It is quite useless to caparison this review with magnificent words. All I can state is – just read this succinct yet highly important book. The book will truly implore you to think about the world history and the future of our rather too progressive civilization.

A brilliant insight into what Homo sapiens have done, are doing, and will do to our environment if the terms like 'development' and 'progress' are taken out of context from the finite world of ours. Wright provides fascinating case studies of different socieites and civilizations, and explores their destructive actions to their surroundings and ultimately themselves in ways that seem so simple and obvious, yet consequential all the same. This is an interesting read, even if non-fiction is not your cup of tea as it succeeds in wording history as a fascinating short story.

A Short History of Progress is like a short version of Jarred Diamond's Collapse. This book looks at the current roads western culture is taking us in relation to technology and waste. By the end of the book the reader is left with a bit of a bleak outlook of humankind and the potential we have for destroying ourselves. Ronald Wright does leave us with a "road map" for avoiding a cultural and economic collapse, however the odds of us being able to identify and correct the threat is slim at best. This book is one of many red flags that has gone up in the last few years on this topic and is a good read if you are concerned about the state of the world.

This book really makes you think where we are heading as humanity into our future. It was amazingly written.