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Title: Why the West Rules - for Now

Subtitle: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

Author: Ian Morris

Narrator: Antony Ferguson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 24 hrs and 41 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-09-11

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 171 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

Sometime around 1750, English entrepreneurs unleashed the astounding energies of steam and coal, and the world was forever changed. The emergence of factories, railroads, and gunboats propelled the Wests rise to power in the nineteenth century, and the development of computers and nuclear weapons in the 20th century secured its global supremacy.

Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, many worry that the emerging economic power of China and India spells the end of the West as a superpower. In order to understand this possibility, we need to look back in time. Why has the West dominated the globe for the past 200 years, and will its power last? Describing the patterns of human history, the archaeologist and historian Ian Morris offers surprising new answers to both questions. It is not, he reveals, differences of race or culture, or even the strivings of great individuals that explain Western dominance. It is the effects of geography on the everyday efforts of ordinary people as they deal with crises of resources, disease, migration, and climate. As geography and human ingenuity continue to interact, the world will change in astonishing ways, transforming Western rule in the process.

Deeply researched and brilliantly argued, Why the West Rules - for Now spans 50,000 years of history and offers fresh insights on nearly every page. The book brings together the latest findings across disciplines - from ancient history to neuroscience - not only to explain why the West came to rule the world but also to predict what the future will bring in the next hundred years.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

Critic Reviews:

"A formidable, richly engrossing effort to determine why Western institutions dominate the world." (

Kirkus)

Members Reviews:

I bought it hardcopy

I was so impressed with Ian Morris' viewpoint and breadth that I purchased the hardcopy to re-read and share with friends. As the cover says, this is possibly the closest we'll ever come to a grand unified theory of history. Even more enjoyable if you're familiar with the basics of complexity theory as his arguments (seemingly unintentionally) flow very much along those lines.

The only quibble - and this is a minor one - is that there is significant discussion of various diagrams throughout the book This of course doesn't come across in the audio-format however they are generally explained well enough to be not completely lost.

Compelling and infuriating take at World History

After an extensive first third of the book dealing with prehistory to dispel any still possible existing claims of racial superiority between East and West, the book becomes mainly a comparative history between "East" and "West".

Of course this description does not do full justice to the scope and ambition of the author, whose main theory is that progress in history is a product of geography and social development, with one feeding on each other, creating both splendor and collapse; he comes up with an index to measure civilizational development and concludes that there is no foundation for one culture claiming superiority over another.

Mr.