Research Catalog
A road to nowhere : the idea of progress and its critics
- Title
- A road to nowhere : the idea of progress and its critics / Matthew W. Slaboch.
- Author
- Slaboch, Matthew W.
- Publication
- Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2018]
- ©2018
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 18-1049 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- 194 pages; 24 cm
- Summary
- Since the Enlightenment, the idea of progress has spanned right- and left-wing politics, secular and spiritual philosophy, and most every school of art or culture. The belief that humans are capable of making lasting improvements-intellectual, scientific, material, moral, and cultural-continues to be a commonplace of our age. However, events of the preceding century, including but not limited to two world wars, conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, the spread of communism across Eastern Europe and parts of Asia, violent nationalism in the Balkans, and genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda, have called into question this faith in the continued advancement of humankind. Matthew W. Slaboch argues that political theorists should entertain the possibility that long-term, continued progress may be more fiction than reality. He examines the work of German philosophers Arthur Schopenhauer and Oswald Spengler, Russian novelists Leo Tolstoy and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and American historians Henry Adams and Christopher Lasch-rare skeptics of the idea of progress who have much to engage political theory, a field dominated by historical optimists. Looking at the figures of Schopenhauer, Tolstoy, and Adams, Slaboch considers the ways in which they defined progress and their reasons for doubting that their cultures, or the world, were progressing. He compares Germany, Russia, and the United States to illustrate how these nineteenth-century critics of the idea of progress contributed to or helped forestall the emergence of forms of government that came to be associated with each country.
- Subjects
- Political science > Philosophy
- Solzhenit︠s︡yn, Aleksandr Isaevich, 1918-2008
- Adams, Henry, 1838-1918
- Progress
- Political science > Philosophy > History > 20th century
- Lasch, Christopher
- Regression (Civilization)
- Solzhenit︠s︡yn, Aleksandr Isaevich, 1918-2008 > Political and social views
- Political science > Philosophy > History > 19th century
- Political and social views
- History
- Spengler, Oswald, 1880-1936
- 1800-1999
- Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910 > Political and social views
- Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1788-1860 > Political and social views
- Civilization, Modern > Philosophy
- Genre/Form
- History.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Call Number
- JFE 18-1049
- ISBN
- 9780812249804
- 0812249801
- LCCN
- 2017026852
- OCLC
- 980495582
- Author
- Slaboch, Matthew W., author.
- Title
- A road to nowhere : the idea of progress and its critics / Matthew W. Slaboch.
- Publisher
- Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2018]
- Copyright Date
- ©2018
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Chronological Term
- 1800-1999
- Research Call Number
- JFE 18-1049