Yes, Tainter is one of a number of sources which are why I think humanity has seen diminishing returns. I've been casually dumping some info in http://www.gwern.net/the-long-stagnation although if we were discussing just books, I think Murray's Human Accomplishment covers convincingly a much more important kind of diminishing returns compared to Tainter's focus on resources and basic economic metrics.

(For those interested in the topic, I suggest looking at my link just for the intro bit about 5 propositions that the fact of diminishing returns does not prove; I believe more than one commenter on this page is committing at least one of those 5.)