My books

Steven Pinker: “Magoon has made a valuable contribution in adding to our understanding of the facts and causes of the most important development in human history.”

Tyler Cowen: “Michael Magoon’s new book… will change your thinking about progress and its relevance to your life.”


I am the author of the From Poverty to Progress book series. This book series is aimed at promoting an awareness and understanding of human material progress and how we can keep it going.

The first book in the series is From Poverty to Progress: Understanding Humanity’s Greatest Achievement (see book cover at bottom of this page). In this book I explain:

  • Why progress matters to you

  • The origins and causes of modern progress

  • How progress has gradually spread across the globe

  • Why it took so long for progress to get started

  • How progress works in our daily lives

  • Dangerous threats to our current progress

You can read excerpts, purchase books at a discount on my website or pay full price at Amazon.


The second book in my series is Promoting Progress: A Radical New Agenda to Create Abundance for All (see book cover at bottom of this page). In this book I argue for a concrete Progress-based reform agenda to keep our current progress going by:

  1. Promoting long-term widely-shared economic growth.

  2. Creating a prosperous working class

  3. Focusing relentlessly on results.

  4. Reforming the political process to make all the above possible.

You can read excerpts, purchase e-books at a discount on my website or at full price at Amazon. Paperbacks and hardcover are on sale at Amazon and IngramSpark.


My goal is to publish the third book in the series in 2024. It is tentatively entitled Upward Mobility: A Radical New Agenda to Uplift the Working Class and Poor. This book will focus on how we can ensure that as many citizens as possible benefit from living in societies that are experiencing progress.