Acknowledgments, Introduction, Part One: The history of the idea of progress, I. The roots of the idea of progress, II. Progress and the European enlightenment, III. Progress through order and progress through revolution: Comte and Marx, IV. Progress and evolution, V. The decline of optimism, VI. Progress as a contemporary problem, Part Two: A sociological theory of progress, VII. Two concepts of progress, VIII. The sociological ethic (1), IX. The sociological ethic (2), X. The search for functional requisites, XI. Needs, morals and society, XII. The sociological theory of progress and some criticisms, XIII. Progress and some problems of the sociology of science, XIV. Conclusion, References, Name index, Subject index

Dr. Leslie Sklair is a Reader in Sociology at LSE. His thesis, Sociology of Progress, was published by Routledge in 1970.