The common definition of a progress trap derives from the book's cover "..it is the condition in which we find ourselves when science, technology and industry create more problems than they can solve. Often inadvertently." Why do societies so often start off in partnership with their natural environment, making brilliant advances, only to relapse to a shadow of their former glory? Should not their brilliance prevent them from declining? Escaping the Progress Trap shows how societies and individuals can be their own worst enemies, often unconscious of the effects of ingenuity on their environment. When changes are man-made and harmful, an inescapable spiral can development that excludes solutions to problems that arise from development. Are we wired for this kind of failure? Not really, but with the best of intentions, ingenuity often short-circuits our talent for apprehending those hazards with which we have surrounded ourselves. It upsets our natural ability to respond effectively to threats in the environment. There are many books that catalog historic pathways to collapse. This book examines the strange process of development that undermines itself, and searches for for clues in behavioral science that may explain why this happens. A leading academic publisher noted that the "work does in fact promise to provide a powerful analysis of our situation and what may be a fruitful way of resolving the dilemma which that analysis exposes."