'A new understanding of our past' Danny Dorling author of Inequality and the 1% 'If you think
progress will take us to the promised land this is a must-read' Alpa Shah author of The
Incarcerations ________________________________ Progress is power. But our modern story of
progress is a very dangerous fiction. In the pursuit of progress of growth and expansion we
have levelled cities flattened mountains charted the globe and ushered in a new geological
epoch unique in our planet's 4.5-billion-year history. The idea of progress has compelled
societies toward exploration invention and grandiosity on one hand and on the other
genocide slavery ecocide and conquest: it is the root of our civilization's success as well
as its looming demise. Geographer Samuel Miller McDonald offers a radical new perspective on
the myth upon which the modern world is built illuminating its blood-strewn lineage and
suggesting an urgent alternative. He traces the history of how human societies broke from their
pasts broke from their environments and broke from longstanding egalitarian values that
sustained them supplanting these with one imperative to rule all others: progress. If humanity
is to have any chance of a future then we must fundamentally change the way we think about one
of our most basic political ideas. This landmark work shows us where to begin.
________________________________ ' Progress explodes the great myth of our time. Lucid and
wise' David Farrier author of Footprints ' This is a wise book and hopefully its wisdom will
rub off' Bill McKibben author of The End of Nature
