Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress
<p><b><i>The New York Times</i></b><b> best-selling coauthor of </b><b><i>Sex at Dawn</i></b><b> explores the ways in which “progress” has perverted the way we live — how we eat, learn, feel, mate, parent, communicate, work, and die — in this “engaging, extensively documented, well-organized, and thought-provoking” (</b><b><i>Booklist</i></b><b>) book. </b></p> <p>Most of us have instinctive evidence the world is ending - balmy December days, face-to-face conversation replaced with heads-to-screens zomboidism, a world at constant war, a political system in disarray. We hear some myths and lies so frequently that they feel like truths: <i>Civilization is humankind’s greatest accomplishment. Progress is undeniable. Count your blessings. You’re lucky to be alive here and now. </i>Well, maybe we are, and maybe we aren’t. <i>Civilized to Death</i> counters the idea that progress is inherently good, arguing that the "progress" defining our age is analogous to an advancing disease.</p> <p>Prehistoric life, of course, was not without serious dangers and disadvantages. Many babies died in infancy. A broken bone, infected wound, snakebite, or difficult pregnancy could be life-threatening. But ultimately, Christopher Ryan questions, were these pre-civilized dangers more murderous than modern scourges such as car accidents, cancers, cardiovascular disease, and a technologically prolonged dying process? </p> <p><i>Civilized to Death</i> “will make you see our so-called progress in a whole new light” (<i>Book Riot</i>) and adds to the timely conversation that “the way we have been living is no longer sustainable, at least as long as we want to the earth to outlive us” (<i>Psychology Today</i>). Ryan makes the claim that we should start looking backwards to find our way into a better future.</p>