A Short History of Progress | Ronald Wright | Short, yes, but quite powerful and compelling!

A Short History of Progress | Ronald Wright | A Plea for Understanding

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A Short History of...

	A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright Da Capo Press, 2005 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 39 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Short, yes, but quite powerful and compelling!

It is hard to imagine a more compelling and sobering 'short history' of civilization. Wright has managed to deliver a collection of lectures/chapters that form an argument for change - immediate, fundamental and expansive - unlike any I have read before. By recounting and extrapolating from embarrassing histories of excess, short-sightedness and single-mindedness, Wright puts our current situations into a larger and longer context, going beyond what environmentalists and socialists have argued for much more than the past 50 years. In short, he suggests that "our present behaviour is typical of failed societies at the zenith of their greed and arrogance."

This is, in a sense, a book about the 'what not to do' lessons of the past 10,000 years. It is as much proscriptive as it is prescriptive yet at no point does Wright come across as preachy or imploring (not that both haven't been or won't be necessary). Rather, he makes a thoroughly compelling argument for the "long-term thinking" that is so obviously needed - and soon - if we are to survive as a species and as a planet.

Since finishing the book this morning I have noticed two things: I have begun to think more long-term about the things I do and the choices I make; and I have been making a mental list of the people that I want to read this book. Leaders in business and politics leap to mind, but failing that, I hope that you will. I don't think that you'll regret it.

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A Plea for Understanding

Perhaps the most important book I have read in the past 20 years. While many will decry its lack of a "solution", that is precisely the point. As Wright so clearly demonstrates, humanity is in the final stages of painting itself into corner from which we have yet to develop the social or political skills to escape, while the chief culprit for getting us there is our penchant for technological fixes to technologically created problems. Only if we can face this dilemma squarely and realize, as Wright concludes :This is the last chance to get the future right" do we stand a chance of avoiding the inevitable consequences of our own shortsightedness. It is a challenge that all humanity must understand.

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I never read a book twice, this one I did.

This lecture is spectacular!! It is packed with historical reference and possible future analogies. I hate reading books twice and have only done so on a few occasions, through necessity. This book I had to read again, through desire. Thanks you Mr. Wright, this is fabulous.

Brilliant Lecture

It is late as I write this, so I simply want to say that having seen the 4th lecture given in Halifax in the travelling 5 lecture series upon which this book is based, I was impressed enough to pick up the book that evening, have it autographed and will be sitting down to read it immediately. It has put all other books on my "to read" list on the back burner. I doubt I will be disappointed.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8

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