“This is just the chief merit of Professor Bury’s book, that it discriminates with fine precision between what is essential to the modern conception of progress and what only superficially resembles it. His exposition of the significance of the idea of progress in the history of European civilization is so lucid that it leaves nothing to be desired.” Carl Becker
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“It is hardly necessary to say that the author carries out the historical inquiry with great width of learning and with a scrupulous desire to make a reasonable case even for those writers whose presentation has its weak or even its ridiculous points. His remarks are eminently judicious wherever they can be tested.” P. V. M. Benecke
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“An exceedingly clear and interesting account of the origin and growth of the idea of progress.” S. B. Fay
+ |Review 3:478 N 17 ’20 520w
“Professor Bury’s work in clarity, accuracy, and fairness attains the high standard set by his previous historical volumes.”
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“It is a work of profound scholarship, sedate in tone and rational in spirit. It is unfortunate that Professor Bury did not carry his study beyond his self-imposed limitation which ended it with the time when progress became a current creed.” A. J. Todd