According to the historian, Western civilization's rise to global dominance is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five centuries. All around the world, more and more people study at universities, work for companies, vote for governments, take medicines, wear clothes, and play sports, all of which have strong 'western' influences. Yet six hundred years ago the kingdoms of Western Europe seemed like miserable backwaters, ravaged by incessant war and pestilence. 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: Is the West history?, the British historian 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,
modern medicine,
consumerism, and the
work ethic. These became the "killer apps" that allowed the West to go ahead of the Rest; opening global trade routes, exploiting new
scientific knowledge, evolving
representative government, increasing
life expectancy, unleashing the
Industrial Revolution, and hugely increasing human productivity.
Civilization shows exactly how a dozen
Western empires came to control three-fifths of mankind and four-fifths of the world economy. However, Ferguson argues that the days of Western predominance are numbered because the Rest have finally downloaded the six
killer apps the West once monopolised – while the West has literally lost faith in itself. ==Episodes==