The Progress Paradox

How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse

By: Gregg Easterbrook

Narrated by: Jonathan Marosz

In The Progress Paradox, Gregg Easterbrook draws upon three decades of wide-ranging research and thinking to make the persuasive assertion that almost all aspects of Western life have vastly improved in the past century--and yet today, most men and women feel less happy than in previous generations. Why this is so and what we should do about it is the subject of this book.

Between contemporary emphasis on grievances and the fears engendered by 9/11, today it is common to hear it said that life has started downhill, or that our parents had it better. But objectively, almost everyone in today’s United States or European Union lives better than his or her parents did.

Still, studies show that the percentage of the population that is happy has not increased in fifty years, while depression and stress have become ever more prevalent. The Progress Paradox explores why ever-higher living standards don’t seem to make us any happier. Detailing the emerging science of “positive psychology,” which seeks to understand what causes a person’s sense of well-being, Easterbrook offers an alternative to our culture of crisis and complaint. He makes a Compelling case that optimism, gratitude, and acts of forgiveness not only make modern life more fulfilling but are actually in our self-interest.

Seemingly insoluble problems of the past, such as crime in New York City and smog in Los Angeles, have proved more tractable than they were thought to be. Likewise, today’s “impossible” problems, such as global warming and Islamic terrorism, can be tackled too.

Like The Tipping Point, this book offers an affirming and constructive way of seeing the world anew. The Progress Paradox will change the way you think about your place in the world, and about our collective ability to make it better.©2003 Gregg Easterbrook; (P)2003 Books On Tape, Inc.

Critic reviews

Praise for Gregg Easterbrook

“Easterbrook . . . is a serious author with serious points to make.”
--The New York Times


“Easterbrook . . . writes nothing that is not brilliant.”
--Chicago Tribune


“Easterbrook is perhaps the finest general science writer in the country.”
--Forbes


“Easterbrook invests the timeless questions of life’s meaning with distinctly contemporary pertinence.”
--GEORGE WILL

Don't let the extremists stop you.

Quite apart from the Fox News-poisoned minds of some reviewers above, I found this book to be generally quite important, with a few minor exceptions.

Easterbrook is no ranting liberal. He's a middling to conservative catholic writer with a fine head for synthesis. He brings together such wide-ranging topics as affective forecasting, behavioral economics, psychology, religion, sprituality, and statistics into a well-reasoned (but not perfect or comprehensive - no one would read such a book) sensible argument that boils down to this: we can be satisfied only if we choose to be.

The bottomless appetite we all experienced as children can be carried into adulthood if we are not mindful, resulting in a surprising inability to experience happiness in the face of plenty. Our lives can waste away in a cloud of pointless and insatiable material desires.

Great stuff. It will inspire gratitude in all but the most ideological stuf grabbers.

Pretty Good . . . but.

I rather enjoyed this book. However, as someone that is pretty happy, grateful for the things I have and more concerned with environmental issues then the average person . . . I would have to say that I'm in the minority. Having just spent a year traveling around the 'western world' and now returned to my small home town in Canada; I would have to say that what the author has to say relates to most of the people that I met during my travels . . . it's certainly worth listening to (regardless which side of the coin your on.)

An Important Listen

I have to say that the first half of the book was very interesting and something I would urge anyone living in western society to listen to. He shows how even though most media outlets like to focus on the negative, and people love to believe everything bad that they hear, things really are getting better from our parents generation.
As someone who lives under 'wage stress' or whatever his name was for people who were just above minimum wage, but also in constant fear of some accidental drain on resources to put them in the poor house, I have to disagree with many of the things he states in the latter portion of his book, which contains almost all of the material I didn't feel fit the theme of the book.
In the first half, he addresses facts about how life is getting better, and wonders why we aren't feeling good about it. You would then say that he would put forth some ideas on how to feel good about it, or at least continue with his 'quit your bitching, things ARE good' feel he had going at the beginning of the book.
Instead, he dives off into long tirades on seemingly unconnected subjects like the 'pathetic arab nations' (his words not mine) and raising the federal minimum wage to an outrageous ten dollars an hour in an effort to make things more expensive for your average American in order to help the statistically fewer poor, forgetting about those of us right above the minimum he suggests, and thusly those that would hurt the worst by the inflation of goods to follow. He also tried to shame the reader into taking on even more of a burden in order to give more money to third world countries. What that has to do with things being better and us not being happy about it is above my head.
Additionally, he seems incapable of using the word "car," instead referring to them as "massive SUV's with the drivers screaming into their cell phones!" While I agree with his general dislike for the vehicle, it isn't the only thing on the road.
Now I'm out of words

One of my favorite books

The book weaves a clever argument for prolific discrepancies between the progress made by our society and our psychological perception of it.

Half great read, half political rant

I rated this 3 stars---the first half was easily 5 stars, a well-researched and written analysis of happiness and what does/does not make it. Part 2 was worth 1 star, a seemingly endless retelling of all the woes of current American society and choices. Ironically some of the prescriptions do not even appear to make economic sense. While I do agree with some of the author's points, if I wanted a political discourse on economics I would have bought another book. Will listen to part 1 again; will delete part 2.