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Bowler traces ideas about progress using evolutionary biology to throw light on parallel changes in the understanding of social development.
List of contents
Preface; 1. Introduction: ladders and trees; Part I. The Ladder of Progress and the End of History: 2. From the chain of being to the ladder of creation; 3. The hierarchy of humanity; 4. Progress to paradise: Christianity, idealism and history; 5. Ascent to utopia: the quest for a perfect society; 6. End of an era?; Part II. Toward a World of Unlimited Possibilities: 7. Darwinian visions; 8. The uniqueness of humans; 9. Branching out: the evolution of civilizations; 10. Toward an uncertain future; 11. Epilogue: where did it all go wrong?; Bibliography.
About the author
Peter J. Bowler is Emeritus Professor of the School of History, Anthropology, Politics and Philosophy at Queen's University Belfast.
Summary
Bowler charts developments in thinking about progress using the emergence of Darwinism in biology to throw light on parallel changes in the understanding of social development. He shows how linear models of progress headed toward a final goal have been replaced by open-ended views defined by innovation and diversity.
Additional text
'In this timely and wide-ranging survey, a leading historian of evolutionary theory explores the doctrine of progress and the fate during the nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries of pictures of an attainable utopia. Peter Bowler's study of writings in public science and science fiction provides fascinating reading for anyone interested in how models of what is to come changed in history and may change again.' Simon Schaffer, University of Cambridge
