A Short History of Progress

Previous civilizations have used advances in agricultural technique to increase yield and thereby hold off collapse. The industrial revolution is an example of such a technique and explains how “our runaway train [… of progress has] been able to keep gathering speed” (109).

We tend to think of the Industrial Revolution as a purely European contribution to the world, but this advance in human history was fueled by the Americas. Though we do not generally acknowledge it, the indigenous people of North and South America were farming peoples. Their products, such as maize and potatoes, were about twice as productive as European wheat and barley staples, doubling Europe’s resource yield when they began exporting these products home after colonization. Additionally, Europeans adopted the Inca’s use of guano fertilizer. Alongside foodstuffs, the mineral resources of the New World, especially the gold and silver of Aztecs, as well as the labor capital of human slavery, provided Europe the funds to jumpstart the Industrial Revolution.

Before European contact, the indigenous of North America lived in chiefdoms with established social hierarchies. After contact, the decrease in population [due to warfare and disease] allowed democratic societies to blossom, which inspired the American Revolution. In the final analysis, “our age [of liberty] was [both monetarily and ideologically] bankrolled by the seizing of half a planet” (117).