Progress and History

On a Sunday walk in Oxford, a philosopher, an editor and a lady give three different answers to one word: progress. Is it knowledge, power—or learning to value other people?

Francis Sydney Marvin begins these essays amid a catastrophe that seems to put faith in progress in doubt. He follows the idea from Lucretius, who saw humanity advancing through arts and inventions, to the medieval vision of endless growth in knowledge and love. Between them lies a question that reaches beyond any single age: does history show humankind moving toward something better, or merely changing its tools and desires? Marvin asks what progress has meant, how far it has been realized, and whether it can still offer hope and guidance. Which answer can hold when the world itself seems to contradict it?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.