Reddit reviews Civilization: The West and the Rest
We found 2 Reddit comments about Civilization: The West and the Rest. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Reddit reviews Civilization: The West and the RestWe found 2 Reddit comments about Civilization: The West and the Rest. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Here is your Conservative/Staunch Liberal view
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1846142733/
Niall Ferguson is not endorsed by many university professors, but his view is regarded as sort of the right wing narrative.
His idea is essentially that the West (and Britain in particular) had things implicitly good about its institutions and values which gave it the edge over other parts of the world - he talks about a "protestant christian work ethic" etc.
He did in fact give a TED talk on the subject to be found here.
However personally I don't support this view, but that's something you'll have to make your own mind up about. Here is my university professor giving his side of the argument - Angus Lockyer is a lecturer at my university and gives a far more left wing/multicultural view on the subject compared to Niall.
I might be told I'm being too political about this, giving you two different views, but I don't believe you can really approach a question as broad as this without current political opinion, particularly liberal nationalism, strongly influencing your approach. See what you think, anyway.
No ones mentioned it, but Niall Ferguson just brought a book out with a complementary documentary series.
It's called Civilization: The west and the rest
I'm sure an American version is out or will come out soon. He takes an alternative approach to Diamonds 'Geographic circumstances' thesis. He suggest that there are 6 killer apps that made the West succeed:
I think the beauty of his approach is that it makes available to younger readers of history. This is something that could easily be taught to 14 year olds. Whilst I disagree with parts of it (it would be hard not to find an individual that doesn't) I believe this History is not one that just encourages debate, but encourages participation from those who would have had no interest beforehand. Economic History is utterly fascinating and it's great to see a 6 part documentary on a major television channel here in the UK (channel 4).
If you are interested you can get it from amazon.co.uk (US version not out till November):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1846142733 - book
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Civilization-West-History-Niall-Ferguson/dp/B004LQG1AC/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1302889938&sr=1-1 - dvd