A Picturesque Tale of Progress
A Picturesque Tale of Progress

Author: Olive Beaupré Miller

Publisher: Dawn Chorus Press

Published: 2009-10

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 9781597313995

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Originally published: Lake Bluff, IL: Bookhouse for Children, c1929-33.

Open
Open

Author: Johan Norberg

Publisher: Atlantic Books

Published: 2020-09-03

Total Pages: 431

ISBN-13: 1786497174

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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.

A Short History of Man
A Short History of Man

Author: Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Publisher: Ludwig von Mises Institute

Published: 2015-03-19

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 1610165918

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A Short History of Man: Progress and Decline represents nothing less than a sweeping revisionist history of mankind, in a concise and readable volume. Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe skillfully weaves history, sociology, ethics, and Misesian praxeology to present an alternative — and highly challenging — view of human economic development over the ages. As always, Dr. Hoppe addresses the fundamental questions as only he can. How do family and social bonds develop? Why is the concept of private property so vitally important to human flourishing? What made the leap from a Malthusian subsistence society to an industrial society possible? How did we devolve from aristocracy to monarchy to social democratic welfare states? And how did modern central governments become the all-powerful rulers over nearly every aspect of our lives? Dr. Hoppe examines and answers all of these often thorny questions without resorting to platitudes or bowdlerized history. This is Hoppe at his best: calmly and methodically skewering sacred cows.

History of the Idea of Progress
History of the Idea of Progress

Author: Robert Nisbet

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-12

Total Pages: 594

ISBN-13: 1351515462

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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.

Development with Dignity
Development with Dignity

Author: Tom G. Palmer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-01-31

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 1000536726

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At a time when the global development industry is under more pressure than ever before, this book argues that an end to poverty can only be achieved by prioritizing human dignity. Unable to adequately account for the roles of culture, context, and local institutions, today’s outsider-led development interventions continue to leave a trail of unintended consequences, ranging from wasteful to even harmful. This book shows that increased prosperity can only be achieved when people are valued as self-governing agents. Social orders that recognize autonomy and human dignity unleash enormous productive energy. This in turn leads to the mobilization of knowledge-sharing that is critical to innovation and localized problem-solving. Offering a wide range of interdisciplinary perspectives and specific examples from the field showing these ideas in action, this book provides NGOs, multilateral institutions, and donor countries with practical guidelines for implementing "dignity-first" development. Compelling and engaging, with a wide range of recommendations for reforming development practice and supporting liberal democracy, this book will be an essential read for students and practitioners of international development.