As I should have suspected from the context, this concerns Robert Gordon&#x27;s epic <i>The Rise and Fall of American Growth</i>, which I&#x27;ve read and am trying to synthesize a review.<p>The article here suffers from much one of the book&#x27;s major faults:  it&#x27;s an epic romp through the <i>details</i> of technological advance, and their impacts, <i>both</i> of which are admittedly interesting, but lacking in the backbone of theory and a model to explain both <i>what</i> technology is, specifically (one definition, from Gordon, is &quot;the sum of our ignorance&quot;, though that requires further explanation ;-), and <i>how</i> it impacts everyday life.<p>Don&#x27;t get me wrong:  Gordon&#x27;s grasp and exposition of history is masterful, detailed, and extensively researched.  Unlike much of economics, he looks <i>pointedly</i> at every-day impacts, and strongly questions many (though not all) the often-questionable interpretations of economists.<p>I also agree strongly with Gordon&#x27;s conclusion that <i>technological progress</i> hit an apex <i>prior</i> to 1920. More specifically, and Neil Irwin does a huge disservice in not mentioning this, Gordon specifically distinguishes <i>rate of change</i> and <i>impacts</i>.  While <i>technology</i> has changed markedly in his third era (the book is divided in three parts:  1870 - 1920, 1920-1970, and 1970-2015, nearly 50 years each), the <i>impacts</i> have been quite limited.  Little in household appurtenances, particularly kitchens, has changed since 1970, other than introduction of the microwave.  Transport&#x27;s pretty constant.  Medicine, for all the expense poured into it, has delivered virtually nothing, particularly contrasted with 1900-1950 (and, for what it&#x27;s worth, earlier).  Work and manufacture has changed, but only modestly, and <i>productivity</i> as measured by economists (dollar output per worker hour) has increased at best modestly.<p>And, sorry, HN, but Gordon&#x27;s quite harsh on information technology -- it delivered, somewhat, from 1994 - 2004, but little 2005 - 2015.<p>That&#x27;s all covered in the book, and missing from Irwin&#x27;s article.<p>What Gordon himself misses is IMO even more interesting.<p>His core thesis is what&#x27;s called &quot;the Solow Residual&quot; -- what&#x27;s left over in regression analysis after accounting for economic growth using capital and labour.  (Gordon was a student of Robert Solow&#x27;s).  What bothers me, <i>greatly</i>, is that Gordon all-but-answers his own question -- he points at the 99% growth in worker productivity 1920-1950, and the 133% increase in horsepower and kW per worker over the same period.  On numerous grounds, power makes sense to consider in transformational activity.<p>Gordon completely dismisses it.<p>Several other researchers have dug into that in depth.  Robert A. Ayres (apparently it&#x27;s a rule for all economists in this saga to be named &quot;Robert&quot;) is one, there&#x27;ve been other analysis, including Hall and Klitgaard, and a recent item I&#x27;ve seen.  Solow and Ayres had a correspondence according to Solow&#x27;s archive at Duke University, though I don&#x27;t know the upshot of it.<p>Another element missing from Gordon&#x27;s analysis is some sort of theory of technology -- what it is, how it operates.  He describes this to some extent, but it&#x27;s quite insufficient.  He mentions the real-world, everyday-life impacts of many early technologies, but doesn&#x27;t think to reference Maslow&#x27;s Hierarchy of Needs, another lacking point.<p>Along with that is a <i>metric</i> of technological impact.  Gordon&#x27;s is GDP and especially GDP&#x2F;worker.  This is actually and area of some disagreement in various circles, but a concept of energy throughput has been proposed by Leslie White, known as White&#x27;s Law.<p>I could also quibble with some economic discussions and considerations, though most are quite secondary to his point and if anything would, corrected, <i>strengthen</i> his basic thesis.<p>But yeah, today&#x27;s got nothing on the 1880s, progress-wise.