The Story of Industrial Civilization: Introduction

Progress writer Jason Crawford is writing a book about this world and how it was invented. In a series of salons, we will explore this content together, chapter by chapter, and get an inside look at the author’s creative process.

Behind the world of our daily lives, there is a hidden world, one that keeps our world running. It is an industrial world, one of factories, engines, chemicals, and infrastructure, that most people rarely notice or appreciate. But every piece of it is a solution to a problem: a way to satisfy human needs in the face of nature’s constraints.

Crawford will open each of the 13 monthly Salons by talking about his research and writing on the topic so far, followed by discussion and Q&A.

Introduction:

• What is “progress”, and why should we care?
• How the history of progress is relevant to today.
• How to even approach such an enormous topic and make it digestible?
• The book’s three big themes about how progress has transformed our lives.

The goal of Crawford’s work is not just to tell stories, but to lay the foundation for a new philosophy of progress, which will be the focus of the last three salons. These three salons will exclusively be open to participants who sign up for the whole series.

This series will give you a new lens on the world: the progress lens. Join us as we learn to use the history of progress to understand the present and to choose our future.