Progress

Progress PDF Author: Johan Norberg
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1786072327
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
A Book of the Year for The Economist and the Observer Our world seems to be collapsing. The daily news cycle reports the deterioration: divisive politics across the Western world, racism, poverty, war, inequality, hunger. While politicians, journalists and activists from all sides talk about the damage done, Johan Norberg offers an illuminating and heartening analysis of just how far we have come in tackling the greatest problems facing humanity. In the face of fear-mongering, darkness and division, the facts are unequivocal: the golden age is now.

Progress

Progress PDF Author: Johan Norberg
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1786072327
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
A Book of the Year for The Economist and the Observer Our world seems to be collapsing. The daily news cycle reports the deterioration: divisive politics across the Western world, racism, poverty, war, inequality, hunger. While politicians, journalists and activists from all sides talk about the damage done, Johan Norberg offers an illuminating and heartening analysis of just how far we have come in tackling the greatest problems facing humanity. In the face of fear-mongering, darkness and division, the facts are unequivocal: the golden age is now.

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 : 370

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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.

Plagues and the Paradox of Progress

Plagues and the Paradox of Progress PDF Author: Thomas J. Bollyky
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262537966
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Why the news about the global decline of infectious diseases is not all good. Plagues and parasites have played a central role in world affairs, shaping the evolution of the modern state, the growth of cities, and the disparate fortunes of national economies. This book tells that story, but it is not about the resurgence of pestilence. It is the story of its decline. For the first time in recorded history, virus, bacteria, and other infectious diseases are not the leading cause of death or disability in any region of the world. People are living longer, and fewer mothers are giving birth to many children in the hopes that some might survive. And yet, the news is not all good. Recent reductions in infectious disease have not been accompanied by the same improvements in income, job opportunities, and governance that occurred with these changes in wealthier countries decades ago. There have also been unintended consequences. In this book, Thomas Bollyky explores the paradox in our fight against infectious disease: the world is getting healthier in ways that should make us worry. Bollyky interweaves a grand historical narrative about the rise and fall of plagues in human societies with contemporary case studies of the consequences. Bollyky visits Dhaka—one of the most densely populated places on the planet—to show how low-cost health tools helped enable the phenomenon of poor world megacities. He visits China and Kenya to illustrate how dramatic declines in plagues have affected national economies. Bollyky traces the role of infectious disease in the migrations from Ireland before the potato famine and to Europe from Africa and elsewhere today. Historic health achievements are remaking a world that is both worrisome and full of opportunities. Whether the peril or promise of that progress prevails, Bollyky explains, depends on what we do next. A Council on Foreign Relations Book

Enlightenment Now

Enlightenment Now PDF Author: Steven Pinker
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525427570
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 578

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Book Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR "My new favorite book of all time." --Bill Gates If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. By the author of the new book, Rationality. Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation. With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.

Open

Open PDF Author: Johan Norberg
Publisher: Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1786497174
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR Humanity's embrace of openness is the key to our success. The freedom to explore and exchange - whether it's goods, ideas or people - has led to stunning achievements in science, technology and culture. As a result, we live at a time of unprecedented wealth and opportunity. So why are we so intent on ruining it? From Stone Age hunter-gatherers to contemporary Chinese-American relations, Open explores how across time and cultures, we have struggled with a constant tension between our yearning for co-operation and our profound need for belonging. Providing a bold new framework for understanding human history, bestselling author and thinker Johan Norberg examines why we're often uncomfortable with openness - but also why it is essential for progress. Part sweeping history and part polemic, this urgent book makes a compelling case for why an open world with an open economy is worth fighting for more than ever.

Your World, Better

Your World, Better PDF Author: Charles Kenny
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Written for the smart and engaged middle school student, Your World, Better looks at how America and the World has changed since the reader's parents and grandparents were young: what has happened to health and wealth, homes, school and work, rights and democracy, war and the environment, happiness and depression. It reports the positive trends, the problems that remain and what we can do about them. All author royalties from sales will be donated to UNICEF.

The Glass Half-Empty

The Glass Half-Empty PDF Author: Rodrigo Aguilera
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
ISBN: 1912248816
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Despite the doom and gloom of financial crises, global terrorism, climate collapse, and the rise of the far-right, a number of leading intellectuals (Steven Pinker, Hans Rosling, Johan Norberg, and Matt Ridley, among others) have been arguing in recent years that the world is getting better and better. But this “progress narrative” is little more than a very conservative defence of the capitalist status quo. At a time when liberal democracy appears incapable of stemming the tide of the far-right populism, and when laissez-faire capitalism is ill-equipped to deal with socio-economic problems like climate change, inequality, and the future of wok, the real advocates of progress are those willing to challenge these established paradigms. The Glass Half-Empty argues that, without criticising the systems of capitalism, the changes needed to make a better world will always fall short of our expectations. The "progress narrative" needs to be challenged before we stumble into a potentially catastrophic future, despite having the means to build a truly better world.

Poverty and Progress

Poverty and Progress PDF Author: Deepak Lal
Publisher: Cato Institute
ISBN: 1938048857
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
In his new book, Poverty and Progress: Realities and Myths about Global Poverty, renowned development economist Deepak Lal draws on 50 years of experience around the globe to describe developing-country realities and rectify misguided notions about economic progress. Unique among books that have emerged in recent years on world poverty, Poverty and Progress directly confronts intellectual fads of the West and dismantles a wide range of myths that have obscured an astounding achievement: the unprecedented spread of economic progress around the world that is eliminating the scourge of mass poverty.

Well-Being: Expanding the Definition of Progress

Well-Being: Expanding the Definition of Progress PDF Author: Alonzo L. Plough
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190080493
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Cities and countries around the globe are starting to incorporate a well-being approach by reorienting policies and budgets to benefit people and long-term sustainability. With insights from an international group of scientists, practitioners, and innovators, Well-Being considers the measurement focus of conversations surrounding well-being, then moves beyond to action: shifts in policy, narratives, and power, and alignment with other movements acrosssectors.

Stakeholder Capitalism

Stakeholder Capitalism PDF Author: Klaus Schwab
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119756138
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Reimagining our global economy so it becomes more sustainable and prosperous for all Our global economic system is broken. But we can replace the current picture of global upheaval, unsustainability, and uncertainty with one of an economy that works for all people, and the planet. First, we must eliminate rising income inequality within societies where productivity and wage growth has slowed. Second, we must reduce the dampening effect of monopoly market power wielded by large corporations on innovation and productivity gains. And finally, the short-sighted exploitation of natural resources that is corroding the environment and affecting the lives of many for the worse must end. The debate over the causes of the broken economy—laissez-faire government, poorly managed globalization, the rise of technology in favor of the few, or yet another reason—is wide open. Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet argues convincingly that if we don't start with recognizing the true shape of our problems, our current system will continue to fail us. To help us see our challenges more clearly, Schwab—the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum—looks for the real causes of our system's shortcomings, and for solutions in best practices from around the world in places as diverse as China, Denmark, Ethiopia, Germany, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Singapore. And in doing so, Schwab finds emerging examples of new ways of doing things that provide grounds for hope, including: Individual agency: how countries and policies can make a difference against large external forces A clearly defined social contract: agreement on shared values and goals allows government, business, and individuals to produce the most optimal outcomes Planning for future generations: short-sighted presentism harms our shared future, and that of those yet to be born Better measures of economic success: move beyond a myopic focus on GDP to more complete, human-scaled measures of societal flourishing By accurately describing our real situation, Stakeholder Capitalism is able to pinpoint achievable ways to deal with our problems. Chapter by chapter, Professor Schwab shows us that there are ways for everyone at all levels of society to reshape the broken pieces of the global economy and—country by country, company by company, and citizen by citizen—glue them back together in a way that benefits us all.