Progress (Samuel Miller McDonald)

Why it’s on the list: Saved as an opponent, not an ally — Kyle’s own note on the line reads simply “To refute.”

McDonald’s argument is that progress is a myth that pacifies the many and licenses the costs imposed by the few. It was published in December 2025 to prominent placement and wide review, which is Bryan’s actual complaint: this, and not the progress-studies case, is what a general reader encounters first. Titled Progress: A History of Humanity’s Worst Idea in the UK. Filed under a disambiguated name because Progress Studies and A Short History of Progress already exist. Page count not verified.

Where I saw it: Kevin A. Bryan (@Afinetheorem) on X, December 16, 2025, reporting it from the front table of a big bookstore — “Hard to excerpt but no exaggeration.” Kyle’s note next to the link: “To refute.”

Connections

• Progress Studies — the position this book is written against, and the reason to read it.
• Ideological Family Tree — the declinist lineage, in its 2025 trade-press form.