In these acclaimed CBC Massey Lectures, Ronald Wright argues that the twentieth century was a time of runaway growth in human population, consumption, and technology, placing a colossal load on all natural systems. But 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 human triumph and disaster can we recognize the experiment's inherent dangers and, with luck and wisdom, shape its outcome.

In this edition, illuminating illustrations and sidebars complement Wright's arguments, and allow readers to witness further evidence supporting his cautionary tale.

RONALD WRIGHT is an award-winning historian, essayist, and the author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction published in sixteen languages and more than forty countries. His 2004 CBC Massey Lectures, A Short History of Progress, was a #1 national bestseller, won the Libris Award for Nonfiction Book of the Year, and was the basis for the Martin Scorsese–produced documentary Surviving Progress. His other bestselling nonfiction books include the BC Book Prize–winning history What Is America?; Stolen Continents, which won the Gordon Montador Award; and Among the Maya. His first novel, A Scientific Romance, won the 1997 David Higham Prize for Fiction and was a Globe and Mail, Sunday Times, and New York Times book of the year. Wright contributes criticism to the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other publications. He lives in British Columbia.

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...Meets all our needs and then some; It's smart, downright gorgeous...Bravo.

Toronto Star