Progress

A landmark book that overturns everything we think we know about humankind’s greatest idea.

Progress is power. Narratives of progress, the stories we tell about whether a society is moving in the right or the wrong direction, are immensely potent. They have levelled cities, flattened mountains, charted the globe and ushered in a new geological epoch unique in our planets 4.5-billion-year history.

But the modern story of progress is an also very dangerous fiction. This tall tale has spread across the globe, shaping nearly everyone’s sense of what progress means, what it should mean, and where our society ought to go.

Because of this, we live in a paradoxical world, where we continue to subscribe to a set of myths; about dominion, growth and expansion, that are at the root of our civilisation's demise. Geographer Samuel Miller McDonald’s first book offers a radical new perspective on the five progress myths upon which the modern world is built, illuminating its blood-strewn lineage and suggesting an urgent alternative. If humanity is to have any chance of a future, he argues, then we must fundamentally change the way we think about one of our most basic political ideas.

Drawing on interdisciplinary research across anthropology, philosophy and geography; Samuel Miller McDonald presents an alternative history of progress which is inextricably linked to the collapse of our environment. If we are to survive, we will need to dismantle, re-examine and redefine our understanding of progress for a new age.

Drawing comparisons to Jared Diamond and David Graeber, Progress offers an alternative vision of our political future, grounded in ecological understanding of our past.