This is a highly readable tour de force on technology and development from an economic historian at Oxford and Lund universities. It places what countries make, rather than what they spend or owe, firmly at the centre of the long-term growth story. I learned – and was reminded of – a lot and was hugely impressed at Professor Frey’s erudition and marshalling of his sources (60 pages of notes, a 50-page bibliography).

A quotation towards the end summarises his thesis: “… this book has revealed a fundamental tension running through the historical record: technologies that strengthen bureaucratic control later hinder new discoveries and sow the seeds for stagnation” (p 373). The author sees decentralization and competition as essential to the invention and implementation of new technologies. With this in mind, he worries that the two largest economies may now be impeded by stifling autocracy (China) and entrenched corporate interests (the US).

In arriving at that conclusion, Frey takes us on a historical journey. We travel from ancient China’s success (it was making cast iron in 200BC, a thousand years before that process was seen in Europe) and its subsequent relative decline, via Europe’s ascent and relative fade, with brief detours to Russia and Japan, to America’s ascendancy – and China’s resurgence – and the promises and challenges posed by today’s new general purpose technology, AI.

China’s early success went hand in hand with a powerful, centralized bureaucracy able to keep records, tax effectively and build infrastructure which impresses even today (such as its thousand-mile grand canal). But the administration needed to scale and deliver new technologies eventually became so powerful and self-interested that it neglected to foster further innovation or engagement with the wider world, and living standards started to fall behind.

Europe’s strengths were its fragmentation, and an openness to new ideas. In the case of the UK, the interests of emerging businesses – and local guilds – were kept in check, and the technologies of the industrial revolution given free rein. The UK in turn then fell behind Germany in particular – Frey attributes this partly to Germany’s greater respect for ideas, science and education – before the US moved centre stage: “What propelled America to pole position was its institutional commitment to competition alongside its ability to attract and nurture talent.” (p163)

Along the way Frey offers many anecdotes and insights that bring his subject matter to life. Commenting on the influential US Advanced Research Products Agency established in 1958 he notes “… it is somewhat ironic that the Pentagon – an institution with a highly hierarchical command structure – should have funded a group of academics who were deeply suspicious of centralized authority” (p205). In discussing post-WWII US assistance to Europe, we hear that local “… managerial inefficiencies were a bigger obstacle to productivity than war-related destruction” (p225).

Discussing the UK’s relatively poor performance in the 1970s he notes a suggestion that “… instead of governments picking winners, losers like Rolls Royce, British Leyland and Alfred Herbert were picking Ministers.” (p248). Talking of the Soviet Union’s economic failure, he observes: “Even in areas where the Soviets made notable technological advances… these breakthroughs seldom improved people’s lives” (p287). On the potential disappointment of Artificial Intelligence, he suggests: “… it is hard to think of a current AI application that goes beyond enhancing productivity in tasks humans are already performing” (p369).

I have a couple of parochial observations. In talking of the Thatcher administration and the UK’s relative rebound after 1979, Frey suggests that “One integral part of Thatcher’s agenda was EU membership…” (p279) – that is not how it seemed at the time, at least to me. And when he suggests that “… economists have shown that this increased openness (ie EU membership) partially drove Britain’s improved productivity” (p280) I’m not sure I’d agree that economists ever can do such things (even if, in this case, I might wish they could and had).

Indeed, this is my only serious misgiving about the book overall: Frey is advancing a theory, a hypothesis, and suggesting that it fits with data observed over many centuries and geographies. This can lead him to make statements that are over-confident, as in his claim quoted above that his book has “revealed” something fundamental. At times it makes him sound naïve, as in: “As the era of mass production faded, the imperative for innovation became clear, yet meaningful reform was obstructed by entrenched interests flourishing in the vacuum of state power. And so the Soviet Union collapsed.” (p382, emphasis added). There was a bit more to it than that.

As with all Big Pictures, I doubt the terms of Frey’s hypothesis are precise enough, and the available data sound enough, for it to be subjected to rigorous empirical testing. Our “discipline” simply does not allow us to be that confident. For what it’s worth, my guess is that “Progress” is not about to “End”. But I think this is a great book anyway.