In his very attentive reading of human history, Lewis Mumford sees the rise of technologies in direct correlation with the rise of powers. In his thorough analyses he shows that the industry as we know it was boasted by nations to seal their power through the building of modern armies. Ultimately these powers have come to constitute megamachines which are detrimental to life on earth. In this Mumford sees progress as a form of regression that is not only political, social and environmental but also cultural.

Following this line of thought, Mumford points out how it is wrong to judge societies based on their material cultural. For instance judging hunter-gatherers from their sophisticated and colorful languages alone, these primeval ancestors of ours were far more superior than modern humans who have to subscribe to the megarituals of a megamachine grazing the planet to extinction. In this respec t than Mumford invert the idea of romanticism. It is not who looks at primeval societies to be romantic but it is who believes in technology and the gorgeous future that it will bring about.