Review
“Chelsea Follett's Centers of Progress makes urban history interesting again, indeed fascinating. These 40 tales help to explain where modern life comes from and give a broader intellectual and historical tour of the world.” -- Tyler Cowen, founder of Marginal Revolution
“Chelsea Follett has written a book telling a history of human ingenuity covering 12,000 years! We learn this astonishing epic by reading about the life―and sometimes death―of 40 cities on five continents. There is a common thread linking these urban biographies: people of different cultures meeting in cities doted with a degree of intellectual freedom develop an ability to solve technical and social problems. And because cities communicate, their inventions slowly add up and soon spread across continents, benefiting humanity. Centers of Progress provides an optimistic, well-documented view of the world. We badly need this long-term perspective!” -- Alain Bertaud, Order without Design: How Markets Shape Cities
“Endlessly fascinating, wide-ranging, and provocative, Centers of Progress takes us on a tour of the most creative moments of human history. Chelsea Follett moves us around the globe and across millennia. From the invention of agriculture to the digital revolution, Follett shows us the many ways in which cities have freed the imagination and brought forth new ideas that improved our lives. An inspiring rebuttal to stories of decline, Follett demonstrates that whenever people were free to gather, interact, and innovate, progress followed.” -- Jack A. Goldstone, author of Why Europe? The Rise of the West in World History, 1500–1850
“We shouldn't just study the past to avoid repeating mistakes; we should also go there to be inspired by remarkable episodes of creativity and progress. And Chelsea Follett is the perfect tour guide. Centers of Progress is a comprehensive history lesson packed with facts yet always an enjoyable and easily accessible read.” -- Johan Norberg, author of Open: The Story of Human Progress
“Cities have long been places that foster innovation and flourishing. They could just as well be called ‘labor markets,' ‘population clusters,' or ‘agglomerations' where people merge and, operating from market signals and personal need, produce stuff others find beneficial. Chelsea Follett's book Centers of Progress describes the historical role that cities played in such advancement. From medical innovations that sprang off the Nile River in the third millennium BC in Egypt to the defeat of ruinous ‘-isms' and rise of the 20th-century liberal order, urban centers made it happen. Underlying Follett's work is the case for fostering the market economies that will help cities continue this role in the future.” -- Scott Beyer, author of Market Urbanism: A Vision for Free-Market Cities
“The best way to understand progress is to study history: the case studies of how it actually happened. Here are dozens of such stories―concise and readable―from all over the world, which is a reminder that progress can come from anywhere.” -- Jason Crawford, founder of the Roots of Progress
“Chelsea Follett guides us through 40 cities where innovations enabled humanity to progress to longer and better lives. We revisit beloved cities that are well-known to us from travel or reading, such as Athens, London, and New York. But we also learn of the achievements of exotic and underappreciated cities, such as Budj Bim, Nan Madol, and Chang'an. Many of Follett's cities were bastions of freedom in a landscape that was otherwise much less free. She reminds us why our beleaguered cities are worth saving.” -- Art Diamond, author of Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism
“By looking at cities as the centers of progress, this book recasts world history as a developing set of ideas and technologies. This is a much welcome alternative to the approaches to the past that see nations, social classes, or institutions as the drivers and carriers of history. Follett reminds us that history is made by people and that when people congregate in cities, they become more innovative and contribute more to historical development. It is a positive story that everyone can learn from.” -- Michael J. Douma, co-editor of What Is Classical Liberal History?
“Cities are our greatest invention. From ancient cities like Jericho and Uruk to Athens and Rome and onward to Vienna, Kyoto, Florence, Berlin, Paris, London, New York, San Francisco, and many more, Chelsea Follett shows how cities power human progress in technology, arts, and across the board. An absolute must read for mayors, urban leaders, businesspeople, and anyone concerned about the future of our cities, economy, and society.” -- Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class
“The story of human progress in all its forms is the story of civilization's greatest achievements. So, what better way to teach about those accomplishments than through a focus on the cities that were usually there at the beginning? In Centers of Progress, Chelsea Follett elegantly and briskly goes through most of our greatest accomplishments from the beginnings of agriculture to medicine, trade, and currency and to big ideas and events like the foundations of liberal democracy, emancipation, suffrage, and the fall of Communism. And it ends, quite appropriately, with the digital revolution. To be read by all, from children to centenarians.” -- John Nye, author of War, Wine, and Taxes: The Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689–1900
“Some times and places seem almost magical in the way they incubate ideas and movements. In explaining the magic in this fascinating book, Chelsea Follett shines a light on the drivers of human progress.” -- Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
About the Author
Chelsea Follett is the managing editor of HumanProgress.org, a project of the Cato Institute that seeks to educate the public on the global improvements in well‐being by providing free empirical data on long‐term developments. Her writing has been published in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Newsweek, Forbes, The Hill, Business Insider, National Review, the Washington Examiner, and Global Policy Journal. She was named to Forbes' 30 under 30 list for 2018 in the category of Law and Policy. She lives in Washington, D.C.
