Book ID: CBB574268768

Progress Unchained: Ideas of Evolution, Human History and the Future (2021)

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Bowler, Peter J. (Author)


Cambridge University Press


Publication Date: 2021
Physical Details: 314
Language: English

Progress Unchained reinterprets the history of the idea of progress using parallels between evolutionary biology and changing views of human history. Early concepts of progress in both areas saw it as the ascent of a linear scale of development toward a final goal. The 'chain of being' defined a hierarchy of living things with humans at the head, while social thinkers interpreted history as a development toward a final paradise or utopia. Darwinism reconfigured biological progress as a 'tree of life' with multiple lines of advance not necessarily leading to humans, each driven by the rare innovations that generate entirely new functions. Popular writers such as H. G. Wells used a similar model to depict human progress, with competing technological innovations producing ever-more rapid changes in society. Bowler shows that as the idea of progress has become open-ended and unpredictable, a variety of alternative futures have been imagined.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB574268768/

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Authors & Contributors
Javier Pérez-Jara
Jin, Xiaoxing
Levit, Georgy S.
Somerset, Richard
Skordoulis, Constantine D.
Ruse, Michael
Concepts
Evolution
Darwinism
Transmission of ideas
Progress, ideas of
Science and society
Utopias
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
20th century, early
Qajar dynasty, Iran (1794-1925)
Early modern
Modern
Places
Great Britain
China
Germany
Argentina
Greece
France
Institutions
Panepistēmio Athēnōn
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