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

by Samuel Miller McDonald

For readers of Thomas Piketty, David Graeber, and Jared Diamond: A bold, provocative, wide-ranging argument about the human idea of progress that offers a new vision of our future

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. Progress has built cities, flattened mountains, charted the globe, delved the oceans and space, created wealth, opportunity, and remarkable innovation, and ushered in a new epoch unique in our planet’s 4.5-billion-year history.

But the modern story of progress is also a very dangerous fiction. It shapes our sense of what progress means, and justifies what we will do to achieve it—no matter the cost. We continue to subscribe to a set of myths, about dominion, growth, extraction, and expansion, that have fueled our success, but now threaten our—and all species’-- existence on a planet in crisis.

In Progress, geographer Samuel Miller McDonald offers a radical new perspective on the myths upon which the modern world is built, illuminating its destructive lineage and suggesting an urgent alternative. Drawing on interdisciplinary research across anthropology, history, philosophy and geography, McDonald argues that if humanity is to thrive, then we must dismantle, reimagine, and create anew what progress means.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, Society, Economics, World History

432 pages, Hardcover

Published December 2, 2025

Reviews

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a critical look at "progress," something that most of us assume to be a good thing. A second look is taken at the ways progress is measured and the book explains how progress isn’t always as positive as perceived depending on the measured parameters. The book also shows how thus far in history progress has always depended on a parasitic, extractive, and expanding mode of operation. This kind of progress has culminated today with economist who assume exponential growth can continue forever on a finite earth. The book's conclusion is that we have no choice but to change future progress into a direction that is in equilibrium with the regenerative capacity of the earth.

The author provides a history of human civilization by beginning with the time "before progress" when human life was fully embedded within the natural environment. Then the book's narrative describes the era from 3000 BCE to 1400 CE as a time when human life and progress was tied up in the realm of the theological and mythical, and the parasitism was contiguous and regional. Agents then were city-states, kingdoms, and empires.

Next the time from 1400 to 1900 is explored with progress described as secular and rational, and the parasitism is described as disparate and maritime and often was in the form of colonialism. Agents of this era were kingdoms, nation-states, and empires.

Finally the book addresses the time period from 1900 to the present and describes progress as economic and ideological with parasitism networked and based on fossil fuel. Agents of this time are nation-states, corporations, and ideological coalitions. The discussion of ideologies includes Keynesianism, Communism, and Neoliberalism, and particular emphasis is placed on identifying Neoliberalism as an ideology that is just as theoretical and removed from reality as the other ideologies because on its expectation that unending compounded growth is possible on a finite earth.

The author tries to end the book with a note of optimism by offering an optimistic chapter titled "After Progress." Unfortunately, it is more of a hopeful vision than a recipe on how to change from parasitic economies to commensalistic ones. He acknowledges that we can't return to the conditions that existed prior to parasitic growth, and we'll need to find solutions to fit current conditions.

...we have to reconcile the necessities of the moment with those of the past and the conditions of the future. There is no one single model for how best to organize a society since what's best will depend on local ecologies and circumstances. The Anthropocene is likely to be an epoch of re-diversifying human cultures and societies even as coastlines shift, deserts expand and climate zones climb latitudes. What I am most concerned with is that the faulty relationship between human systems and ecological systems at the heart of the last 5,000 years. A relationship built on expansion and exploitation should be forever destroyed. Freedom from parasitism will ensure long-term survival of some sort.

The final chapter of the book is titled "Meaning Beyond Progress" in which the author explores several philosophies of life that will find meaning "in deferring the fulfillment of certain present impulses in the interest of future balance." Wise individuals arriving at such a state of mind is conceivable, but one must wonder about the widespread adoption of such thinking to achieve needed change.

I will conclude this review with the following excerpt near the end of the book which can serve as a sort of summary conclusion:

For 5 millennia, progress has offered a paradise of tomorrow, a new frontier that would finally bring everlasting joy, peace and contentment, not revealing that someone else's paradise had to be destroyed to open that frontier. In order to have any future, or any worth enduring, we need a new conception of our place in our ongoing history. We might not build paradise but at least we may craft branching slivers of peace and contentment, arteries coursing through the world along which joy, life, and beauty may still pass.

I had access to a prepublication ebook edition of this book using the NetGalley Reader.

[Ten Cats Reading · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐.5

Pre-Read Notes:

I like the idea that this book is about progress without taking the moral position that human society *has* progressed. It leaves the discussion open to deeper examination and application.

"We are a species of ape whose psychology is highly social and, under many circumstances , generous and gentle. Acting out all the evil that is required – or if not required, expedient – to run this economy requires engaging in advanced psychological manipulation, of ourselves and others. It is not simply that rulers must achieve positions of power and then trick their prosocial followers to engage in their projects. Class harmony depends on a shared mission. Only a collective mass delusion that is believed in as strongly, or more strongly, by the leaders of this economy as by those whose own hands turn its wheels would allow such a project to continue so smoothly, for so long." p31

Final Review

(thoughts & recs) This is one of those books where I liked the first half more than the second. The premise was interesting -- an exploration of how the traditional notion of progress is anything but, for the planet and even humanity. Unfortunately, as the author expanded on his topic and pulled in more and more examples, I started finding the book unwieldy.

It's a great discussion and worthwhile, but I want to give it another, slower pass in the future.

I recommend this book to fans of Malcolm Gladwell and SAPIENS by Yuval Noah Harari.

My Favorite Things:

✔️ "Barbarism has, in the meantime, been receding before the steady step of amelioration , and will in time, I trust, disappear from the earth. 1 This passage is from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1824, two years before his death and thirty-nine years after the American Revolutionary War." p7 A little optimistic, wasn't he?

✔️ "Does this mean progress is real? Is it true that humanity as a whole has moved from dark savagery to enlightened modern civilisation? Even if we home in on only the twentieth century, is it fair to say this period has been marked primarily by ‘progress’? It’s worth taking a moment to complicate the answers to these questions and consider the possibility that they are more often closer to ‘no’ than ‘yes’. So many of us have had notions of progress deeply forced into the architecture of how we understand the world, an alloy melted into the beams that bear the weight of our knowledge." p13 The question of whether a society has made progress is after all a moral question and the systems of power don't *like* those!

✔️ "Christian kingdoms during this period consistently used Christianity as a political and social tool, and they clearly did so in the interest of maintaining and expanding parasitic economies and energy capture." p84 I'm starting to see a common thread-- people + greed = all the bad things for the earth. Also, it's remarkable to me how much religious histories play into this discussion.

Thank you to Samuel Miller MacDonald, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for an accessible digital arc of PROGRESS. All views are mine.

[Frank Vasquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

While given an e-copy in exchange for an honest review, gotta say this is an overlong and America-centric criticism of a very pervasive and destructive economic, philosophical, and technological mindset that is destroying our (human) capacity to be a part of the natural world. It is quite good, and is sourced excellently and makes it easy for those that haven’t done the reading and likely won’t do the reading to have done some kind of reading. Highly rated for readability and for the ideas put forward, even if those ideas aren’t new or completely confidently stated. But this isn’t a manifesto. It’s a call to reexamine an entire civilization’s way of life. Sure. It works. For what it is. Thanks, NetGalley.

[Ted · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is an excellent read for any committed Redditor. We have the following themes:

- A completely distorted view of capitalism from someone who has never owned a business.
- Portrayal of indigenous people as advanced hippies on the level of Avatar, while glazing over the realities of their barbarity.
- Steady invective against all Whites who do not conform to the author's nebulous idea of progress.
- The typical (ignorant) liberal's idea of what Fascism and Corporatism entail.
- Regular citations from communist frauds like Howard Zinn and Naomi Klein.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has a provocative premise: What if, for the past 5,000 years, human beings have not made progress? What if things have actually gotten worse?

The author interrogates the major progress myths that have governed western societies, from dominion over other species granted by Abrahamic religions, through the scientific rationality of Enlightenment thought, to manifest destiny, to the 20th-century battle between fascist, socialist, and liberal visions of progress, to billionaire promises of off-world utopias.

This is 'progress' as unrestrained economic growth, development, and expansion. Progress as an instrument of propaganda to ensure mass complacency, obedience, and subservience.

The book is challenging, stirring, and deeply original. Miller McDonald comes from a left-environmental activist background and the moral force of that experience comes through - though the book remains unorthodox in its thinking as the author strives to identify what is true over what is politically accepted.

Some early reviews have accused the book of being doomerist, but its claims are rigorously researched (Miller McDonald did a DPhil at Oxford) and grounded in hard truths about the challenges we now face: from rising authoritarianism to declining health and well-being indicators, rampant inequality to ecological annihilation.

PROGRESS is an unflinching examination of today's most pervasive belief. But it also gives us hope that progress could mean something else: ecological restoration, compounding knowledge practices, robust communities, solidarity against greed and corruption. The universe has no moral arc but the one we make.

[Austin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some valid points at the start but it falls apart halfway through. I’d give it one and a half stars if I could because it is too intelligible to be a one but the counterproductive recommendations really make me disappointed to give it two stars. I am pretty sure the author is alright with a mass human die off even if there was significant suffering, so long as the birds chirp again and the 1.5 degree Celsius warming limit is achieved - it seems quite unserious to me. Still, thanks for putting everything out there.

Where I agree: it is worth investigating where any so called “progress” has drawbacks or can be considered progress at all. I agree that notions of progress can be co-opted by bad actors and there are plenty of examples of unforeseen downsides of purported progress. These downsides are not in principle unknowable however, or else their explanations in the book wouldn’t make sense to the reader even in hindsight.

The book fully goes off the rails in the final part and I think the author presents conclusions that are flat out incorrect. The conclusions are often counterproductive to widely shared goals such as the maintenance of the wellbeing of living creatures, prevention of suffering, prevention of mass extinction, and avoidance of existential threats. The author walks up to the line of characterizing any progress as an inherently bad thing and a lie propagated by a parasitic class. The proposed solution of a reversion to indigenous ways of life is far from practical and I would suggest, not a solution for avoiding the things that author wants to avoid. From a practical perspective 8 billion people aren’t going to do that, so we ought to stop talking that way and build the technologies that solve today’s problems. Once we have address those, we can start work on tomorrow’s and so on.

I don’t think we should call it progress, but the facts are that a species of hominid emerged some time ago and came to wield technologies that no other species have. These technologies accumulated as the humans increased in numbers and in a density and complexity also not seen in any other species. The capacity of humanity to influence or damage the environment and each-other also increased over time, most often leaping ahead of the moral and social technologies required to prevent that damage. The author doesn’t seem like they would agree that the scientific revolution and continued refinement of our understanding of the world around us place us in a unique position in history compared to before. I think that those tools give the ability to take the driver’s seat rather than stumbling our way along. Because the author fails to address the discovery of science and certain associated epistemologies, his work becomes profoundly unscientific (All the while trying to lean against science to help buttress arguments).

This book ignores humanity’s capacity to generate real explanatory knowledge and recommends the application of social technologies from much smaller groups onto the entire global population. I really think the author is discounting the impact of lower population sizes on of indigenous (the word he uses) groups on their surrounding environments, which is his main area of concern. There are many other threads that fall apart so I don’t think this book will stand the test of time nor does it present a radical idea that is of much use to anyone. Worse, the inadvertent rejection of science and the infiltration of negative emotions into the work is counterproductive to the continuing survival of our species and planet.

[J.S. · Rating 1 out of 5]

"We will see many examples of the parasitic class in the following chapters, and their favourite bedtime story, the progress narrative formula, in which they are often the heroes." (14%)

Not for me. Mr. McDonald argues that the narrative of progress - that we've advanced from more primitive states, that we're moving along in some (any?) upward trajectory - is simply a lie. A lie foisted upon us by the parasitic classes that rule us - religious, political, national, ideological, economic - in order to profit themselves from our time and labor. But he goes further and makes us all parasites - parasites who are destroying the environmental and ecological systems of the planet we live on. Instead he envisions an anarchist world where we eventually go back to hunter-gatherer societies who do not take more than they need from the environment and worship animals.

"But there is comfort to be found in accepting the reality of the great repopulation of more-than-human life and the spiritual contentment that can emerge from an animistic worldview, comfort even to face the great horror or succour of nothingness in death." (74%)

I did not finish this book. I got about 15% into it and was quickly losing interest. After that I skimmed and skipped around until I became convinced that I'm not interested. It feels like a pretty bleak read. (I received an advance digital copy from the publisher.)

[Jord MiddleofNowhere · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some really interesting ideas and will change how a person views the world.

[Maher Razouk · Rating 5 out of 5]

عندما وصل المستعمرون الإنجليز إلى أمريكا الشمالية عام 1607 - قبل 46 عامًا من نشر كتاب هوبز وقبل 217 عامًا من رسالة جيفرسون - وجدوا مجتمعات متطورة ذات بلدات ومنازل محمية بأسوار خشبية، وكان يتم توفير طعامها ومواردها من خلال مزيج من الزراعة والبحث عن الطعام. كما حكمتها معاهدات سياسية معقدة وأنظمة متطورة لتوزيع الثروة والسلطة. كان شعب بوهاتان الذي واجهوه لأول مرة (فيرجينيا الحديثة) يحكمه زعيم أعلى (يُطلق عليه "إمبراطور" في بعض المصادر) ... كان ذكرًا في الغالب ويحكم تسلسلًا هرميًا معقدًا من الزعماء الآخرين، مما يعكس على نطاق أصغر نوع البيروقراطية المعقدة للإمبراطوريات الكلاسيكية. من المحتمل أن شعب بوهاتان استهلك الموارد في المناطق التي سكنوها حتى النضوب، وانتقلوا ولم يعودوا إلا بعد أن تجددت الطرائد والأسماك والتربة. حتى مع ممارستهم لتقسيمات العمل القائمة على نوع الجنس إلى حد ما، كانت النساء قادرات على وراثة الثروة كما يمكنهن أن يصبحن زعيمات، ويتمتعن باستقلال جنسي كبير مقارنة بالنساء الإنجليزيات في ذلك الوقت، حيث تمكنت المرأة من رفض الخاطبين، واتخاذ عشاق متعددين. وثقت عالمة الأنثروبولوجيا الأمريكية هيلين رونتري أن شعب بوهاتان كان يستحم في النهر كل صباح قبل الفجر من أجل النظافة والصلابة، استعدادًا ليوم عمل في الهواء الطلق، بينما كان الإنجليز في العصر الإليزابيثي يستحمون ربما بضع مرات فقط كل عام.
.
Samuel Miller McDonald
Progress
Translated By #Maher_Razouk

[Darya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, which is one of the most powerful things I read this year, is out in the world now. Original review below:

The author analyzes the idea of progress as a narrative formula that has informed many stories people tell themselves and each other about the development of society and civilization for at least five thousand years. But, he shows, both in the times of Sumer and more recently, that has been just that: a formula that promises better things to come while at the same time explaining away and facilitating further exploitation of some humans by others and further destruction of the environment. Of course, this take is a bit schematic—necessarily so, when the entirety of history and the ideas produced throughout millennia are re-read through the lens of a single concept.

The author organizes the entirety of history according to the types of “parasitism” practiced by cultures: contiguous for the empires of the Old World, disparate for the age of European colonialism, and networked for the globalizing economy since the 20th century. He also consistently discusses what he calls “concrete energy capture”—use of resources directly from the environment—and “abstract energy capture,” as in harnessing someone’s energy to produce goods and riches for someone else in enslaved, indentured or waged labor. Have I ever seen this much use of the word "parasitism" outside the biological context since reading early Soviet takes on world politics and the need for worldwide revolution? So as I was reading, I was a bit wary of what would come when I reached his discussion of the Soviet project—would he declare that they had been right all along in their implementation of Marxist ideas? But no, phew, he doesn’t do that. Instead, he looks to what can be done in the future rather than returning to some imagined point in the past when “they already got it right.” Toward the end of the book, the narrative turns into a rallying cry outlining some obvious strategies for developing in a different direction than the current road — one on a collision course with the eventual depletion of environmental resources. I’m saying “obvious” because it’s not really anything that hasn’t been said before, which is probably for the better: it’s always strange when someone describes a problem that has existed for millennia and then suggests he’s the first ever to see a solution, right? I’m sure I’ll be returning to that final section in particular in the future.

The book is also very well written stylistically, combining a solid academic apparatus with none of the frequent obtuseness of academic prose. The primary audience is clearly non-specialists: for example, if you think it’s problematic that public discourse deliberately mixes up the notions of liberalism in the economic and social senses—and then there’s “neoliberalism” somehow related to those on top of everything—this book does a great job of setting everything straight without assuming readers should already know the exact meaning of such terms or that, if they don’t, it’s their own fault for being lost.

Publication date: December 2, 2025.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this title through NetGalley. The opinion above is my own.

[Nathan Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well documented and thorough book. The take away message though that “civilization” and progress is a curse upon the world and all its inhabitants is quite depressing though.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Samuel Miller McDonald's Progress is an ambitious book making a strong case for the fact that our understanding of and emphasis of progress as positive and beneficial is actually misplaced and misguided. Pulling together evidence across various fields and across history from antiquity to the present day, there's a lot to consider and this book definitely offers a lot of food for thought in reframing how we view the past, the present and what we should consider for the future. This was a challenging book to read - it's packed with information and details and it seemed repetitive as he hammered home his main points. I appreciate McDonald's different take on progress as a narrative and I can see excerpts being used to foster interesting discussions, but, for me, it was cumbersome and slow to read in parts.

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the e-arc.

[Abeer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haven’t been this excited to read a book that challenges my conception of how the world came together since I read “The Dawn of Everything.” I judged this book by its cover and when I saw it being compared to Jared Diamond or Yuval Hariri, my expectations were low. Wow, was I delighted to be proven very wrong.

The fundamental premise of this book is that progress defined through “energy capture” that takes more than it replaces is resulting in the collapse of our world. The ancient agricultural revolution, where we’re taught that we moved from “hunters and gatherers” to settlers of cultivated land that removed us from our natural state, is the beginning of a dangerous philosophy he calls parasitism. Contrast that with how indigenous cultures existed as stewards of the land, progress is fundamentally destroying us.

His thesis across revolves around a famous Malcolm X quote he cites at the beginning - is it progress if you simply removed a few inches from the knife in your back? Indigenous societies created communal cultures that were more egalitarian, free, and more in healthy mutualistic or commensalist human ecologies. In contrast, the parisitic culture starting with the denunding of the environment for the purpose of building large agricultural tracts, moved us into competitive, selfish, mechanistic lives that heralded humans above all of the earth. He creates a story starting from the agricultural revolution to present day on how parasitism evolved into the destructive ideologies & actions of today, where we live in collective delusions that somehow we have progressed but really our lives are made miserable by being forced to work for basic healthcare, being shackled by debt, war & genocide, and more.

The philosophical trajectory he provides is awe inspiring in that he really goes from our natural state in harmony with nature to agricultural revolution to empire building to the mess we’re in today - he somehow talks about everything, everywhere all at once without losing track of the overall thesis on parasitism. I felt like this book was a beautiful soup of a lot of other books I’ve read in the past - including Economics: A User Guide by Ha-Joon Chang, A People’s History, The Dawn Of Everything, anything I’ve read by Jason Hickle, books on environmentalism, and more. I also appreciated that he didn’t make this a book about how capitalism is bad and communism is good, he focused on all the forces that eventually evolved to the capitalistic extractive state we have today, avoiding binaries altogether.

I did lose him towards the end in terms of solution building - radical solutions that we can implement now?! I want to believe like he does, but it’s hard to. I also got a little put off when he randomly mentioned working to bring unbiased but he clearly has a very strong point of view that he’s seeking to persuade you towards. And last, as a New Yorker, I have a hard time believing that cities are anti-environmental, but perhaps I’m heavily biased here.

He’s also very anti-religion, seeing it as a tool to manipulate the masses, and most specifically against Abrahamic religions. As a Muslim, was surprised to see that the part against the Islamic golden age was mostly focused on the writings of Ibn Khaldun. Just like Western civilization, the Islamic civilization has hundreds of years of philosophical knowledge building, Ibn Khaldun doesn’t represent all of it. In fact in today’s world, one of the most respected Islamic knowledge institutions is indigenous knowledge preserved in West Africa

And personally on a religious level - if I could talk solely to the author - I was thinking about my religion throughout reading this - Muslims don’t view this world as a waste of time to get to the next world. The average practicing American muslim would say that we are here to be vicegerents, stewards, of the earth - as that’s what God has commanded us to do. And part of figuring out what to do isn’t limited to religious law, but accessing what we call fitra - our natural disposition that is meant to be in harmony with all of God’s creation. We are supposed to have a mutualistic approach to “energy capture.” There’s two famous quotes I was thinking throughout reading this. The first directly from the Quran is a well known verse that the average practicing Muslim would have heard of “we have made you into nations & tribes so you may get to know one another.” This goes entirely against the teleological argument the author argues our religion has, in that the Quran directly acknowledges both nations and nomadic life. In fact when we learn the s history of the Prophet in Sunday School, every child is taught that the Prophet spent his childhood amongst nomads and the significance of that was to move his heart away from the corruption of urban life. The second quote I was thinking about was this quote from the Prophet himself where he says that if the world were ending, if a tree sapling was in your hand you should plant it. Even if everything is bleak we are asked to do what we can to protect all of God’s creation.

[Anette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mul oli mingi periood, mil lugesin peaaegu eranditult non-fictionit. Nüüd olen keskendunud ilukirjandusele, mis on mu lugemisharjumusse nii palju rohkem rõõmu toonud, aga kui ma selle kaasahaarava algusega raamatu audioversiooni käima panin, olin vaat et eufoorias. Tundsin peaaegu füüsiliselt, kuidas ma endale mõtlemismütsi pähe panin.

Autor kirjeldab ideed, mis on aastatuhandeid kujundanud tsivilisatsioone, ajastuid ja religioone: progress. Selle eesmärgi nimel on eri ühiskonnad õigustanud kõikvõimalikke kurjusi, õuduseid ja parasitismi, kus väike osa ühiskonnast kasutab suurema osa ressursse, olgu selleks siis aeg, tervis, loodusvarad vms.

Kuna narratiiv algab peale Mesopotaamiast ja jõuab tänapäeva, katab see väga pikka ajaperioodi ja ma isegi ei tea, kas see tuli raamatule kasuks või kahjuks. Ühest küljest tundus, et autor hakkas end millalgi justkui kordama, sest kuhu iganes me ajas või ruumis ei reisinud, keeras keegi seal mingit sitta ja õigustas seda progressi suunas liikumisega. Teisest küljest aitas see pidev kordamine mõista, kui uskumatult järjepidev on progressiidee kasutamine ja moonutamine läbi aegade olnud. Raamatu lõpuks oli progressinarratiivi püsivus nii puust ja punaseks tehtud, et täitsa igapäevastes mõtisklustes tabasin end märkamast, kui piirav on meie ajalookäsitlus ja viis, kuidas me räägime sellest, mis on ühiskondades võimalik ja võimatu, mõistlik ja mõttetu jne.

Raamat algas ja lõppes kaasahaaravalt, aga vajus vahepeal kuidagi nii ära, et ma peaaegu kaalusin poolelijätmist. Niivõrd pika ajaperioodi käsitlemisel niivõrd lühikeses raamatus pole ühtegi ajastusse võimalik väga süvitsi kinni jääda, sestap tundus see 1) sama idee korrutamisena, 2) muutis minu jaoks isiklikult keskendumise keeruliseks. Mul on (ilmselt ATH pärast) olnud alati väga keeruline käigupealt fakte, detaile, aastaarve jms hoomata, mistõttu on ajalugu mu jaoks konkreetne piin – kui mul detailid, arvud ega isikud meelde ei jää, siis mul on keeruline neid omavahel seostada, oma peas mingit ajajoont hoida jne. Sel põhjusel läksid kõik kirjeldused lihtsalt liiga kiirelt mööda – ma ei suutnud neisse sisse elada. Raamat tundus lisaks üsna katkendlik või hüplik – oli näha, et autor tahab mingeid kõrvalnüansse sisse tuua ja sageli olidki need huvitavad, aga ilmusid tihtilugu nii suvalistes kohtades, et hakkisid ülejäänud mõttekäigu ära ja muutsid mul keskendumise veel keerulisemaks kui see niigi oli.

Võimalik, et ma tegin ise elu keerulisemaks sellega, et kuulasin teost audioraamatuna, aga see algas nii lihtsalt ja põnevalt, et tundus täiesti hallatav (ja tbf, kirjalikult poleks ma seda ilmselt viitsinud lõpuni lugeda). Millalgi leidsin end iga peatükki mitu korda üle kuulamas ja vahepeal isegi e-raamatust üle lugemas. Siis polnud kogemus enam fun, sest pidin raamatuga konkreetselt tööd tegema.

Selliste raamatute lõpetamisel olen alati korralikus plindris, sest mu maailmapilt on pisut muutunud ja hakkan selle avanenud vaatenurga kaudu teiste inimeste ideid, vestlusi, artikleid jms analüüsima, neile reageerima. Sageli on see reaktsioon kuidagi instinktiivne – mul on see uus perspektiiv, aga see pole piisavalt settinud, et ma suudaksin seda koherentselt väljendada. Ma ei jaksa end kunagi piisavalt palju selgitada, pooled faktid ja näited on juba ununenud (mul püsib iga raamatu sisu meeles maksimaalselt nädala, edasi jäävad ainult vaibid) ja isegi kui ma neid mäletaksin, siis vestlusega ei saa ma kunagi edasi anda veenvust, mille tekitab terve raamatu lugemine. Nii tunnen end järjest frustreerituma ja eraklikumana. Aga noh, maailm on kuristiku serval niikuinii, nii et who cares.

[Rafael Mouliaa · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

Salvajemente provocador. Uno de los libros con las ideas más frescas con el que me he cruzado. De esos que te revientan en la cara y te dejan reflexionando. No puedes seguir leyendo porque tienes que pararte a pensar. Un libro con el que te entran escalofríos de vez en cuando. Rompedor. Esclarecedor. Y no es un drama. Es un ensayo!!

Progreso versa sobre los cimientos de nuestra sociedad. De las ideas que vehiculan nuestro relato social. De por qué somos la sociedad que somos. Es una revisión antropologica de nuestra historia. De aquello que subyace a la idea de modernidad. La idea de que DEBEMOS avanzar siempre hacia una sociedad mejor, a través de la ciencia, la tecnología y la economía. Una dicotomía que divide el mundo y que permite percibir a ciertas sociedades y países como "en vías de desarrollo" o "infradesarrollados". Un concepto que justifica el desarrollo de una sociedad PARASITA cuyo único objetivo es reproducir el consumismo de recursos hasta acabar con ecosistemas enteros. Acabar con el propio planeta que habita.

Pasando por el concepto del "destino manifiesto", el sentido lineal civilizatorio, el análisis de los estadios de la evolución, el papel de las ideologías. ¿Qué son estas sino puras construcciones teóricas sobre el sentido y manera del avance de la sociedad hacia un futuro utópico? El papel del progreso en la construcción del concepto que guía a los gobiernos. El PIB como Estrella de Oriente de la política actual. En pos del progreso y de un mantra de crecimiento infinito que nadie se para a cuestionar colapsaremos el planeta.

Si le tengo que poner un PERO, sería que es excesivamente pesimista con el futuro que tenemos por delante. Creo que al libro le sobran algunas partes (análisis histórico se remonta a Mesopotamia, análisis excesivamente centrado en EEUU a veces, análisis de agencias de seguridad USA). Se podría haber usado eso para extender los imaginarios más allá del progreso. Las líneas de visión. Ampliar las perspectivas para transformar el parasitismo. También cae en el error de idealizar el buen salvaje y las sociedades indígenas.

Con todo y eso, librazo al canto.

"Hace falta un delirio de masas en el que confíen con tanta o más intensidad quienes dirigen esta economía que los que hacen girar las ruedas con sus manos para que un proyecto así siga adelante de un modo tan fluido y durante tanto tiempo. Aunque esta manipulación psicológico posee numerosos aspectos, la forma más poderosa, ubicua y antigua que ha adoptado es la del progreso"

"Durante cinco milenios, el progreso ha ofrecido un paraíso en el futuro, una nueva frontera que acabaría por procurarnos paz, satisfacción y gozo de manera infinita, sin revelar que para abrir dicha frontera habría que destruir el paraíso de otro. A fin de tener un futuro digno de perpetuas, necesitamos concebir de otro modo el lugar que ocupamos en nuestra historia aún por acabar".

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a fair number of these "big picture" books by authors such as Yuval Noah Harari, Steven Pinker and Hans Rosling, and this book is something of a rejoinder to the optimistic views of human "progress" displayed therein (Pinker and Rosling are explicitly called out by McDonald). I personally take the view that arguing about which of these books is correct is besides the point; the important question is whether each author's perspective provides a useful way of understanding the world. I happen to find that each perspective provides considerable insight, although all of the books tend to gloss over inconveniences that may be emphasized in another account. And while Pinker and McDonald may be on opposite poles when it comes to optimism/pessimism, both are highly skeptical of utopian ideologies. While the optimists believe that improving the world's state still requires vigilance and innovation, McDonald is an advocate for what amounts to a revolution.

McDonald's version suggests that man has lived in a degraded state since the agricultural revolution in ancient Mesopotamia, and that our ideologies (theological, nationalistic, and economic) have all been in the service of parasitic extraction of energy (mostly the labor of others) on the behalf of elites. Essentially the masses are placated by visions of progress which make them go along with the elites. If you are going to have a single theory of everything, it's not a bad one. Things really go to hell when humans discover the embedded energy in hydrocarbons, resulting in exploitative factory work and culminating in the current climate crisis.

I think this view is interesting and I'm sure it will be attacked - at times persuasively. Like almost all books of this nature, the final sections which attempt to propose solutions for avoiding or at least mitigating our inevitable decline seem a bit pie-in-the-sky. In a world where even the easy climate mitigations strategies (e.g. increasing vehicle fuel efficiency) are politically unattainable, I don't see us adopting his rather radical back-to-nature ideas (and I'm not even sure they are the right ones). However, his argument that fighting the progress narrative in order to save the planet will at least give our lives meaning (even when much of the fight is unsuccessful) does hold water.

If it isn't clear, I do recommend this book as something that will get you thinking.

[Elaina Wall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Advancement is a driving force. The narratives surrounding progress, which articulate whether a society is moving in a favorable or unfavorable direction, possess significant influence. Progress has been instrumental in urban development, geographical transformation, global exploration, oceanic and spatial discovery, wealth generation, opportunity creation, remarkable innovation, and the dawn of a distinctive era within our planet's 4.5-billion-year history.

However, the contemporary narrative of progress also presents a significant and perilous misconception. It influences our perception of what constitutes progress and rationalizes the actions we undertake to attain it, irrespective of the consequences. We persist in adhering to a collection of myths concerning dominion, growth, extraction, and expansion, which have historically propelled our achievements but now imperil our existence—and that of all species—on a planet facing critical challenges.

Honestly, 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐚 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭 𝐂𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐲 𝐈𝐭 was an ambitious read for me. In some ways, it was so thought-provoking that I wanted to pause the book and contemplate before discovering more. I have already quoted the author multiple times, as I couldn't help but agree or pose questions about progress and what it truly means.

Author and Geographer Samuel Miller McDonald presents a layered reinterpretation of the foundational stories underpinning contemporary society. He meticulously exposes their detrimental historical trajectory and proposes a crucial alternative. Leveraging extensive interdisciplinary research spanning anthropology, history, philosophy, and geography, McDonald posits that for humanity to flourish, there must be a fundamental deconstruction, reconceptualization, and reestablishment of the definition of progress.

Thank you to Macmillan Publishers for this historically rich ARC and ALC. I so enjoyed that Samuel was the narrator, as his passion radiated throughout. 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐚 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭 𝐂𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐲 𝐈𝐭 is set to publish December 2nd, 2025.

[Black Spring · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot overstate the importance of this book. I was unfamiliar with author Samuel Miller McDonald before picking it up, but I will be following his work and advocating for it from now on. This quality of writing on these topics and the arguments he makes render this a top 5 recommendation from me as far as most urgent books to read on "big picture" type considerations of the ecological and social mess humanity has made. This is peerless as far as anything coming out of a publishing house so major as St. Martins Press. I will be buying copies to give away to others.

As a deep green anarchist, I have a quibble or two with the text on topics like the ecological and social viability of the earliest cities (this is related to similar quibbles I have with the work of David Graeber, cited by the author), or some of the contours of the proposals McDonald makes in the final two chapters. But these quibbles are essentially immaterial compared with the significance of the text overall, and the impact it deserves to make. This is among the best and most relevant books I've ever read. Virtually no one else in the media that one may find using the internet for one's search is making a critique of the concept of Progress which is so radically deep and right on. I would certainly relish the opportunity to speak or correspond with the author.

I recommend a fruitful cross-reading of this book with others such as "Deep Green Resistance" by Jensen, et al. (to be sure, recommending here a very critical reading with a few major caveats) as well as the anti-civilization anarchist press, starting with a 2011 text called "Desert" which covers many closely related themes, and moving forward from there.

[Lisa]

This books covers most of what I teach in my undergraduate surveys. I connect “Progress” to Modernity more than the author does. He traces it back to the Abrahamic religions and the idea of New Earth and Heaven, but I think this is just retroactive since Modernity popped out first in the part of the world shaped by Monotheism in the Abrahamic tradition. Still, his division of the book into how this idea impacted States, Philosophy, economics and our modern systems. The submission of Humanity and the Humane to the ideal of Progress—and the idea that improvement in the present is worth running roughshod over the Future—is really clear here. I also appreciated the explanation of how the idea of the Economy developed and how when GDP goes up it almost always does so at the expense of the quality of life of all regular humans. He doesn’t really have any good suggestions but his emphasis on thinking about Creatjon (my word not his) was well as our personal lives right now is good. As is his suggestion that we ally with Indigenous people who are working for more sustainability and the Humane.

[Greg Fournier]

I don’t quite know how to rate this book. I disliked most parts of it, but it’s probably because I was ideologically predisposed to disliking it. Therefore, I don’t feel like I could honestly evaluate it. Those who find the thesis credible may enjoy it immensely; I did not.

[fleegan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.
While I was interested in the premise of “progress as propaganda” I was not exactly excited to read about it starting 4,000 years ago and working up to today.
It’s a really big bite to chew. It’s a slog to read. It’s interesting, but not a page-turner.

[G Flores · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was a kid, I had the same thought many other children did: that clearly South America and Africa connect like a puzzle piece. Somewhere between the fourth and fifth grades we learned about Pangea and continental drift and plate tectonics and whatnot and I and every other child in the world felt vindicated for seeing something so obvious.

A similar phenomenon occurs while reading this book; it always seemed obvious to me that you literally can't get more out of the planet than what is on the planet. No matter how vast our forests, oceans or petroleum reserves are, they all exist on this one world and this one world does not generate these resources as quickly as we can consume them. In the name of progress we have accelerated the consumption of resources on the planet through incredible and ingenious (if incredibly inefficient) developments and technologies that -beyond being unsustainable- have devastated natural ecologies and radically changed the way that humanity interacts with and experiences the world.

McDonald also challenges notions that progress is linear or that we are necessarily moving towards a better, more moral, more enlightened future. Especially in recent years, it has become harder for people to believe that tomorrow will be better than today, and McDonald's observations about the confrontation of parasitism, the effectiveness of rapid vs. incremental change, and the community level organization needed to ensure a better future rather than merely passively hope for one while doing nothing are all insightful, well-supported and well-argued.

Some may find the book a tad bleak, and unlike other popular history or science books, McDonald does not go out of his way to make humorous aphorisms or reference pop culture, so it can make for heavier reading than some might be accustomed to, but it is worth the effort invested. I think a lot of people will read this book, throw up their hands and say "well what can I do about it??" They will be angry at being called parasites and ask why they should give up their luxury goods so that others may not go hungry - I know that most people are not willing to inconvenience themselves for the good of others, let alone make real sacrifices. It is a shame that they are unlikely to read this book, because in many ways this book is for them. Selling the fantasy of utopia at some point in the far-flung future by staying the course heedless of the many warning signs is much easier than selling the reality that if our children's children wish to survive - let alone live a life worth living - we will have to put in some effort. McDonald's rhetoric can be seen to be an abject failure by that perspective, but to me at least, this book doesn't exactly seek to change the reader's mind, merely lay out the facts and establish patterns, and in that it succeeds remarkably.

[cassady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ecological economics-informed critical history + historiography. Pursuits of progress led economies to become disembedded and parasitic on the environment, technologies improved, colonization became a key economic force, and fast forward to globalization and the growth imperative which drives every mainstream ideology. Cultural narratives developed through religion, philosophy, and science are key to sustaining the progress narrative, and they form our institutions. we acknowledge this in the context of current planetary crises and the fact that we are still hell-bent on growth and expansion, with diminishingly few people receiving improved material wellbeing from such "advancement"

[Sammantha (its_a_literary_life) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an ambitious book! McDonald attempts an intellectual tour de force: from prehistoric societies to the Anthropocene, from myth and theology to capitalism and environmental crisis. He doesn’t just critique “progress” as a vague ideal, he traces its evolution and how it shaped institutions, beliefs, hierarchies, and our relationship with nature.

He draws in geography, history, anthropology, and philosophy. He doesn’t just gives us economic data, but myths, religious stories, ecological impacts, cultural evolution.

“Progress” has been one of our most seductive myths—promising salvation, wealth, stability. McDonald squares up to that myth, and shows the social, environmental, and moral costs.

His narrative sometimes moves from plausible historical detail into interpretative leaps but for those interested or concerned with ecological crisis, ethics of development, and cultural narratives, it’s essential reading. It reframes the problem, forces discomfort, and opens space for rethinking.

Makes you wonder if there is a middle path. A kind of progress that retains innovation, art, knowledge, technological advance — but grounded not in extraction and domination, but in relationality, equity, ecological harmony? Can societies realistically change the engine of growth — or are we stuck in a feedback loop of growth = legitimacy? McDonald gives us reasons to hope, but hope alone is not enough; transformation requires institutions, practices, narrative shifts, power change.

This, while being very analytical and academic in structure, is well researched and well written!

[Valentín Serrano García · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Review in English below)
Comienzo con lo negativo: es un libro divulgativo, con todo lo que ello implica: generalizaciones arquetípicas, escasez de matices y cierta tendencia a un discurso unívoco. Además, en ocasiones resulta algo precipitado; los numerosos asuntos que aborda (religiosos, políticos, climáticos…) merecerían, para ser tratados con mayor rigor, una bibliografía más amplia y una argumentación más desarrollada.

Sin embargo, resulta llamativo que, cuando autores como Steven Pinker —y legiones de seguidores, especialmente de corte cientificista— defienden la tesis contraria, esto es, la del Progreso (en mayúsculas), con su sesgo eurocéntrico, estadístico y carente de perspectiva plural, las críticas suelan ser mucho más indulgentes. Y ello pese a que, en no pocos casos, sus errores pueden ser incluso más graves, menos responsables y más falaces que los de Miller McDonald, como cuando sólo toman en consideración estadísticas locales o caen en falacias de falsa equivalencia (comparaciones entre realidades muy distintas).

Este ensayo, a pesar de sus limitaciones, posee un innegable interés pedagógico, didáctico y político: el de sacudir conciencias. Aspira a modificar la percepción dominante en una sociedad adormecida que, al tiempo que se pierde en debates sobre inmigración, feminismo u otras polémicas superficiales, rara vez identifica las raíces del problema: las clases parasitarias, las estructuras sociopolíticas injustas y petrificadas, la destrucción de nichos ecológicos, la falta de empatía hacia los países empobrecidos, el encumbramiento de las élites económicas, la propaganda ideológica de carácter casi opiáceo y el espectáculo tecnológico. A esto es, precisamente, a lo que el autor denomina “la narrativa del progreso”, haciendo una nítida diferencia entre un progreso moral y otro de tipo técnico o económico.

El autor no niega la existencia de mejoras a lo largo de la historia —sanitarias, tecnológicas, sociales o políticas—, y en ello muestra una postura matizada: evita tanto el pesimismo radical de David Benatar como el tono corrosivo de John Gray (fascinante, por otro lado). Su tesis, más bien, apunta a que tales “mejoras” suelen ser circunstanciales, parciales y, en ocasiones, dependientes del deterioro de las condiciones de otros seres humanos —y también de los animales—. Asimismo, recurre a la antropología y a una historia de largo alcance —no restringida a los últimos 150 años de Europa— para mostrar hasta qué punto se repiten dinámicas de vigilancia, dominación, destrucción y engaño, sin dejar de señalar momentos históricos valiosos que, sin embargo, tienden a ser invisibilizados.

Por todo ello, no puedo sino recomendar su lectura, aun reconociendo algunas fallas e imprecisiones. Y, de hecho, conforme se avanza en su lectura, mejora la sensación de gratitud hacia el autor. Me parece un libro necesario, aunque también revelador en otro sentido: muchos lectores lo rechazarán no tanto por lo que dice, sino por lo que pone en cuestión.

En última instancia, el valor del libro no reside tanto en la solidez irreprochable de cada uno de sus argumentos como en su capacidad para interrumpir una narrativa hegemónica que rara vez se somete a examen. Frente a la fe casi automática en el progreso, Miller McDonald introduce una duda incómoda pero necesaria: la de si aquello que celebramos como avance no es, en parte, una forma más sofisticada de dominación, olvido o autoengaño. En este sentido, su ensayo no debe leerse como una refutación definitiva, sino como un gesto crítico imprescindible: el de reabrir preguntas que una época satisfecha consigo misma había decidido clausurar.

ENGLISH REVIEW-------------------------------------------------------

To begin with the negative aspects: yes, it is a popular science book, with all that this entails: archetypal generalizations, a lack of nuance, and a certain tendency toward a univocal discourse. Moreover, it can at times feel somewhat rushed; the many issues it addresses (religious, political, climatic…) would require, to be treated with greater rigor, a broader bibliography and a more developed line of argument.

However, it is striking that when authors such as Steven Pinker—along with legions of followers, especially of a scientistic bent—defend the opposing thesis, namely that of Progress (with a capital “P”), with its Eurocentric, statistical bias and lack of a plural perspective, the criticisms tend to be far more lenient. This is so even though, in many cases, their errors may be more serious, less responsible, and more fallacious than those of Miller McDonald—for instance, when they rely solely on local statistics or fall into false equivalences (comparisons between very different realities).

Despite its limitations, this essay possesses undeniable pedagogical, didactic, and political value: it seeks to shake consciences. It aims to reshape the dominant perception within a society that is largely anaesthetized, one that, while becoming absorbed in debates about immigration, feminism, or other superficial controversies, rarely identifies the roots of the problem: parasitic classes, rigid and unjust sociopolitical structures, the destruction of ecological niches, the lack of empathy toward impoverished countries, the elevation of economic elites, ideologically opiate-like propaganda, and the technological spectacle. This, precisely, is what the author calls “the narrative of progress,” clearly distinguishing between moral progress and technical or economic progress.

The author does not deny the existence of improvements throughout history—sanitary, technological, social, or political—and in this he adopts a nuanced position: he avoids both the radical pessimism of David Benatar and the corrosive tone of John Gray (fascinating, incidentally). Rather, his thesis suggests that such “improvements” are often circumstantial, partial, and, at times, dependent on the deterioration of the conditions of other human beings—and animals as well. Furthermore, he draws on anthropology and on a long-range view of history—not limited to the last 150 years of Europe—to show the extent to which patterns of surveillance, domination, destruction, and deception recur, while also highlighting valuable historical moments that nevertheless tend to be obscured.

For all these reasons, I can only recommend the book, while acknowledging its flaws and imprecisions. As you advance in the reading, you feel gratitude towards the author. It seems to me a necessary work, though revealing in another sense as well: many readers will reject it not so much for what it says, but for what it calls into question.

Ultimately, the value of the book lies not so much in the flawless solidity of each of its arguments as in its ability to disrupt a hegemonic narrative that is rarely subjected to scrutiny. Against the almost automatic faith in progress, Miller McDonald introduces an uncomfortable but necessary doubt: whether what we celebrate as advancement may, in part, be a more sophisticated form of domination, oblivion, or self-deception. In this sense, the essay should not be read as a definitive refutation, but rather as an essential critical gesture—one that reopens questions a self-satisfied age had chosen to close.

[Leonardo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Could not finish this book. It reads as a largely misinformed and misguided attempt at vilifying humanity’s advancement throughout history. He draws in extremely unrealistic conclusions from small population sample sizes and applies them to the entire global population. Upon reading McDonald’s articles from Current Affairs, in which he equated South Korea’s low birth rates to the global population of chimpanzees in order to “demonstrate” that low birth rates are not a problem (you read that right), I now understand the author’s lack of empathy towards the human condition, which justifies his impossibly delusional opinions.

In the book he tries to deconstruct creation myths and at some point even discusses the use of Christianity as a tool for empire building, which though not inherently wrong, is done in an abysmally superficial manner which leaves much to be desired the entire way through. And this is in the first (“good”) half of the book. The author makes no attempt at hiding his environment-first agenda, which in the book clearly comes off in its most extreme form as utter disregard for human life and the prosperity and wellbeing of human beings. Unlike what he would like you to believe, having made it to the 21st century as a species means it is wholly impossible for us to globally retrocede into an indigenous-style way of life.

This author demonstrates an extremely surface-level understanding of most of the issues he discusses, except for geography which seems to be what he should solely focus on moving forward, as this book quickly becomes factually incorrect. Additionally he adds a very negative undertone to our species’ greatest achievements, and the book just seems as if it had come out of an angsty teenager’s mind coupled with great diction and a plethora of regurgitated facts and information, all aimed at deconstructing our notion of progress in favor of a future where even if 95% of our species were to die, at least global warming was prevented. His words, sort of, not mine.

His opinions are not grounded in reality, and anyone reading this book should evaluate it carefully. If you are thinking about buying it, don’t.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has a provocative premise: What if, for the past 5,000 years, human beings have not made progress? What if things have actually gotten worse?

The author interrogates the major progress myths that have governed western societies, from dominion over other species granted by Abrahamic religions, through the scientific rationality of Enlightenment thought, to manifest destiny, to the 20th-century battle between fascist, socialist, and liberal visions of progress, to billionaire promises of off-world utopias.

This is 'progress' as unrestrained economic growth, development, and expansion. Progress as an instrument of propaganda to ensure mass complacency, obedience, and subservience.

The book is challenging, stirring, and deeply original. Miller McDonald comes from a left-environmental activist background and the moral force of that experience comes through - though the book remains unorthodox in its thinking as the author strives to identify what is true over what is politically accepted.

Some early reviews have accused the book of being doomerist, but its claims are rigorously researched (Miller McDonald did a DPhil at Oxford) and grounded in hard truths about the challenges we now face: from rising authoritarianism to declining health and well-being indicators, rampant inequality to ecological annihilation.

PROGRESS is an unflinching examination of today's most pervasive belief. But it also gives us hope that progress could mean something else: ecological restoration, compounding knowledge practices, robust communities, solidarity against greed and corruption. The universe has no moral arc but the one we make.

[Chad Manske · Rating 4 out of 5]

Samuel Miller McDonald’s “Progress: How One Idea Built Civilization and Now Threatens to Destroy It” is the rare big-idea book that tries to grab civilization by the collar and force it to answer for itself. Its target is not progress in the cheerful, everyday sense of vaccines, literacy, sanitation, or flight. McDonald is after something deeper and more dangerous: the story societies tell themselves when they convert conquest into destiny, extraction into development, and sacrifice into the alleged price of a better tomorrow. What makes the book compelling is its refusal to treat “progress” as a neutral word. McDonald approaches it as a weaponized narrative, one that has justified empires, industrial ravaging, coerced labor, ecological ruin, and the strange modern faith that infinite growth can somehow coexist with a finite planet. The argument is severe, but it has the thrill of intellectual demolition. Page by page, familiar monuments begin to look less like evidence of humanity’s ascent and more like invoices handed to the earth, the poor, the colonized, and the future. The book’s strength is also its risk. McDonald’s thesis is so capacious that nearly everything can be pulled into its orbit. At moments, the sweep from ancient myth to fossil capitalism feels less like history than indictment, and readers inclined toward technological optimism may find the verdict too totalizing. Yet even that excess gives the book its force. It is not a polite correction to Steven Pinker-style optimism; it is a counter-myth, written with the urgency of someone watching the old myth burn down the house while congratulating itself on improved lighting. Progress is fascinating because it unsettles without merely despairing. McDonald’s real challenge is not to abandon improvement, knowledge, or ambition, but to ask who pays for them, who defines them, and whether a civilization can imagine advancement without domination. The book is provocative, unruly, and morally electric. Even where one resists it, it leaves the word “progress” permanently altered. That alone makes it a bracing, necessary companion for an anxious age running out of easy alibis.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost all of us would say that "progress" is a good thing and that, even if there isn't a teleological arrow of progress over time in human history, still we are a lot better off than we were a hundred years ago and that in general over the course of history succeeding generations have been better off than their predecessors, though admittedly there have been periods of devastation though war, plague and famine, and there have been long periods that appear in retrospect when viewed with a progressive eye to have been times of stagnation. This book dares to suggest that this whole perspective is wrong - that progress is illusory, that people in modern technological, energy consuming societies are not better off than our hunter gatherer ancestors or even, perhaps than our peasant ancestors, and that the world we have built is inherently self-destructive so that even if by some measure we are better off than our ancestors, it can't last and will come crashing down with concomitant massive suffering.

I don't know. Mr. McDonald has a point. We should definitely reexamine our ideas about progress, just as we should reexamine our ideas about property, liberty, capitalism and modernity, but I think that this book is a bridge too far. Perhaps it is only my comfort with my own life and era, but it does not feel to me that I would be better off living in a simple house in the forest in a communal society. I can see how much of the infrastructure that I rely on is ultimately destructive and how many of the supposed benefits of western civilization do not add to human flourishing. But I think that many of them do have additive value and can be provided in ways that don't need to be destructive (or at least not destructive at a rate from which our planet cannot recover). Surely there is a middle way where I can keep some of my comforts and conveniences. And even if the typical concept of progress is wrong, haven't we gotten more than a few good things over time that add to the quality of human life?

[Arthur · Rating 3 out of 5]

McDonald takes one word — progress — and refuses to treat it as neutral. His argument is that for the last 5,000 years, what we call progress has really been a story used to justify parasitism: energy capture that takes more than it gives back, whether from the land, from conquered peoples, or from the labour of others. The opposite, the commensal and mutualistic societies that he says made up roughly 99% of human history, get buried under a narrative that splits the world into the civilised and the savage and always promises paradise just over the next frontier.

The structure is clean and genuinely helpful: theological parasitism (Heaven), maritime-colonial parasitism (Nation), and networked, fossil-fuelled parasitism (System), each with its own myths and agents. The opening chapters are the strongest part of the book. His takedown of the famous progress graphs — the poverty line redefined downward, the life-expectancy numbers skewed by infant mortality — is sharp and stuck with me. If you've read Pinker or Rosling and felt a vague unease you couldn't name, this is the rejoinder.

But the thing is long, and it knows one trick. Wherever we travel in time or space, someone is wrecking something and calling it progress, and after a few hundred pages the word "parasitic" starts to lose its edge. The sweep is so total that nearly everything gets pulled into it, and nuance is the casualty. The final section is where most readers, including me, lose patience: the diagnosis is bracing, but the prescription — hyperlocal, broadly Indigenous-inspired, anti-growth — is gestured at rather than built, and it's hard to picture eight billion people getting there.

So: an excellent description of a problem, paired with a much weaker account of what to do about it. I don't regret reading it, and it permanently changed how the word "progress" lands for me. I just wish it were two-thirds the length and twice as concrete in the back half.

Worth it if you want your assumptions unsettled. Frustrating if you want them answered.