The 9 Essential Books for Progress Studies
And why reading them is essential for the Progress Studies movement
This article is part of my ongoing series on Progress Studies. You can read more on the topic in the following posts:
The 9 Essential Books for Progress Studies (this article)
For the last few years, I have been a member of the Progress Studies movement. As I see it, this movement seeks to study the past to develop policies and practices that will help build a better future. It is full of young enthusiastic bloggers.
I am writing a series of posts on the topic of Progress Studies. I will particularly focus on how we can improve. Today, I want to discuss what I believe is the single most important task for Progress Studies researchers: to educate themselves on the teachings of previous generations.
That means reading books. Lots of books.
I see this as something like a self-guided university or post-graduate degree. In any university curriculum, the first step is always to read the classics in the field, or more likely have the professor explain the key concepts and arguments derived from those classics.
The expectation is not that the student will agree with all of them. The goal is to ensure that each student understands the arguments of all the various viewpoints and enable each student to come to their conclusions. The assumption is that if you do not know the basics, you cannot build upon them.
A solid grounding in the teachings of previous generations of scholars is necessary to make a field additive. By that, I mean that a field is constantly adding new information rather than constantly “reinventing the wheel” by discovering what is already known. If every generation fails to learn the teachings of the previous generation, then there can be no additive learning. And therefore the entire discipline is pointless.
A problem
Unfortunately, reading books is very time-intensive, and most Progress Studies followers have full-time jobs and/or family responsibilities. This means that most of us have very little extra time. So it is natural that we all have a huge reading list of books that do not get read. And that reading list keeps getting longer and longer.
A solution!
Fortunately, there is an alternative. I created a website to solve this exact problem. The Ratchet of Technology is an online library of book summaries about progress, technology, economic history, and related topics. It also includes Learning Paths that direct the reader through my recommended order for reading book summaries on a specific topic. I will go into more detail on them in future posts.
Today I want to focus on what I consider to be the 9 Essential Books on the topic of progress. Each of the links below points to the summary of that book on my website. Many of these books also have less detailed podcasts and video reviews that I have made.
For serious students of Progress, I would highly recommend reading the entire book after completing all 9 book summaries:
“Factfulness: Why Things are Better Than You Think” by Hans Rosling
This is a very easy read. It is a great introduction to the topic. It mainly focuses on showing why many common beliefs that appear to contradict the existence of progress are incorrect.
If I wanted to give a book to someone who is open-minded, but skeptical of progress, this would be it. It is the most enjoyable read on this list.“Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know” by Bailey and Tupy
This is the next step up in complexity. This book is effectively a compendium of long-term trends that prove the existence of progress. Each trend is presented in a consistent two-page layout with a graphic displaying the data, and a one-page essay with more details.“Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress” by Steven Pinker
This is the first “intellectually beefy” book on this list. I am sure that you have heard of Steven Pinker. This is one of his best books. While I disagree with his theory about the causes of progress, I still highly recommend this book.
You will sound smart at parties if you can cite Steven Pinker’s main points off the top of your head!“From Poverty to Progress: Understanding Humanity’s Greatest Achievement by Michael Magoon
Ha, ha. I tricked you. Yes, this is my book. I do think that it belongs on this list. The link actually points to my manifesto that summarizes the main points of both my books on progress.
I personally think that this book is better than Pinker’s book, but I admit that mine has a slightly higher level of complexity. My book covers a much broader sweep of human history and systematically explains the causes of progress and how it works. My second book sketches out policy reforms that follow from this theory.“The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves” by Matt Ridley
Ridley applies the concept of evolution by natural selection from biology to human progress. He persuasively argues that one cannot understand progress unless you use an evolutionary perspective.“Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future” by Johan Norberg
This is a relatively easy-to-read book that fills the middle ground between the first two easy-to-read books and the meatier books that follow. For that reason, I almost put Norberg’s book as #3, but I do not think that it is quite as good as 3-5. Either way, it is another must-read.Norberg also has other excellent books that are closely related to the topic of progress.
“Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals” by Tyler Cowen
Anyone in the Progress Studies movement is familiar with Tyler Cowen. He is one of our prime benefactors. It is debatable that this is actually a book on progress as it rarely mentions the word. Cowen writes about the importance of promoting long-term economic growth from the perspective of an economist. Unlike most books by economists, it is highly readable. Since I argue that progress is very closely related to economic growth, I believe that it belongs on this list.“Abundance: The Future Is Better than You Think” by Diamandis and Kotler
This book is also stretching the definition of Progress Studies a bit. It is more focused on developing nations and speculations on the future. The authors argue that technological innovation will create abundance for all in the future. Their concept of a Pyramid of Abundance is quite interesting.“Future Perfect: The Case for Progress In a Networked Age” by Steven Johnson
Now we are getting to the part of the list of books that maybe are not quite essential. I include this book because it gives a clear vision of how Progress Studies might be implemented in the real world.
Johnson argues for a new political viewpoint that differs greatly from the Left and the Right. He calls this viewpoint “Peer Progressivism.”
So there it is! Concise summaries of the 9 Essential books on progress. My guess is that you can get through the entire list in less than two hours. If you are interested in progress, this will be one of the most useful two hours of your life.
So what do you think about this list? Did I miss a book that belongs here?
Before commenting, please read all nine book summaries. You should not be commenting on books that you have not read or at least understand the main arguments. And please only recommend other books that you have actually read.
This article is part of my ongoing series on Progress Studies. You can read more on the topic in the following posts:
The 9 Essential Books for Progress Studies (this article)
For the sligtly more academically inclined, I would recommend Deirdre McCloskeys trilogy and anything from Joel Mokyr.
Do you Know about “The idea of progress” by JB Bury?
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4557
It is a book from the 1920s, dealing with the history of the idea of progress from the XV and XVI century utopias to the XX century progress consensus. There is a free audio book version in Libri Vox.