Too often, the questions that we ask about our own time-period reflect a limited understanding of history. For example, consider the question: why is there still poverty and inequality? It’s a worthy question, but an even better one might be: How did so many societies, against all odds and without historical precedent, escape poverty and become wealthy? How have we come so far in our attempt to escape the "nasty, short and brutish" existence of our ancestors? Instead of just focusing on what we are still doing wrong, maybe we should also put some attention on how we managed to do so much right, for so long. How did we succeed beyond all hope and expectations? How did we raise our economic expectations so high that people think material abundance for everyone is even a possible goal, let alone a universal right?

In his new book Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the 20th Century, UC Berkeley professor Brad DeLong digs into the policies of the last century, exploring the hows and whys of the recent explosion in material and economic development. No one living in the 16th or 17th century would have imagined a future of such abundance. To them, it might seem close to a utopia, at least in some parts of the world. To us, there is still so much work to do, particularly to make that wealth global and more universal. Given that historical context, should we be optimistic about the next century, or have we reached the limits of this type of economic explosion? Is abundance in our future? Or stagnation? And what might we do to tip the scales?