attention… illuminating and disturbing, and expansively documented.” — Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“In this short, superb essay, Wright succeeds at impressing on his readers how fragile the remarkable experiment we call civilisation really is.” — The Liberal“Wright sifts the findings of archaeology and anthropology with thoughtful grace to build a potent argument.” — Guardian
“Impressive . . . for the evidence Wright assembles from his authoritative grasp of history, and for the skill and clarity with which he imparts information. He makes history, ecology, anthropology, and political science easy to read.” — Associated Press
“Ronald Wright, one of this country’s intellectual treasures . . . takes his readers on a sweeping educational tour of history and every continent’s previous civilization . . . This excellent book should be required reading at the White House.” — Quill & Quire
“An elegant and learned discussion of what the rise and fall of past civilizations predict about our own: nothing good.” — Maclean’s
“Rarely have I read a book that is so gripping, so immediate and so important to our times. Jared Diamond will be jealous!” — ABC (Australia)
“A beautiful tract on the plight of humanity and how we always tend to spoil our nest and why we need to learn from that.” —Sydney Sun Herald
“[Ronald Wright] is an historical philosopher with a profound understanding of other cultures.” — Jan Morris
--This text refers to an alternate
kindle_edition edition.
Review
PRAISE FOR RONALD WRIGHT AND A SHORT HISTORY OF PROGRESS:
“Wright sifts the findings of archaeology and anthropology with thoughtful grace to build a potent argument.” — Guardian
“Impressive . . . for the evidence Wright assembles from his authoritative grasp of history, and for the skill and clarity with which he imparts information. He makes history, ecology, anthropology, and political science easy to read.” —Associated Press
“Provocative . . . Already a bestseller in Canada, Wright is now making his biggest mark since his debut novel (A Scientific Romance, 1997) attracted wide attention… illuminating and disturbing, and expansively documented.” — Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“I don’t care if you have never read and will never read any kind of book at all, but you must read this one.” — Globe and Mail
“An elegant and learned discussion of what the rise and fall of past civilizations predict about our own: nothing good.” — Maclean’s
“In this short, superb essay, Wright succeeds at impressing on his readers how fragile the remarkable experiment we call civilisation really is.” — The Liberal
“Rarely have I read a book that is so gripping, so immediate and so important to our times. Jared Diamond will be jealous!” — ABC (Australia)
“A beautiful tract on the plight of humanity and how we always tend to spoil our nest and why we need to learn from that.” —Sydney Sun Herald
“A compelling work of distilled wisdom . . . Wright is a pungent phrase-maker and a penetrating thinker. His learning is historical, anthropological and cross-cultural.” — Times Literary Supplement
“[Ronald Wright] is an historical philosopher with a profound understanding of other cultures.” — Jan Morris
“Ronald Wright, one of this country’s intellectual treasures . . . takes his readers on a sweeping educational tour of history and every continent’s previous civilization . . . This excellent book should be required reading at the White House.” — Quill & Quire
--This text refers to an alternate
kindle_edition edition.
About the Author
RONALD WRIGHT is an award-winning historian, essayist, and the author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction published in sixteen languages and more than forty countries. His 2004 CBC Massey Lectures, A Short History of Progress, was a #1 national bestseller, won the Libris Award for Nonfiction Book of the Year, and was the basis for the Martin Scorsese–produced documentary Surviving Progress. His other bestselling nonfiction books include the BC Book Prize–winning history What Is America?; Stolen Continents, which won the Gordon Montador Award; and Among the Maya. His first novel, A Scientific Romance, won the 1997 David Higham Prize for Fiction and was a Globe and Mail, Sunday Times, and New York Times book of the year.
--This text refers to an alternate
kindle_edition edition.
![A Short History of Progress by [Ronald Wright]](https://webcf.waybackmachine.org/web/20201207230929im_/https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41CwOO9OYDL._SY346_.jpg)
