In both books, Ronald Wright and Thomas King do a good job at using a writing style where it is not clear

as what the true meaning of the books are. However after reading both books I was able to conclude why the audience that these books were intended for may feel that these books are important to them. In "A Short History of Progress" Wright analyzes the development of humanity thought the course since the Neanderthal throughout the Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Wright discusses in more detail the progress of four main civilizations from the rise to the collapse of the following civilizations; Sumer, the Mayan Empire, the Roman Empire and the civilization of Easter Island. After discussing all civilizations he makes a conclusion that they all seem to follow the same trend. This trend starts off with a city that becomes highly developed which results in a peak in population which is followed by exhaustion or instability in the system that cannot withstand such a load by the people. The one thing to note which supports Wrights conclusion about humanity and "too much progress" is that the above civilizations and all existed without interactions amongst each other and without knowing about each other's existence. In "The Truth About Stories" King focuses on one aspects of one civilization, the abolishment of Native Indians. He uses a narrative/story telling style of writing when compared to Wright which tends to keep the audience more engaged and therefore facilitates to identify the true meaning behind the book. King also made good use of his past personal experiences to support and strengthen his arguments. People may feel that "A short History of Progress" is important to them because Ronald Wright takes the progress that humans achieved throughout history and modern times and simply presents it to us. When you are living with this progress through your everyday life you tend to not realize which heading the future progress is directed to. The only way to realize this is to take a step back a have a look at the whole scenario from a third person view. This is exactly what Wright does. What makes this more challenging is that we are living such a fast paced life that we do not allocate time to think about these considerations and out future. Wright also identifies three questions which he answers throughout the book: "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?" This may also be another reason

why people may think that this book is important to them because it gives them reason as to what the purpose of human beings is on earth. Wright did a good job at answer the first two questions by discussing how humans and civilizations started to evolve throughout history and he also emphasis his point that humans are egocentric and that they will let nothing stand in their way of progress. In my opinion though Wright did not answer the last question, "Where are we going" well enough. And this seems to be common issue where a group of people who share the same ideologies point out the wrong doings however they never give a solution to the problem or if they do the it is a very impractical one. Take the issue of pollution as an example. It's easy to say that we are damaging the environment with green house gases however the solutions we have in place to reduce this environmental impact may not necessarily be as practical or as efficient. However I do have to agree with Wright that humans have a tendency to play god which in some circumstances it can blind the path of our progress which is why it is a good idea to take a step forward and have a look at the progress that we made so far which may help us identify which progress path we are taking. A path to further progress or a path just like the Romans, Mayans, Sumerians and the Easter Islanders took ? On the other hand people may feel that "The Truth About Stories" by Thomas King is important to them because made them sympathetic towards native Indians and the author himself having suffered the atrocities described in the book. I would imagine that most people did not know about how things have gone between the government and the Native Indians and the treaties set in place throughout history. The author uses sarcasm and a narrative style of writing with a touch of his own experience to support his arguments which as previously mentioned it helped keep the audience engaged perhaps more than the previous book. People may also feel that this book is important because it shows the true nature of human being. It shows the audience that even though that biologically we are all "Homo Sapiens Sapiens", as Wright had mentioned, morally and consciously we would like to think that we are better than everyone else around us and we think we judge everyone else around us yet we never step back

and have a look at ourselves from a third person view. Therefore the whole morale of the story that King wanted to portray is that we are all equal so "Why is it that Indians and Whites can never come together?". To support his discussion of injustice he uses a few life experiences such as the one where even though his mother was completing the same duties as other engineers at Boeing. I would blame part of it on religion. It seems to me that religion is for the most part used to help us feel better about ourselves and make us think we are saints walking on the surface of the earth. If I went to church every Sunday and pray every day does that really make any better than anyone else? In the end, am I not still a Homo Sapiens Sapiens? In my perspective I feel the first book is important because helped me realize that I should take a step back in my life and see how my life relates to the civilizations discussed by Wright which might help me realize what I am doing right or wrong and how I could integrate this concept of "Where are we going?" into my career as an engineer. To me the importance of the second book lies in the fact that King wants his audience to understand that we are all the same and that culture or skin colour should not be the distinguishing features between a "superior" and an "inferior" race.