Civilization: The West and the Rest

Categories: History

Why did a handful of small states on the western edge of Eurasia come to dominate the world after 1500? Niall Ferguson answers with six ideas he calls the West's killer apps: competition, science, property rights, medicine, the consumer society and the work ethic. He traces how other civilizations, from Ming China to the Ottoman Empire, fell behind, and how the rest have since downloaded these apps, raising the question of whether the West can keep its lead.

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• David Sacks: “The big picture books are: Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, @nfergus' Civilization: the West and the Rest, Graham Allison's Thucydides Trap”