Part 5/7:
By the 1930s, many historians and thinkers noted that the ideal of continuous human progress was increasingly questioned. Prominent voices asked whether humankind could still believe in progress at all. This era represented a cultural crossroads where the naive faith in inevitable improvement was challenged by painful realities. As Carl Becker and others argued, the story of unchallenged human advancement was no longer convincing; progress needed to be reevaluated with humility and caution.