Why does the West rule? In this magnum opus, eminent Stanford
polymath Ian Morris answers this provocative question, drawing on
50,000 years of history, archeology, and the methods of social
science, to make sense of when, how, and why the paths of
development differed in the East and West -- and what this portends
for the 21st century.
There are two broad schools of thought on why the West rules.
Proponents of "Long-Term Lock-In" theories such as Jared Diamond
suggest that from time immemorial, some critical factor --
geography, climate, or culture perhaps -- made East and West
unalterably different, and determined that the industrial
revolution would happen in the West and push it further ahead of
the East. But the East led the West between 500 and 1600, so this
development can't have been inevitable; and so proponents of
"Short-Term Accident" theories argue that Western rule was a
temporary aberration that is now coming to an end, with Japan,
China, and India resuming their rightful places on the world stage.
However, as the West led for 9,000 of the previous 10,000 years, it
wasn't just a temporary aberration. So, if we want to know why the
West rules, we need a whole new theory. Ian Morris, boldly entering
the turf of Jared Diamond and Niall Ferguson, provides the broader
approach that is necessary, combining the textual historian's focus
on context, the anthropological archaeologist's awareness of the
deep past, and the social scientist's comparative methods to make
sense of the past, present, and future -- in a way no one has ever
done before.
"From the Hardcover edition."
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Mon, 15 Nov 2021 | Review
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