Download or read book The Idea of Progress in Eighteenth-century Britain written by David Spadafora and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1990-01-01 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of progress stood at the very center of the intellectual world of eighteenth-century Britain, closely linked to every major facet of the British Enlightenment as well as to the economic revolutions of the period. Drawing on hundreds of eighteenth-century books and pamphlets, David Spadafora here provides the most extensive discussion ever written of this prevailing sense of historical optimism.