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Civilization
- The West and the Rest
- Narrated by: Niall Ferguson
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
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Publisher's summary
The rise to global predominance of Western civilization is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five hundred years. All over the world, an astonishing proportion of people now work for Western-style companies, study at Western-style universities, vote for Western-style governments, take Western medicines, wear Western clothes, and even work Western hours. Yet six hundred years ago the petty kingdoms of Western Europe seemed unlikely to achieve much more than perpetual internecine warfare. It was Ming China or Ottoman Turkey that had the look of world civilizations. How did the West overtake its Eastern rivals? And has the zenith of Western power now passed?
In Civilization: The West and the Rest, bestselling author Niall Ferguson argues that, beginning in the fifteenth century, the West developed six powerful new concepts that the Rest lacked: competition, science, the rule of law, consumerism, modern medicine, and the work ethic.
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- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 43 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Robert Tombs' momentous The English and Their History is both a startlingly fresh and a uniquely inclusive account of the people who have a claim to be the oldest nation in the world. The English first came into existence as an idea, before they had a common ruler and before the country they lived in even had a name. They have lasted as a recognizable entity ever since, and their defining national institutions can be traced back to the earliest years of their history.
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Should be called, The English and their politics
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By: Robert Tombs
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Fire and Blood
- A History of Mexico
- By: T. R. Fehrenbach
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 35 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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T. R. Fehrenbach brilliantly delineates the contrasts and conflicts between the many Mexicos, unraveling the history while weaving a fascinating tapestry of beauty and brutality: the Amerindians, who wrought from the vulnerable land a great indigenous Meso-American civilization by the first millennium BC; the successive reigns of Olmec, Maya, Toltec, and Mexic masters, who ruled through an admirably efficient bureaucracy and the power of the priests, propitiating the capricious gods with human sacrifices; the Spanish conquistadors, and much more.
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Good book bad narration
- By M. A. Chris Raine on 03-23-19
By: T. R. Fehrenbach
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The Victory of Reason
- How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success
- By: Rodney Stark
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark advances a revolutionary, controversial, and long overdue idea: that Christianity and its related institutions are, in fact, directly responsible for the most significant intellectual, political, scientific, and economic breakthroughs of the past millennium. In Stark's view, what has propelled the West is not the tension between secular and non-secular society, nor the pitting of science and the humanities against religious belief. Christian theology, Stark asserts, is the very font of reason.
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Absolutely incredible history book!
- By Daniel on 01-02-20
By: Rodney Stark
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Born in Blackness
- Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War
- By: Howard W. French
- Narrated by: James Fouhey
- Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe's dehumanizing engagement with the "dark" continent. In fact, French reveals, the first impetus for the Age of Discovery was not—as we are so often told, even today—Europe's yearning for ties with Asia, but rather its centuries-old desire to forge a trade in gold with legendarily rich Black societies in the heart of West Africa.
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American History World History Our History
- By Bill on 06-13-22
By: Howard W. French
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Owning the Earth
- The Transforming History of Land Ownership
- By: Andro Linklater
- Narrated by: J. Paul Guimont
- Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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The history and evolution of land ownership is a fascinating chronicle in the history of civilization, offering unexpected insights about how various forms of democracy and capitalism developed, as well as a revealing analysis of a future where the Earth must sustain nine billion lives. Seen through the eyes of remarkable individuals - Chinese emperors; German peasants; the 17th century English surveyor William Petty, who first saw the connection between private property and free-market capitalism.
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Interesting
- By S. Olsen on 06-30-15
By: Andro Linklater
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A Concise History of Italy
- By: Christopher Duggan
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Since its formation in 1861, Italy has struggled to develop an effective political system and a secure sense of national identity. Christopher Duggan's acclaimed introduction charts the country's history from the fall of the Roman Empire in the West to the present day, and surveys the difficulties Italy has faced during the last two centuries in creating a unified country. Duggan successfully weaves together political, economic, social and cultural history, and stresses the alternation between materialist and idealist programs for forging a nation-state.
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Concise indeed
- By nikex on 03-22-21
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Unfinished Empire
- The Global Expansion of Britain
- By: John Darwin
- Narrated by: Alex Hyde-White
- Length: 18 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In Unfinished Empire, he marshals his gifts to deliver a monumental one-volume history of Britain's imperium - a work that is sure to stand as the most authoritative, most compelling treatment of the subject for a generation.
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Perfect
- By gogojimmy on 01-27-15
By: John Darwin
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A Brief History of the Future
- A Brave and Controversial Look at the Twenty-first Century
- By: Jacques Attali
- Narrated by: Alan Robertson
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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What will planet Earth be like in 20 years? At mid-century? In the year 2100? Prescient and convincing, this book is a must-read for anyone concerned about the future. Never has the world offered more promise for the future and been more fraught with dangers. In this powerful and sometimes terrifying work, Attali analyzes the past and pinpoints nine distinct periods of human history, each with its world center of power and prestige, and predicts what the tenth will bring by the end of this century.
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feels like a popular mechanics article
- By Robin on 07-11-17
By: Jacques Attali
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Modern Times
- The World from the Twenties to the Nineties
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 37 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Beginning with May 29, 1919, when photographs of the solar eclipse confirmed the truth of Einstein's theory of relativity, Johnson goes on to describe Freudianism, the establishment of the first Marxist state, the chaos of "Old Europe", the Arcadian 20s, and the new forces in China and Japan. Also discussed are Karl Marx, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Castro, Kennedy, Nixon, the '29 crash, the Great Depression, Roosevelt's New Deal, and the massive conflict of World War II.
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The Anti-Howard Zinn
- By Pork C. Fish on 05-22-12
By: Paul Johnson
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A History of the World
- By: Andrew Marr
- Narrated by: Andrew Marr, David Timson
- Length: 26 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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From the earliest civilizations to the 21st century: a global journey through human history, published alongside a landmark BBC One television series. Our understanding of world history is changing, as new discoveries are made on all the continents and old prejudices are being challenged. In this truly global journey, Andrew Marr revisits some of the traditional epic stories, from classical Greece and Rome to the rise of Napoleon, but surrounds them with less familiar material, from Peru to the Ukraine, China to the Caribbean.
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25 hours of enjoyment
- By Mark on 04-26-13
By: Andrew Marr
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Mediocre reader and weakly supported thesis
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From the Ruins of Empire
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A little more than a century ago, as the Japanese navy annihilated the giant Russian one at the Battle of Tsushima, original thinkers across Asia, working independently, sought to frame a distinctly Asian intellectual tradition that would inform and inspire the continent's anticipated rise to dominance.
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Breathtaking Scale, Cohesion and Vision of Asian History
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A History of the Twentieth Century
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Martin Gilbert, author of the multivolume biography of Winston Churchill and other brilliant works of history, chronicles world events year by year, from the dawn of aviation to the flourishing technology age, taking us through World War I to the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt as president of the United States and Hider as chancellor of Germany.
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I didn't know that.
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The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
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Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which included a central state that could keep the peace and uniform laws that applied to all citizens. Some went on to create governments that were accountable to their constituents. We take these institutions for granted, but they are absent or are unable to perform in many of today’s developing countries—with often disastrous consequences for the rest of the world.
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Few forests, but lots of trees
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What listeners say about Civilization
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Patrick
- 05-25-13
Thoughtful analysis of the ascendancy of the West.
It's almost taboo to openly ponder the question of why the "Western World," its customs, institutions, political structures, technologies, and even fashions have come to dominate the world for at least the last 500 years. There is almost an inherent implication that race or at least culture must play some role in the comparative dominance of West. Several authors have recently attempted to explain the ascendancy of the West by focusing on distinguishing factors or circumstances other that the West being predominately "white." Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" is probably the most well known of these attempts. Diamond explicitly rejects race as an advantage and instead posits a theory of initial geographic/environmental advantage that is amplified throughout the course of history by positive feedback loops.
Text: In "Civilization," Neil Ferguson does not see race as worth even a mention, even if to just to discount it. Instead, Ferguson's analysis focuses on what factors that he deems "killer apps" (I know) that the West had and the Rest somehow lacked. These are (1) competition, (2) science, (3) the rule of law including property rights, (4) modern medicine, (5) consumerism, and (6) the work ethic arising from Christian and Protestant values. These "apps" were "downloaded" sometime around the Enlightenment and in conjunction propelled the West to world dominance. The relatively decentralized nature of Eurasian governments allowed competition between and within the political divisions. Competition was not limited to trade but included ideas. In the West, competition often took the forms of warfare and the race to claim colonial possessions. This fostered the rise and application of science and technologies, including the medicine necessary for Westerners survive in the lands they conquered. I found Ferguson's discussion of consumerism as a relatively new and positive societal aspect to be particularly interesting. The word "consumerism" is so negatively loaded these days that it is surprising and refreshing to hear an author intelligently expound its virtues and the positive role it plays as an engine for increasing the quality of our lives. Ferguson goes on to heap praise on the Protestant work ethic as healthy sense of competition and cohesion within communities. He also roundly maligns fundamentalist Islam and its repression of individual freedom. Frankly, I don't have a problem with that. Finally, the author concludes with a discussion of whether the West is in decline - something he points out has happened several times in the last couple of thousand years - and whether civilizations actually follow a cycle of rise and decline at all.
Narration: I always feel a bit of dread when purchasing a book narrated by its author. There are very few who can pull off a reading of their own text, but fortunately Neil Ferguson is one of those authors who can. The listener would be forgiven for thinking this narrator to be a professional actor instead of a gifted author.
Conclusion: "Civilization" is a interesting, sometimes fascinating, analysis of the particular characteristics of the Western World that set it apart and above the Rest of the World.
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66 people found this helpful
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- F. Ribeiro
- 01-08-12
Niall Ferguson's Most Enjoyable Book
If you could sum up Civilization in three words, what would they be?
Revised my thinking
What does Niall Ferguson bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Having heard him live, that same charisma he projects comes through the audio.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Not necessarily. But I did listen to the book more than once.
Any additional comments?
I have always found Niall Ferguson, in his books and lectures, to be insightful and thought-provoking. 'Civilization' may be the best example of this to date. Here is one example of a perspective that I found very instructive, Ferguson includes in his list of explanatory variables for the acceleration of civilization in the West the role of Protestant churches. But he goes beyond the obvious, the Protestant work ethic, to explain how church communities and the mutual trustworthiness they engendered enabled smaller merchants early access to credit and so develop early forms of supply chains in the fledgling free-markets of the colonial US (and Northern Europe). He also differentiates between monopolistic and ‘free market’ religions. The former refers to the state religions common in Europe, the latter to the open market for religion in the US. And clearly, churches and church-going have flourished in the US where free-market competition compelled churches to adapt to the changing needs of their congregations. Without that competitive motive, churches in Europe have stagnated or declined.Agree with Ferguson or not, this is a highly informative and enjoyable listen. And I must add, the voices used for quotes that several reviewers complained about I found neither distracting nor offensive. Niall’s reading of the text was articulated very clearly and sufficiently animated, enhanced all the more by that Scottish accent that I have come to enjoy.
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- South Reno Customer
- 02-14-13
Guns, Germs, and Steel is History 101, this is 201
Guns, Germs, and Steel explains how Eurasians nations had an geological head start over rival nations, but it paints too simplistic a stroke to explain the last 500 years of western dominance. This book will finish your introduction to civilization competition throughout human history and why those that won - won and those that lost - lost by providing a detail understanding of why western civilization progressed past the rest.
Some answers are as you might expect but some may surprise you.
Read Guns, Germs, and Steel first then read this book. together you will have a much better understanding of how the current geopolitical situation has come about and then you can truly begin to postulate on where it is going and what policies you should support if you wish to change its progress or keep it on track.
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- Lawrence Adams
- 11-15-11
Nialls naills
This is an interesting and comprehensive treatment of Ferguson's examination of the dominance of the West for the last half-millenium. It is well-written and mostly engaging, though it does cover some of the same ground as his "Ascent of Money," to be expected as Ferguson's interest is largely material history rather than intellectual or political history. The narration by Ferguson is for the most part good and easy to listen to. However, the rendition of the non-Scottish voices (whether by Ferguson or someone else, I can't tell) should have been dropped for a straightforward reading. The "foreign" accents are in most cases not believable, in many cases rather badly done, and in some cases risible and even offensive to the nationalities being portrayed. I still recommend the book and wish it a wide audience. It raises very important questions about the nature of "civilization" and the properties that make a civilization both viable and potentially victorious.
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- Maddie49
- 05-12-12
Civilization Explained
This captivating story of the origins and demise of civilizations in the West and East starts off a little slow, but as you listen, it begins to unfold and explain how so many countries in the West outpaced and produced so much more than other nations existing during the same time.
The unifying theme of the 'killer apps' is appropriate for postmodern readers, giving a clear direction and 'visual' picture of how the West continues to lead the world. The most riveting parts of the book include Ferguson's discussion about the United States' perpetual dependency on religion, specifically Christianity. Why are other Western nations withdrawing from religious activity and the US is not? Is there a correlational connection between capitalism and religion or is the relationship causal?
This book is not for generalists hoping for an easy read, but perhaps would best suit someone who has a particular interest in anthropology and sociology from a historical perspective.
In any case, I really enjoyed the author's lively narration of his work.
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- Joshua Kim
- 05-06-12
Civilization and our Future
While Niall Ferguson's new book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, is mostly about the past, it true importance is what it says about our future. Nowadays it is hard not too worry about the future, as we struggle from one funding crisis to the next, watching resources for public investments (like education) erode. The most powerful antidote to depression about our future is a good understanding of our past, particularly the changes in the past 5 centuries that are Ferguson's main subject. Five hundred years is really not that long of a time, but within this time frame we can trace a transition from a world dominated by scarcity, hunger, and disease to one characterized by health and abundance.
Ferguson asks two key questions in Civilization:
1) Why is it that a relatively few number of people living in a few small countries in the West became so wealthy and powerful in the last few hundred years as compared to people in Asia, South America, and Africa?
2) Will the 21st century belong to non-Western civilizations, and is it possible that the U.S. and Western Europe could even share the same fate of decline and fall as the Roman Empire?
Ferguson's answer to the first question, why the West got wealthy, basically comes down to institutions. The West developed a set of key institutions (Ferguson calls these killer apps), that the others lacked. The killers apps include: competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the Protestant work ethic. The book is (loosely) organized around these themes, with Ferguson jumping (sometimes confusingly) across centuries and continents in support of the narrative.
On the second question, will "The Rest" catch-up, Ferguson is guardedly optimistic. While the non-Western world may not have all the structures in place for sustained growth (most obviously the lack of democracy in China), the overall trends are all going in the right direction. The BRIC's (Brazil, Russia, India, China) are rapidly integrating into a world energy, consumer and production market, although none of these societies enjoy all of the institutional underpinnings that have sustained Western growth. It was not solely the availability of coal or oversees markets that drove the development of the British Empire, but also the presence of property rights, a free press, and representative government.
Making sense of why some countries are wealthier today than others, and who will be wealthy tomorrow, requires the skills of an economically literate historian. Ferguson is as good a guide as anyone writing on these questions today. Civilization is not a systematic or deep investigation of a few narrow questions, but rather a simultaneously concise and sweeping narrative around big questions and large trends. Enjoyable but not overly taxing.
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- John S.
- 09-25-12
I like to think I'm intelligent
and am well-educated, but failed to get whatever "point" Ferguson was making here - just lots and lots (and lots!) of historical stories/anecdotes/facts for 14 hours. His reading wasn't a problem for me; although the sections where he read quoted passages in the speakers' accented English seemed weird at times, that did serve to set them off from the "story" itself.
If I had the choice again, I'd read (skim) the print version instead. I tried breaking it down to listening no more than an hour per day, and even that left me looking at the time-elapsed counter frequently.
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- C. F Fulbright
- 05-05-14
Quirky with Little Substance, and Bizarre Accients
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
In general I would not recommend it. This is a quirky book, quite unlike other of Niall Ferguson's efforts. He relies on the anecdotal, "I talked to a man in the streets of Istanbul..." approach of Thomas Friedman, with similar superficial impact. He devotes at least half of chapters on Science, Property, and Medicine, to discussions of various wars between West and the rest. He makes some novel and interesting observations, but they are not presented in a logical flow.
How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
Better logical flow.
How did the narrator detract from the book?
If you're listening to the Audible version, you may find the accents of the un-credited talent who mouth quotes from various people to be bizarre. Spanish, French, German, and Russian historical figures sound like Nelson Mandela. Even Siegmund Freud and Mahatma Gandhi sound like Nelson Mandela! Ferguson does a workman-like performance with the rest of the reading, but I question the decisions both to have him do the reading, and to have these other voice talents massacre their attempted accents.
Was Civilization worth the listening time?
Maybe, maybe not.
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- avdefsa
- 12-28-11
Worth Reading
Where does Civilization rank among all the audiobooks you???ve listened to so far?
I like this book much better than Ferguson's last book the Ascent of Money, it is much more readable and engaging. Well researched and full of history I'd never heard. Definately worth the read.
What did you like best about this story?
I thought this book would be more of the same as previous books in this genre such as Guns Germs and Steel and 1493. The theme is the same, but this book brings a lot of new information to the table.
Any additional comments?
I like apples
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- David I. Williams
- 05-07-13
Great overview of a touchy topic
This fascinating look into Western Civilization by Niall Ferguson is certain to ruffle some feathers. It is bound to raise controversy. Ferguson asks the question that can’t be asked. The question that must never be asked in our modern world: Why did Western Civilization come to dominate the rest of the world in the last 500 years? After all, five hundred years ago a betting man would have looked at puny Europe and compared it with the powerful Moslem world and the vast Chinese realm and scoffed at the idea that the Europeans would have come to dominate. What caused this? The stock answer today is colonialism. That is of course nonsense. After all the Islamic world was built oni colonialism. China was a vast empire. Why were they not ascendant?
Ferguson comes up with the answer. Western Civilization developed six concept, what he calls “killer applications” that allowed it to grow and dominate. These “killer applications” are competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic. He goes into great detail about each of these concepts, how they developed, and why the lack of these “killer applications” or their underuse lead to the other world powers drop at the same time that the West began to rise. There is some fascinating material here. I am sure that many will argue against Ferguson’s points, but the ability to debate and discus such concepts freely is itself a mark of the West.
One of the things that I like about this book is that it eschews any racial nonsense. The West did not become superior due to any superiority on the part of Western man. Rather it became superior because of it’s ideas. He shows that as nations begin to adopt these ideas they begin to grow. The ascendency in our own time of China is in many ways related to the slow acceptance of these ideas. This is an excellent book and deserves a reading.
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