Read our privacy policy for more info. The book's subtitle is highly problematical (just as Empire's was: "How Britain Made the Modern World", for goodness sake). Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription. He seems to have learned something, then – perhaps developed some empathy – since the publication of his rather more celebratory Empire in 2003. “To my mind, a civilization is much more than just the contents of a few first-rate art galleries. 41. The favoured one is usually British, in order to inculcate "Britishness" – "Our island story", as Gove likes to put it. Just finished another "evening" book, this time quite interesting analysis of why during the past 500 years the western civilization dominated the world and the rest eventually adopted (or in most cases are still trying) the same core principles. Then, Ferguson launches into his defense of western culture and explanation for its dominance. It shows how the collaborations that resulted from open approaches to developing resources, not simple plundering, resulted in the greatest accomplishments that have been adopted by extant civilizations everywhere. 13 In 1500 the future imperial powers of Europe accounted for about 10 per cent of the world’s land surface and at most 16 per cent of its population. ... in light of this analysis, to ask if the decline of Western civilization is inevitable. Leave us a news tip with the email below! It probably has something to do with America's status as the dominant power in the world. . Show you do too and support him for defending the West by ordering one of these FREE Trump hats here: I Love My Freedom. The two are connected. Minh Trần Đại. Hard work and personal liberty aren’t hard concepts to understand, yet a huge proportion of the country is on welfare, as Charles Murray discusses in Coming Apart, and individual liberty is all but dead because of the surveillance state. Readers, and viewers of the TV series, must be warned that this is emphatically not what most imperial historians believe. The rapid dissolution of the European empires in the postwar years appeared to be a just enough sentence". Niall Ferguson's rightwing paean to western values is unsuited to being taught in schools, Photograph by Jonathan Hordle/Rex Features. But, The Great Degeneration is the opposite. amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; You should read Civilization: The West and the Rest for two reasons. It is a highly complex human organization. 18 Conservative Companies to Buy From and Support, The Fauci-China Connection and Its Dangers, Trump is Winning Election Lawsuits. A radical one – from the peasants' revolt to today's TUC march for the alternative? I still don't (the "killer" part, that is). Trump gets the inherent greatness of Western Civilization! He breaks that dominance down into six factors. If world history comes into it, Ferguson's new book shows how difficult it will be to teach it as "formal knowledge", rote-learned. But, read it you should because then you’ll understand how the Great Recession affected people. It was because of distinct traits that made us more innovative and intrepid than the rest of the world. Conservatives should already know why ideas such as a strong work ethic and respect of private property are important for advancing a civilization. The potential for western civilization’s slow demise is one of the themes of Niall Ferguson’s latest book, Civilization: The West and the Rest. amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "genzconservat-20"; Ibid, 288. . While some might be annoyed by Ferguson’s overt praise of the West, Civilization: The West and the Rest is a book that all conservatives should parade about and implore the entire world to read. While China was embracing capitalism (or at least corporatism) and rising, Americans and Europeans were using drugs and living off welfare checks. I can’t recommend Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson highly enough, for the reasons you will read in this review of it! Taking place after the end of Civilization: The West and the Rest, The Great Degeneration shows how the West fell apart and behind once it gave up on religion, hard work, and liberty. Civilization: The West and the Rest is about why countries like American and Britain used to be great. It’s no surprise China is slowly overtaking us; it has embodied the six values Ferguson said allowed the West to rule the world not so long ago. If you’ve ever found yourself saying, as I have, that your major political preoccupation is the salvaging of the best of “Western Civilization” [WC], you may then have been queried, “What is it? Otherwise "civilization" could very quickly collapse. We Must Remind Leftists of that Fact, Review of The History of Political Theory by Garrett Ward Sheldon, Review of Battlefield Pacific by James Rosone and Miranda Watson, Review of A World in Disarray by Richard Hass, EXPOSED: Tom Cotton Destroys Vanita Gupta, Biden’s Race-Baiting DOJ Pick, UNDELIVERED: 92,000 Ballots in Clark County, Nevada Didn’t Reach Voters. . That will account for his use here of terms such as "killer apps". How Ferguson weaves all six of those factors together. Check out my patriotic T-shirts and accessories shop here: Young Conservative shirts. That’s one of the most crucial lessons of Civilization: The West and the Rest. Most of us realise that the more you stretch a theory, the more holes tend to appear in it. amzn_assoc_region = "US"; Civilization: The West and the Rest - Conclusion, The Rivals Summary & Analysis Niall Ferguson This Study Guide consists of approximately 27 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Civilization: The West and the Rest. No previous civilization had ever achieved such dominance as the West achieved over the Rest. In "Civilization", he looks at the "West" as we know it (both as a culture as well as the socio-economic state that it is) and the "Rest" - the erstwhile colonies, 3rd world countries, South American countries, etc. He mentions that the West’s accomplishments led to the Western civilization becoming a template for the way the rest of the world aspired to organize itself – stating that it’s becoming a … But it's well written, with something quotable on nearly every page, and some terrific ideas. Ferguson doesn’t go too in-depth because of the broad overview of the book, but he does give a well-researched, positive summary of the West’s history. isbn 978-7-846-14456-1. History is too important and valuable in other ways – helping us to understand "other histories than our own", for one – to be prostituted to this end. In the film the youngsters clearly understood this. The reference to Pinks makes really good sense in context of this particular post. If we discover the values we used to hold but have since lost, perhaps we will again stand on top of the world. That's why schoolchildren need to be taught to be critical, before anything else. That was not because of chance. An island story that includes the backgrounds of all our immigrants over the centuries? Africa "brought out the destructive worst in Europeans . Britain produced similar over-arching theories when she was dominant. It's important for our sense of cultural identity, he believes, and consequently our ability to defend that identity against external threats, not to lose sight of this. There’s a reason he divides it into “the West and the rest.” The West was exceptional. He has said this sort of thing before, in support of his new friend Michael Gove's reforming ambitions for the school history syllabus. Morris, Why the West Rules. READ PAPER. That is what made us so powerful in the late 19th Century, and the fact that it was the same way (or at least close) in much of Western Europe is what gave the West its advantage over the rest in that time period. Of course, we know that work, property, consumption, and competition are good, and the others are not only good, but are generally thought by all to be good. Well, no one, which is why nations like China are rapidly taking those advances and incorporating them into their own societies. ;Price: £25.00 "The West and the Rest" sets up a dichotomy that is profoundly false in many ways, and of course patronising to the people he lumps together as (his word) "resterners". It’s a powerful preface, so I’ll leave it to you to read. He remains objective by calling out nations like Germany that were horrible to their colonial subjects, but overall, he remains mostly positive about the West and its accomplishments. "The book is partly designed so a 17-year-old boy or girl will get a lot of history in a very digestible way, and be able to relate to it," he told the Observer recently. Now there's a challenge! Ferguson also has two other agendas. Well, I'm sure one could strike some kind of balance among all these; but it would be bound to confuse students (rightly), which is why they would still need analytical skills to sort out the strands. Become one here: Patreon. He chose to live in America, he states in his preface, because he was interested in money and power, and that was where "the money and power actually were". But Ferguson is a historian and so before he explores the West’s future fate he sets out to explain western dominance over the past 500 years or so. Download Full PDF Package. But even if they're all wrong, this at least shows that there can be no agreement about the "facts" of even the grandest narrative. 402 pages. The West versus the Rest Huntington suggests that in the future the central axis of world politics tends to be the conflict between Western and non-Western civilizations, in [Stuart Hall]'s phrase, the conflict between "the West and the Rest". Ferguson uses historical evidence of technological innovation, religious effects, and economic differences, among other factors, to explain why the West, and Western Europe especially, was the dominant force in the world for centuries. amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; Who, other than insane people, would hate western innovations in medicine and science? Why is that? It's also where most of the "big history" comes from, in the sense of simple, over-arching themes that are supposed to explain everything, usually with big titles: The Clash of Civilisations, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, The End of History, Empire, Colossus (the last two both Ferguson's). The key question today is whether or not the West has lost its monopoly on these six things. A mere 150-200 years is their usual estimate. Civilization: The West and the Rest, presented by Niall Ferguson, is a documentary in which Ferguson reveals what he calls the six killer applications which has helped Western civilization dominate over everyone else. The book is the basis for a television series in Britain, and he told an interviewer that it aims to give a “17-year-old boy or girl . Kings, queens and battles? Read the rest of this review and the book itself if you want to learn more about why the West reigned supreme! (Of course, if he makes enough time for history in the school syllabus, he can choose more than one.). That will account for his use here of terms such as "killer apps". It reads very assuredly on high finance – Ferguson's true field. (They smiled weakly.) Patrick Keeney. Clever Brandon, very clever. During that time, China embraced more of all three of those, as did India, even Christianity, and was thus able to start overtaking Western nations. Europeanists will prefer a wider focus. To me, Civilization: The West and the Rest seemed like a natural partner to Ferguson’s other book that I’ve reviewed, The Great Degeneration. That’s not racist; it’s just an objective fact. 1 thought on “ Niall Ferguson: Civilization: The West and the Rest; Chapter 3 Property ” Mr. Almon October 15, 2014 at 4:51 am. Introduction Brownworth, Lost to the West. Previously, he was a professor at Harvard University, the London School of Economics and New York University, visiting professor at New College of the Humanities and senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. The time, of course, is represented by his pretty extreme neo-liberalism, though that is becoming less fashionable now than it was. At the time of writing, it remains to be seen if the compliment will be returned. Which will Gove choose? 2010), 12. Meanwhile, other countries that Ferguson profiles, such as China and India, fell behind because their citizens were controlled by a rigid hierarchy that precluded innovation or advancement. Thank you for your support! Tags Book Review, Cultural History, Multiculturalism, Niall Ferguson, Political History, politics, postmodernism, Relativism Post navigation. But in fact it furnishes an almost perfect illustration of why children need to be taught analytical skills, more than "big stories" or facts. China: A Potential or Current Threat?. (Ferguson should watch out that he doesn't turn into history's Jeremy Clarkson.) The second reason is that reading Civilization: The West and the Rest might help us remember the values we’ve lost. Civilization: The West and the Rest is about why countries like American and Britain used to be great. Niall Campbell Ferguson (/ ˈ n iː l /; born 18 April 1964) is a Scottish historian and the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Download PDF. This is a book about why that happened and what lessons we can take away from it. The Fall of Qaddafi and the future of the “Arab Spring”. And that’s a good thing, it means billions of people are living better because Western ideas and ideals are being adopted! All over the world, an astonishing proportion of people now work for Western-style companies, study at Western-style universities, vote for Western-style governments, take Western medicines, wear Western clothes, and even work Western hours. The second is to correct deficiencies in the way he claims that history is currently taught in British schools. He makes comparisons between “Oriental civilizations” and the West, showing contrasts between the two. Big countries; big histories. Ibid, 255. Baghdad had the first university, the House of Wisdom. No civilization has intruded on the West in a comparable way in the last 600 years, and if it had, we would resent it mightily. Instead, everything stayed constantly bad in “the Rest” while the West became a geopolitical behemoth that gradually exported the benefits of its minds to the rest of the world. The answer, Niall Ferguson argues, was that the West developed six "killer applications" that the Rest lacked: competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic. View this post ad-free on Patreon by becoming a Patreon member for only $3 a month! Now, they’re emulating it in the same way that they are using and incorporating into their own societies our advances in science and medicine. How about one that gives as much attention to women as to men? Nowadays we littler Britons come up with this sort of thing less often. Indeed, I was reminded of Sir John Seeley's famous The Expansion of England (1883) when I read Ferguson's book. "The West and the Rest" sets up a dichotomy that is profoundly false in many ways, and of course patronising to the people he lumps together as (his word) "resterners". To me, Civilization: The West and the Rest seemed like a natural partner to Ferguson’s other book that I’ve reviewed, The Great Degeneration. Civilization: The West and The Rest. Ferguson's latest book, published next month, is called Civilization: The West and the Rest (the accompanying six-part Channel 4 series starts on 6 March). Health Care is Not a Right, but a Service. Niall Ferguson begins his story with a great example of ancient China. Civilization, with its "six killer apps", is the latest in that older, grander, holey-er tradition. Gen Z Conservative is your one stop site for news, political commentary, explorations of history and great men, and commentary on American Culture! A short summary of this paper. Bernard Porter's The Battle of the Styles is published by Continuum. In a time where historical knowledge is lacking, history is something everyone needs to read so that we remember our once common culture. While the West has slid into decadence, many Asian nations have adopted our ideas and used them to overtake us. 42. Civilization The West and the Rest - Niall Ferguson.

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