History of the Idea of Progress

History of the Idea of Progress PDF Author: Robert Nisbet
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351515462
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 594

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Book Description
The idea of progress from the Enlightenment to postmodernism is still very much with us. In intellectual discourse, journals, popular magazines, and radio and talk shows, the debate between those who are "progressivists" and those who are "declinists" is as spirited as it was in the late seventeenth century. In History of the Idea of Progress, Robert Nisbet traces the idea of progress from its origins in Greek, Roman, and medieval civilizations to modern times. It is a masterful frame of reference for understanding the present world. Nisbet asserts there are two fundamental building blocks necessary to Western doctrines of human advancement: the idea of growth, and the idea of necessity. He sees Christianity as a key element in both secular and spiritual evolution, for it conveys all the ingredients of the modern idea of progress: the advancement of the human race in time, a single time frame for all the peoples and epochs of the past and present, the conception of time as linear, and the envisagement of the future as having a Utopian end. In his new introduction, Nisbet shows why the idea of progress remains of critical importance to studies of social evolution and natural history. He provides a contemporary basis for many disciplines, including sociology, economics, philosophy, religion, politics, and science. History of the Idea of Progress continues to be a major resource for scholars in all these areas.

History of the Idea of Progress

History of the Idea of Progress PDF Author: Robert Nisbet
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351515462
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 594

Get Book Here

Book Description
The idea of progress from the Enlightenment to postmodernism is still very much with us. In intellectual discourse, journals, popular magazines, and radio and talk shows, the debate between those who are "progressivists" and those who are "declinists" is as spirited as it was in the late seventeenth century. In History of the Idea of Progress, Robert Nisbet traces the idea of progress from its origins in Greek, Roman, and medieval civilizations to modern times. It is a masterful frame of reference for understanding the present world. Nisbet asserts there are two fundamental building blocks necessary to Western doctrines of human advancement: the idea of growth, and the idea of necessity. He sees Christianity as a key element in both secular and spiritual evolution, for it conveys all the ingredients of the modern idea of progress: the advancement of the human race in time, a single time frame for all the peoples and epochs of the past and present, the conception of time as linear, and the envisagement of the future as having a Utopian end. In his new introduction, Nisbet shows why the idea of progress remains of critical importance to studies of social evolution and natural history. He provides a contemporary basis for many disciplines, including sociology, economics, philosophy, religion, politics, and science. History of the Idea of Progress continues to be a major resource for scholars in all these areas.

A Short History of Progress

A Short History of Progress PDF Author: Ronald Wright
Publisher: House of Anansi
ISBN: 0887847064
Category : Civilization
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Each time history repeats itself, so it's said, the price goes up. The twentieth century was a time of runaway growth in human population, consumption, and technology, placing a colossal load on all natural systems, especially earth, air, and water — the very elements of life. The most urgent questions of the twenty-first century are: where will this growth lead? can it be consolidated or sustained? and what kind of world is our present bequeathing to our future?In his #1 bestseller A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright argues that our modern predicament is as old as civilization, a 10,000-year experiment we have participated in but seldom controlled. Only by understanding the patterns of triumph and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we recognize the experiment's inherent dangers, and, with luck and wisdom, shape its outcome.

Progress and Religion

Progress and Religion PDF Author: Christopher Dawson
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 0813218195
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Progress and Religion was perhaps the most influential of all Christopher Dawson's books, establishing him as an interpreter of history and a historian of ideas.

History in Progress 1603-1901

History in Progress 1603-1901 PDF Author: Nichola Boughey
Publisher: Heinemann Secondary
ISBN: 9780435318949
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
History in Progress features clearly differentiated tasks that are designed to support and encourage the progression of pupils of all ability levels. A wealth of stimulating activities and accessible information will motivate your pupils and fill them with confidence, whilst building the key historical skills necessary for GCSE.

History and the Idea of Progress

History and the Idea of Progress PDF Author: Arthur M. Melzer
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501744674
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
The publication of Francis Fukuyama's article, "The End of History?" prompted a wave of public debates about democracy, progress, and the idea of history. In this book, twelve distinguished cultural commentators offer a brilliant array of responses to those debates. Fukuyama's controversial essay had considered whether Western-style democracy might be the endpoint of an inevitable historical development. For the present volume, the chapters—none of which has appeared elsewhere—include both a keynote chapter by Fukuyama and a series of spirited alternatives to his position. Additional essays examine the historical and philosophical origins of the idea of history that lies behind today's perspectives on progress and politics.

Civilization and Progress

Civilization and Progress PDF Author: Radoslav A. Tsanoff
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 081316477X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Historical and systematic in its treatment, this work reviews the idea of progress in Western thought as it relates to civilization, in a more comprehensive survey than is to be found in previous writings on the subject. In the author's view, the history of civilization reveals an increasing range of human capacity, both for good and for evil, depending upon men's choice between contending values. From this standpoint, the work proceeds to the exploration of such fields of social activity as the evolution of the family, the emancipation of women, economic conditions and technology, intellectual and aesthetic values, moral and religious experience. Civilization and Progress is marked by balanced and judicious treatment, very broad learning, and a lucid and forceful style. The author asks us to consider the alternatives we face and to reflect on the choices which men have made in the past, which confront us in the present world crisis, and on which our destiny hangs in the future. Seminal in scholarship and creativity, this work will interest those concerned with the Western intellectual tradition and with the condition of mankind.

The Idea of Progress in Eighteenth-century Britain

The Idea of Progress in Eighteenth-century Britain PDF Author: David Spadafora
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300046717
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description
The idea of progress stood at the very center of the intellectual world of eighteenth-century Britain, closely linked to every major facet of the British Enlightenment as well as to the economic revolutions of the period. Drawing on hundreds of eighteenth-century books and pamphlets, David Spadafora here provides the most extensive discussion ever written of this prevailing sense of historical optimism.

The Idea of Progress

The Idea of Progress PDF Author: Sidney Pollard
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description


1901 to Present Day

1901 to Present Day PDF Author: Martin Collier
Publisher: Heinemann Secondary
ISBN: 9780435319014
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
History in Progress features clearly differentiated tasks that are designed to support and encourage the progression of pupils of all ability levels. A wealth of stimulating activities and accessible information will motivate your pupils and fill them with confidence, whilst building the key historical skills necessary for GCSE.

Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind

Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind PDF Author: Antoine-Nicholas Condorcet
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0578016664
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
Perhaps the last great work of the Enlightenment, this landmark in intellectual history is the Marquis de Condorcet's homage to the human future emancipated from its chains and led by the progress of reason and the establishment of liberty. Writing in 1794, while in hiding, under sentence of death from the Jacobins in revolutionary France, Condorcet surveys human history and speculates upon its future. With William Godwin, he is the chief foil of Malthus's Essay on Population. Portrayed by Malthus as an elate and giddy optimist, Condorcet foresees a future of indefinite progress. Freed from ignorance and superstition, he argues that the human race stands on the threshold of epochal progress and limitless improvement. Condorcet defies modernist stereotypes of the right and the left. He is at once precursor of the free market and social democracy. This new edition of the original 1795 English translation, is the only English translation of a work of Condorcet currently in print.