{"id":42,"date":"2011-07-10T05:16:06","date_gmt":"2011-07-10T05:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/?p=42"},"modified":"2011-07-10T05:27:53","modified_gmt":"2011-07-10T05:27:53","slug":"two-books-on-the-history-of-human-civilisation-civilization-by-niall-ferguson-why-the-west-rules-%e2%80%93-for-now-by-ian-morris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/2011\/07\/two-books-on-the-history-of-human-civilisation-civilization-by-niall-ferguson-why-the-west-rules-%e2%80%93-for-now-by-ian-morris\/","title":{"rendered":"Two books on the history of human civilisation: Civilization, by Niall Ferguson; Why the West Rules \u00e2\u20ac\u201c For Now, by Ian Morris"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conquest and imperialism have been part of human history since the first caveman speared his rival in a fight over a hunk of mammoth meat, and they reached their zenith with the European powers of the nineteenth century. But why was it Europeans, not Chinese or Indians or Africans or Native Americans? And why, now, do we still live in a world where the largest economy is that of the United States, whose popular culture and international system were shaped by Westerners, and where I am writing this post in English? It was with these questions in mind that I read two books, Niall Ferguson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Civilization<\/strong> and Ian Morris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Why The West Rules \u00e2\u20ac\u201c For Now<\/strong>, and while neither truly answered me, one turned out to be a fantastically worthwhile read anyway.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Please note I am not an expert in the topics covered by these books; rather, my perspective is that of an interested lay reader. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Civilization: The West and the Rest, by Niall Ferguson (2011):<\/strong> This book purports to be about how six \u00e2\u20ac\u0153killer apps\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (competition, science, property rights, medicine, consumerism and the Protestant work ethic) allowed Westerners to conquer the rest of the world. None of these ideas is radically new, but given the author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talents as a narrative historian (see my review of The Ascent of Money<\/strong>), I was looking forward to, at the very least, a gripping argument. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. Unlike The Ascent of Money<\/strong>, where yarns, vignettes and data all helped illustrate a central organising theme (finance throughout history), in Civilization<\/strong> they just turn the book into a combination of trivia grab bag and all-purpose authorial soapbox. It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help that Civilization\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s<\/strong> strongest chapter, its conclusion, is an expanded version of a speech that you can find elsewhere on the web for free<\/a>. I do not believe this is Professor Ferguson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best book, and I would advise prospective readers to seek out his other work (such as the speech linked above) instead.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You can buy Civilization: The West and the Rest from Amazon here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why the West Rules \u00e2\u20ac\u201c For Now: The Patterns of History and What They Reveal About the Future, by Ian Morris (2010):<\/strong> Now this<\/em> is epic, big-picture history. Its subject is nothing less than human social development (both technological and organisational), as seen through the lens of European, Middle Eastern and Chinese history. Spanning the tens of thousands of years all the way from prehistory to the present day, it effectively picks up where Jared Diamond\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Guns, Germs and Steel<\/strong> left off, right down to pursuing an argument that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153maps, not chaps\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, are the ultimate drivers of history. Great men, blundering idiots and dumb luck may well decide the fate of empires, argues Professor Morris, but they are ultimately second to structural factors in the grand scheme of progress. The last section of the book, which turns to futurology, tends to be overlooked by reviewers who focus on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153why the West rules\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00c2\u00a0— but this is their mistake, because this is where Prof Morris points out that extrapolating the exponential progression of the last couple of centuries gives the lie to conventional arguments that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the future will look much like the present, but with a richer China\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. For a book on human social development, an examination of a possible Singularity or environmental cataclysm makes for the perfect conclusion. \u00c2\u00a0To cap things all off, the book is extremely lively and readable. I would highly recommend it for any lay reader interested in history.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You can buy Why the West Rules \u00e2\u20ac\u201c For Now: The Patterns of History and What They Reveal About the Future from Amazon here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conquest and imperialism have been part of human history since the first caveman speared his rival in a fight over a hunk of mammoth meat, and they reached their zenith with the European powers of the nineteenth century. But why … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}