The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into Its Origin and Growth

In this influential 1920 lecture series, the renowned Cambridge historian asks a question that still haunts us: Is progress real, or merely a modern superstition? Bury traces the concept of progress from its emergence in the Renaissance through the Enlightenment, showing how it replaced medieval Christianity's focus on salvation with faith in secular improvement. He argues that by the nineteenth century, progress had become the dominant Western religion, intertwined with democracy, liberty, and civilization itself. Yet Bury wrote this just after the Great War, and his text carries an uncanny tension: can we still believe in progress after industrialized massacre? This book remains essential reading for anyone questioning the assumptions underlying modern life. It demands we examine whether humanity's trajectory toward advancement is genuine or simply a comforting narrative we've constructed.