{"product_id":"9781509567621","title":"The Progress Trap : The Modern Left and the False Authority of History by Ben Cobley","description":"The idea of progress, one of the animating ideas of Western civilization, has now gone global. From Marxism and neoliberalism to today's mutant identity politics, it offers a framework of knowledge and confidence: an assurance that things will get better and that history is on our side. However, in doing this it creates a form of authority that is simultaneously imaginary and dishonest, resting on confidence in a future that is really contingent and unknowable.    In?The Progress Trap, Ben Cobley looks at this progressive mindset as a form of power, conferring a right to act and control others. `Change', `transformation' and the `new' are the superior?values, meaning destruction of the old: people, cultures and nature. It is a trap into which nearly all of us fall at times, so attractive are its stories and familiar its techniques.    Hard-hitting but thoughtful, the book is a meditation on the sinister consequences of the progressive way of being: for ourselves, for our democracy, for our art and for the pursuit of real knowledge.\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Hardback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56302569554293,"sku":"9781509567621","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781509567621.jpg?v=1762792879","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/9781509567621","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}