Exiting the Modern Era: Moving Forward Through a Return to the Limits of the Possible

Date(s)： 2025/11/18

Time： 10:00~12:00

Venue： Archives 3rd Conference Hall

Host： Prof. Fu Jia-Chen（Associate research fellow, IMH, AS）

Speaker：Prof. R. Bin Wong（Distinguished Research Professor of History, UCLA）

Organizer： Western Learning and China Research Group

Abstract：
 More than a half-century ago, scientists began to warn policymakers in advanced industrial societies with the publication of The Limits of Growth (1972, Meadows et. al.). Subsequent updates in Beyond the Limits (1992_ and Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update (2004) have confirmed the failure of governments to address environmental sustainability and climate change. One set of ways to explore possible and desirable futures requires us to rediscover what Fernand Braudel has called “the limits of the possible” that characterized all pre-modern societies, including those of the early modern era. This presentation sketches the escape from the limits of the possible achieved by Europeans that led to the modern era in which there has been a persistent divide between societies that achieved material plenty and those subjected to the negative impacts on their material security as a result of the environmental costs of economic development. Recovering the knowledge and belief regimes of the past could help us envision pathways toward a less destructive future, if not a feasible and sustainable future that may still be possible.