Boston Book Festival

The two sweeping, magisterial narratives featured in this session demonstrate how human history is defined by technological innovation, and not always in a good way. Technological progress has brought enormous advances in lifespan and freedom, but the cost has been significant. Daron Acemoglu, co-author of Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity, asserts that over the past 1,000 years, technological developments tended to enrich and empower small elites. This rings true in our time when a small group of technology entrepreneurs amass astonishing wealth and power but the real income of ordinary people remains stagnant. In The Burning Earth: A History, MacArthur “genius” grantee Sunil Amrith uses an environmental lens for a paradigm-shifting examination of how industrialization, colonization, and war have degraded and reshaped the planet. This fascinating conversion about the history of technology will be led by Arun Rath, host of All Things Considered on GBH.