Why the West Rules―for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

Once you open this book, you will not be able to leave it. Ian Morris bombards you with information, not only from history and archaeology, but from a variety of auxiliary sciences, and although that makes for probably a slower reading, it also will keep you hooked in for more. The question he sets for himself is to explain why the Western civilizations of Western Europe and North America have led the world economically, culturally and militarily for the last 200 years, and not the Eastern civilizations of China and Japan; but he isn't happy with the explanations others have given. He constructs an index of social development to measure the advance of civilizations and evaluates the evolution of each region throughout history to arrive at answers as to why social development rises and falls, and rose so spectacularly since ca. 1800 in the West.Not all is successful. The huge rise in the 19th and 20th centuries of all of his index's parameters would have demanded that he split it in two; one pre- and one post- industrial, to better account for the peculiarities of both sides of the upturning curve during the Industrial Revolution. As it is, the graphic looks like a 90-degree turn from almost horizontal to almost vertical. It is a realistic view considering the enormous material growth of the last two centuries, but makes comparisons between the pre- and post- era hard to maintain. This is yet exacerbated by his usage of the same index towards the future. There really is no argument anywhere on why the slope should continue to be the same rate in the future.Another omission that I consider to be important is the almost complete neglect of South Asia. Morris does a very good job of summarizing Chinese and Japanese (for the East) and Middle Eastern and European (for the West) history, the pressures each faced, and the ways they raised (or not) their social development. The annexation of the Americas and Africa into the Western empires in the age of 1500-1950 probably is good enough to justify their omissions. Yet it doesn't seem justifiable to me to omit South Asia in a book that aspires to explain great patterns of history that explain the rise, stagnation or fall of civilizations across each great cultural core in the world. South Asia is clearly independent of both a Sinic East and a Sumerian West, and although in contact with both since classical antiquity, it has never really integrated into either anymore than you could say Japan and the Asian Tigers have Westernized in the last few decades. If even in a global village era it makes sense to speak of West and East (which Morris assumes all the book, but by the end you get the impression he leaves this assumption unjustified and probably is himself not convinced of it), then it should make sense to speak of a "middle" South Asian core too.However, the real shortcoming of this book is in its extrapolations for the future. While all of them are presented as nothing more than possibilities, you still get the impression that, compared to the great erudition and analysis displayed before, they lack a lot of rigor. Morris has exposed by now, over and over, civilizations dominating their natural environment and modifying their social and economic organization once and again; sometimes giving rise to new heights of development, and sometimes falling victim to nature or to man-made crises. These falls, themselves, sometimes are short and sometimes last for centuries, and the climbing back itself takes several forms, depending on the experiences learned and the new opportunities available. Then he does not seem to try to apply the same to the future. He posits a future where his graphics would continue under the same tendencies, with the standard of living on both the North Atlantic rim and China steadily rising until by 2103 the East surpasses the West and becomes the most advanced civilization. Then he says he doesn't really believe this will happen, and advances a dichotomy between a Singularity future, where technology again breaks all the barriers previously set, advancing social development to heights we can't imagine today; and a Nightfall future, where nuclear war or environmental catastrophe reduce humankind to the stone age again, or even exterminate it. Now, there is no denying that either of these two futures should not be discounted, and should be considered possible. What should be questioned is that *only* these two futures are considered viable by Morris, with no kind of intermediate future. Everything he wrote previously regarding past collapses of empires and civilizations seems to apply again, and imply that a collapse, while possible, should not push humanity back into the stone age, but stall, maybe even reverse, some development, but only temporarily before the challenges were met by new people and civilizations discovering new ways to organize and meet the challenges thrown at them by nature and other humans. Conversely, everything about previous rises of social development indicates that ceilings are approached sometimes and that when this happens, it takes time before any civilization is capable of breaking them. There is nothing in history that predicts either Nightfall or Singularity, and everything to predict some intermediate future, and all the previous chapters stand as proof, which makes it all the more of a shortcoming. (In this context too, it ends up being more of a disappointment that he doesn't examine more regions. South Asia, again, seems like an obvious place to examine, but now again the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia and even Latin America could well be regions that discover new advantages of backwardness, surpass both the North Atlantic and the North Pacific, and solve the Gordian knot of Singularity or Nightfall, if indeed it were an unavoidable dichotomy with current ways of organization. It is also disappointing that, although he speculates about nuclear war, financial crises, nanotechnology, robotics, genetics, and clean energy, he only mentions in passing the demographic crises that most of the world is heading toward, including all the core East Asian countries and all of the core Western ones except the USA).That said, I still give it 5 stars, because it is a very well researched and written book, which as I said, will keep you hooked for more from start to finish. It also seems to me that Morris makes a plausible and well supported argument about the reasons why Western dominance since the 1750s happened, which is its main goal. It should spark debate both about its main issue of Western rise to global dominance, and about its speculations about the future, which should be a positive thing. This is a seminal book, which is sure to become a classic. Yet be aware of the shortcomings I mentioned too.

Ian Morris' Why the West Rules is certainly audacious. As the subtitle suggests, Morris ventures to explain all of human history and, apparently still unsatisfied, to see into the future as well. He appears to have read widely and deeply to match his scholarship to his ambition. His exposition is clear and often seasoned with a light touch.This is not the sort of book many will be inclined to read fully in just a few long stretches, but on balance it is likely to engage and challenge persons with a serious interest in mega-history. While some specialists in particular domains (say the British industrial revolution, for example) may disagree with some of Mr. Morris' interpretations or find them insufficiently nuanced, that is to be expected for works of broad historical synthesis such as this one.Morris starts with pre-human "ape-men" (he can turn a phrase) and traces comparative East-West "social development" to the present and beyond. He has devised his own method for measuring it, a quantitative index that takes into account (1) energy capture (calories used); (2) organization, as measured by urbanization; (3) information processing, represented by literacy rates; and (4) the capacity to make war. He graphically plots his estimates of the index scores of the East versus those of the West since 14,000 BCE. The main body of the text describes the historical forces and events underlying the graphical patterns.There are many objections that might be raised against the quantitative index and Morris is aware of them. He has stated that he nevertheless chose to construct it to help make more explicit what he means when he describes social development in any given period or region. In my opinion, he could have well done without it: it leaves an overall impression of being artificially contrived and unnecessary, a sort of Rube Goldberg approach to assessment of historical development.Moreover, the question of who was "ahead" in any given epoch, East or West, turns out to be rather secondary to the salient lessons Morris draws from the sweep of history. There is no "long-term lock-in," he concludes, no factor established long-ago that has subsequently determined comparative advantage in perpetuity. The "five horsemen of the apocalypse" -- climate change, disease, famine, migration, and state failure -- have at times radically disrupted development and could do so again. So too, ascendant regions face the "paradox of social development" -- adaptations create new problems that call for further adaptations, possibly undermining the very forces that contributed to past success. Prior backwardness can even become advantageous (for a contemporary example think of low wages as an attraction to capital investment in China, an "advantage" that is eroding as Chinese development progresses).His rejection of long-term lock-in theories is creditable and well-supported, but Morris also contends that short-term accidents and human leadership do not matter much either in the longer term. We could substitute "bungling idiots" for great men or vice-versa, he says, and at most things may have moved at a different pace to the same destination. Nor, in his opinion, do ideas or culture ultimately help shape development; rather, it is the other way around. These views are contestable, at the very least, and are bound to elicit objections from many other historians.For Morris the operative factors are biology and sociology, which explain global similarities, and geography, which explains regional differences. Geography has determined the probabilities of where development would rise fastest, but social development changes what geography means, he proposes. For instance, when social development reached the stage where trans-oceanic commercial voyages were feasible, Western societies positioned on the Atlantic gained geographic advantages that in turn spurred further development.How is it, then, that the long history of comparative development might inform our current prognoses? Morris projects that his index will soar, but faster in the East than the West, with a crossover to Eastern leadership by 2103 at the latest (he is that precise). Yet, according to Morris, the East-West framework may or may not turn out to matter much. Perhaps there will be an all-out East-West war, where even winning would be catastrophic, or maybe arguments about "who rules" will become passé as we will see a need to cooperate further to address global problems.Morris shifts gears and reframes the question. As he sees it, the world's future pretty much comes down to two possibilities: "Nightfall" or the "Singularity." If we can hold off the worst-case climate change outcomes and nuclear disaster (Nightfall) long enough, he suggests, we might morph into a post-human species (Ray Kurzweil's Singularity, where the full contents of our brains can be uploaded into computers), which he seems to regard as salvation.I have to say I found this eventual conclusion to be a bit surprising, even peculiar, a big leap from where readers were left before reaching the final chapter. The chasm underscores a fundamental antinomy in Morris' message: we should study history to prepare for the future, but development will now accelerate so fast that history will leave us unprepared.

This was not quite the book I was expecting from the title. Although Ian Morris does eventually address the statement directly in Part 3 - and does so in a bold and thought-provoking way - the rest of the book is actually a fairly comprehensive history of the world from the very beginning of human history. The author contends throughout that this extensive assessment of the past is essential in order to understand where we are now and what the future may hold but the main lesson, that social development has waxed and occasionally waned at differential rates in different parts of the world above all as a consequence of geography, could have been made without much of the detail on ancient civilisations he provides. It’s not helped by the fact his definition of both West and East is so fluid (in the former case the Middle East, then Mediterranean Europe, then Atlantic Europe and finally the United States). Also until the Silk Road trade routes started to become significant in the final few centuries BC and global competition began, to my mind the relative sophistication of the two development cores doesn’t really matter that much.Ian Morris is more than anything else an archaeologist so I suppose the attention he gives to early history is understandable. And he writes clearly and concisely, bringing in some interesting incidental detail and references to popular culture’s take on the past which definitely makes the narrative more engaging than it would otherwise be. Any attempt to condense world history into a single volume is inevitably constrained by the construct used, but although the focus on ‘East’ and ‘West’ marginalises the great Inca, Aztec and Mayan civilisations in the Americas, the author’s approach fundamentally works pretty well (and better for example than the Peter Frankopan book The Silk Roads which almost completely ignores the Industrial Revolution, to date arguably the most significant event in human history, only because it doesn’t fit into his thesis). Ian Morris also addresses something that has bugged me ever since reading the totally Western-oriented account of scientific discovery contained in Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything: namely the extent to which the same breakthroughs were occurring independently in Asia. The answer in the 18th and 19th centuries - for reasons which are well articulated - genuinely seems to be: not very much.To conclude: there is much to admire about this book and the author’s scholarship is highly impressive; just be warned that it goes way beyond the subject matter of its title.

History is not my strong subject. I didn't really connect with it at school. Looking back, I think the way it was taught was too disconnected: We would be taught about 'The Romans', 'The Egyptians', 'The Civil War' as isolated modules. I like to understand how things work, and pursued more technical subjects. But I've always wished to understand how the world came to be the way it did - what the mechanism is.That's what this book mainly does. For me, the East vs. West thing is a lesser part of the story. Here is a book that tells the tale of humanity, from monkey to cyborg. A book that connects history into a joined-up narrative.It explains how human drives interacted with the environment - climate, geography, resources - to create the various institutions and lifestyles that characterized each different civilization. It shows how progress sows the seeds of trouble for itself, how development often hits a 'ceiling' and falls back several times until a specific innovation in technology or politics can break through.When reading it I had alternate feelings of astounding luck and ominous dread:Luck to be living at this time, when most of history is filled with violence, hardship, disease and oppression. (I lost count of the cumulative death toll from these causes, but it definitely runs into the billions)Dread at what the author predicts for the future, where development is accelerating at an exponential rate, and a gentle leveling-off just isn't going to happen (it never does). It's techno-utopia or bust (really big bust, loads more billions dead).If traditional history books aren't really for you then don't be put off. This is well worth the read for anyone who is interested in sociology, politics, technology or anthropology (in fact it may make you want to learn more about these subjects and to link them in your mind).It's much more about trends and causality than about great individual characters - in fact it downplays individual greatness and ego, stating that each age inevitably generates the people and thought that it needs.I really enjoyed it and would recommend.

Anyone wanting an overview of western and eastern civilization from the last Ice Age until the present - written in the most entertaining and likeable style - and the reasons for the different development time-scales, could not pick a better book. He certainly demolishes the idea that the western superiority was anything in-built, and also demolishes the idea that the Chinese rise is inevitable. Taking a sweep that encompasses the external reasons for the rise and fall of each 'core' and the probable patterns involved, I found this book both extremely informative and a different way of looking at history.

This is the best single volume history of the world I have ever read. What makes it even better is that it is also numerate history, with many numbers, graphs and tables to back up the narrative. What makes it even more interesting is Morris' use of a "social development" index as the fundamental backdrop to his narrative. Essentially, Morris quantifies human development with a four part index of social development, made up of four parts: energy capture, war making ability, social organisation (measured by largest city size) and information technology, and applies this to both the West (essentially southwest Asia, Europe and north Africa) and the East (essentially China and east Asia). He uses this to answer the question of why the West took over a global Earth rather than the East. The book will be of interest also to Science Fiction fans, as it makes liberal use of Heinlein and Asimov; indeed, his numerical approach to all of human history is the first groping attempt at Asimov's pschohistory of the Foundation series. What is interesting is his conclusions about what is likely to happen next. Not everyone will agree with his conclusion that human civilisation is doomed: sometime in the 21st Century, either the Singularity or Nightfall will happen, i.e. civilisation will survive (but it won't be human) or it will collapse completely.

This is a new history of the world starting with the hunter-gatherers and finishing now. While is has an irritatingly cute title and reads as if the publisher has told the author to jazz it up a bit it is nevertheless very useful and erudite.It is particularly useful for a history amateur like me as it is so comprehensive and also describes in parallel what is happening in China, and the Middle East, and elsewhere.. So I get a sense of chronology which I didn't have previously.While the biases of the author are all too visible, I disgree with some of his conclusions and I find the book rather Americo-centric it is a very valuable compendium of facts which allow readers to make up their own minds.