Progress
Subtitle: Fact or Illusion?
Contributors: Leo Marx (Editor); Bruce Mazlish (Editor)
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: July 1, 1996
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 248
ISBN-13: 9780472106769
Subjects: Cultural studies; History of specific subjects; World history; Philosophy; History Of Civilization And Culture (General); History; History: World; Progress; General; History / World; Civilization
Description: Progress, perhaps the fundamental secular belief of modern Western society, has come under heavy fire recently because, after three centuries, the advances in science and technology seem increasingly to bring problems in their wake: alienation, environmental degradation, the threat of nuclear destruction. The idea of progress is also brought into question by postmodern critique, attacking the notion of science as truth. Yet no other meaningful organization of humankind's sense of time looms on the horizon.

Progress: Fact or Illusion? attempts to reassess the meaning and prospects of the idea of progress.

Looking toward the millennium, the volume seeks to evaluate the idea's worth both in theory - is it intellectually viable and defensible today? - and practice - even if theoretically defensible, is the idea undermined in actual life? Approaching these questions from the perspectives of science, anthropology, economics, religion, political philosophy, feminism, medicine, environmental studies, and the Third World, the contributors, all distinguished scholars, provide a unique and critical balance.