Progress: How One Idea Built Civilization and Now Threatens to Destroy It

Geographer McDonald debuts with a sweeping reappraisal of the notion of historical progress. He examines frequently cited evidence of progress, including falling global poverty rates and increased lifespans, and dismisses it as “cherry-picked” data. Arguing instead that progress is a political myth used to naturalize inequality in the present by promising a better society in the future, he traces the concept’s roots all the way back to 3,000 BCE, when expansionist Mesopotamian states began to be “fueled by intensive environmental harvesting.” Previously, McDonald notes, human cultures revered the natural world, and believed human societies ought to stay within their limits and act as nature’s caretakers. The Mesopotamian states produced a very different worldview, one already apparent in The Epic of Gilgamesh, in which Gilgamesh converts a “wild man” to “civilized” life and slays a forest god to use the timber to build a city. This is especially striking, McDonald notes, given that “the first known instance of human-caused deforestation occurred in this region.” Concurrently, the “Promised Land” myth emerged, which McDonald shows was “explicitly used” from its inception to justify expansionist wars, environmental degradation, and a hierarchical society. McDonald astutely traces how these ancient ideologies flourished throughout Western history until they found final expression in capitalism, which sees “growth” as an end in itself and promises a better future in exchange for inequality today. The result is a provocative interrogation of the very foundations of modern society. (Dec.)