> The book describes the 100 years following 1870 as the "Special Century", a time of exceptional growth and prosperity, which it claims has been flatlining since 1970, marked by growing inequality and insecure working conditions. Gordon considers that the apparent increasing economic growth since 1970 is just a faint echo of a great wave of economic growth between 1920 and 1970. The first half of the book discusses the change in the American standard of living pre-WW2, with the second half dedicated to the remainder of the 'special century' and the years post-1970.[3][4]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_American_...
Mainstreaming of computers and the Internet gave a productivity bump in the 1990s, but that had petered out by ~2004.
Beside that aspect there haven't been major improvements in health, education, construction, transportation, etc since ~1960s. We got most of the gains in the early 1900s (water, sanitation, electronics, transportation (ICE, cars, planes), HVAC). Not many 'completely' new inventions since then, mostly refinements.
Just look at the typical kitchen: going from no cold storage, to ice boxes, to refrigerator/freezers occurred from ~1900 to 1960. The last major invention was the microwave, which has mostly had refinements since the 1970s.
Edit:
The book is not arguing that invention has stopped, but rather there have not been major developments that show up in economic productivity or quality of life (e.g., health) metrics. For the last few decades, increases have been 'asymptotic' that they're basically 'crawling' up, as opposed to major rises in the decades pre-1970s.
In general the book is a really interesting read. Worth checking out, if just for the history of 'progress' and how human life has changed post-1870 , even if you don't fully buy into their conclusions.