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Civilization: The West and the Rest

3.7 of 5 stars 3.70 · rating details · 1,347 ratings · 241 reviews

Western civilization’s rise to global dominance is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five centuries. All over the world, more and more people study at Western-style universities, work for Western-style companies, vote for Western-style governments, take Western medicines, wear Western clothes, and play Western sports. Yet six hundred years ago the...more

Hardcover, 432 pages

Published November 1st 2011 by Penguin Press HC, The (first published 2011)

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Jun 17, 2012 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history-will-teach-us-nothing

THE ACTUAL REVIEW AS OPPOSED TO THE COMPLAINT ABOUT THE TITLE

Niall Ferguson is exhausting. He leaps, darts, pirhouettes, swandives, uses statistics as Molotov cocktails, he quotes, he hectors, he nudges, he booms, he hollers, he balances, he bulldozes, his book is like 500 years of history considered as a switchback ride, most of which is spent upside down going at 120 miles per hour.

The argument of this book is clear. NF wishes to explain why the West dominated the Rest for the last 500 years,...more

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Jul 02, 2012 James Murphy rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a story that can be told in many ways. It's history, a history of the European dominance in world affairs and the reasons for it. It's geopolitics told through Ferguson's prism which receives the vast record of European history during the last several hundred years and projects it into a patten. The West has dominated, he explains, because they differed from the Rest, or excelled while the Rest didn't, in 6 key areas: the spirit of competition, the scientific revolution in the West, stro...more This is a story that can be told in many ways. It's history, a history of the European dominance in world affairs and the reasons for it. It's geopolitics told through Ferguson's prism which receives the vast record of European history during the last several hundred years and projects it into a patten. The West has dominated, he explains, because they differed from the Rest, or excelled while the Rest didn't, in 6 key areas: the spirit of competition, the scientific revolution in the West, stronger social and political systems based on property ownership, the medical breakthroughs of the West, the demand and creation of cheaper goods, and greater capital accumulation through the work ethic.

In 6 chapters devoted to these ideas, Ferguson explicates his thesis. I was a little surprised to find the Rest wasn't always the undeveloped nations of the world. Different examples of the Rest illustrate each of the 6 main points. Africa, for instance, is the Rest in comparison with the West's leadership in medical advances and disease control. South America is the Rest when he contrasts the differences in property ownership. In explaining the West's domnance in manufacturing and consumption the Rest becomes the communist political system.

As I say, the story can be told in different ways. It has been before and will be again. Ferguson's book is a system of understanding the West's global dominance. But it's a system that works. Ferguson is a learned historian and writer able to fill a book like this with many aha moments and fresh ways of seeing. Religion is mentioned quite a lot. The Protestant ethic drove part of the West's success, he says, and now declining interest in religion is resulting in a less stringent work ethic. In another example, he writes that European geography with its many rivers and mountains dictated the formation of more numerous, smaller states necessitating the competition among them which was at the heart of European exploration and drive for empire. He compares this to China's large single-government rule and less complex geography.

Is he right? I don't know. His ideas are one way to explain it. They're convincingly laid out and argued, and in ways providing an interesting, gripping read from beginning to end.. I suspect there's room for disagreement within the community of historians and geopolitical experts at his level, and I suspect there are detractors.

He himself is an admirer of Samuel P Huntington. He mentions his thesis of "clash of civilizations" more than once. And agrees with Huntington that such things as the economic rise of China and the rise of Islam held up against the decline of Christianity are direct threats to the West. Like Huntington, too, and many others, he subscribes to the notion that civilizations rise and fall in cycles. Ferguson's conclusion deals with the West's downward trend in the cycle. All civilizations fall, he says, and their fall is always accompanied by and trumpeted by fiscal difficulties. Every time. Like we see on the news and read in the papers. Ferguson says the fall is swift, too--decades, a generation. Cycling upward? China, of course, though he admits there's room for them to stumble. But even with China dominating the globe economically and militarily, it's not the end of civilization. It's geopolitics.(less)

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Feb 27, 2013 Ann rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What distinguished Western civilization after 1500 from the rest of the world? How did its culture come to dominate the rest of the world after that time?

Ferguson suggests several broad reasons which form the outline of his book:
Competition, sience, property rights, medicine, the consumer society, and the work ethic.

Competition fueled much of the dynamism of Western nations. Scientific discoveries enabled, among other things, better armies and guns. Property rights came from belief in the rule...more

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Dec 28, 2011 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

CIVILIZATION: The West and the Rest. (2011). Niall Ferguson. ****.
Although this study reads at times like a book for the genral reader, it often slips into becoming a scholarly study, hence becoming neither fish nor fowl. The rating of four-stars could easily have feen five-stars except for this flaw. The author is a noted British historian who, up until now has focused on the world of economics and its effect on the growth of civilization. This study expands the range of influences beyond thos...more CIVILIZATION: The West and the Rest. (2011). Niall Ferguson. ****.
Although this study reads at times like a book for the genral reader, it often slips into becoming a scholarly study, hence becoming neither fish nor fowl. The rating of four-stars could easily have feen five-stars except for this flaw. The author is a noted British historian who, up until now has focused on the world of economics and its effect on the growth of civilization. This study expands the range of influences beyond those simply monetary. The six novel complexes of institutions and associated ideas and behaviors under which he classes his findings are as follows:
1, Competition
2. Science
3. Property rights
4. Medicine
5. The consumer society
6. The work ethic
He then goes on to fully describe what he means by each category and provide examples of events falling under each to outline the impact they had on progress in the East vs. the West. The examples the author provides are almost endless. In the category of science, he follows the discoveries made between the period 1530 to 1789 by ‘scientists’ in the West. He has selected only the most important twenty-nine breakthroughs. To list them all here would take up too much space, but I have to grab a few:
1530 Paracelsus pioneers the application of chemistry to physiology and pathology.
1543 Nicolaus Copernicus’ “De revolutionibus orbium coelistium” states the heliocentric theory of the solar system.
1589 Galileo’s tests of falling bodies revolutionize the experimental method.
1610 Galileo discovers four of Jupiter’s moons and infers that Earth is not at the center of the universe.
1628 William Harvey writes accurately describing the circulation of blood.
1640 Pierre de Fermat founds number theory
1669 Isaac Newton presents the first systematic account of the calculus, idependently developed by Gottfried Leibniz.
1789 Lavoisir states the law of conservation of matter.

You can scan the entire list on pp.65-66 in the text. The impact of these discoveries in the West was tremendous, while the East remained flat in their pursuit of science. “The best explanation for this divergence was the unlimited sovereignty of relifion in the Muslim world.” The author then goes on to support his thesis. This book is full of detailed examples for all of his six categories, ultimately nailed down into intelligent conclusions. The book is also full of my favorite types of factoids – things I never knew, or once knew and have forgotten. Here are a few: In South America, where slavery (discussed under his heading of property) was much more rampant than in North America, and, the reality of interbreeding was recognized, the South Americans had names for the issue of these relations: mestizos, the offspring of Spanish men and Indian women; mulattos, born of unions of creoles and blacks; and zambos, the children of Indians and blacks. Under his heading of consumption, the author describes the ultimate conquest of our jeans society over the rest of the world. He goes on to say: “There are just a very few places where people hold out against the giand sartorial blending manchine. One of the is rural Peru. In the mountains of the Andes, the Quechua women still wear their brightly colored dresses and shawls and their ittle felt hats, pinned at jaunty angles and decorated with their tribal insignia. Except that these are not traditional Quechua clothes at all. The dresses, shawls and hats are in fact of Andalusian origin and were imposed by the Spanish Viceroy Francisco di Toledo in 1572.” I could go on quoting items forever, but will, mercifully stop. The last chapter of his book presents the author’s conclusions about this study and his tentative predictions as to what the future might bring. All in all, this is a fascinating book. Recommended.
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Apr 03, 2013 Duarte Branquinho rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Niall Ferguson é hoje um dos historiadores mais conhecidos e influentes no mundo. Os seus trabalhos recentes sobre História financeira e económica têm chamado a atenção do público. Várias das suas obras são também séries de televisão bastante populares, como é o caso de “Civilização – O Ocidente e os Outros”.

De uma forma provocatória, o autor afirma que se em 1411 déssemos uma volta ao mundo ficaríamos maravilhados com as civilizações do Oriente e nunca imaginaríamos que o Ocidente viria a domin...more Niall Ferguson é hoje um dos historiadores mais conhecidos e influentes no mundo. Os seus trabalhos recentes sobre História financeira e económica têm chamado a atenção do público. Várias das suas obras são também séries de televisão bastante populares, como é o caso de “Civilização – O Ocidente e os Outros”.

De uma forma provocatória, o autor afirma que se em 1411 déssemos uma volta ao mundo ficaríamos maravilhados com as civilizações do Oriente e nunca imaginaríamos que o Ocidente viria a dominar os Outros durante a maior parte da metade do milénio seguinte. Foi o que aconteceu e, segundo Niall Ferguson, tal só foi possível porque Ocidente desenvolveu seis “aplicações-chave” que os Outros não possuíam: competição, ciência, democracia, medicina, consumismo e ética de trabalho.

A grande questão é saber se hoje o Ocidente perdeu o seu monopólio nestas seis áreas. Principalmente, desde que os Outros começaram a dominar essas aplicações, nomeadamente a China. Se assim for, avisa Ferguson, podemos estar a viver o fim da ascendência ocidental. Mas será que esse declínio se deve à ameaça das outras civilizações ou a nós próprios? Uma causa fundamental, muito bem observada pelo autor, é a ignorância histórica. Como ele afirma: “Durante os últimos trinta anos, incutiram aos jovens das escolas e universidades ocidentais a ideia de uma educação liberal sem a substância do conhecimento histórico. Ensinaram-lhes 'módulos' isolados, não lhes ensinaram narrativas e muito menos cronologias. Foram treinados na análise das fórmulas de excertos documentais e não na competência-chave de ler muito, de forma generalista e depressa. Foram encorajados a sentir empatia por centuriões romanos imaginados ou pelas vítimas do Holocausto mas não a escrever ensaios sobre os 'porquês' e os 'comos' das respectivas condições.”

Esta edição portuguesa tem uma boa tradução e várias notas do tradutor, que são bastante úteis para enquadrar o leitor menos preparado nestes temas. Tem também um aspecto negativo, que é o facto de a editora ter aderido ao famigerado Acordo Ortográfico.

Na análise deste historiador escocês, nota-se uma acentuada perspectiva anglo-saxónica que talvez justifique muitas das suas interpretações. Ainda assim, esta é uma obra feita para o grande público que, mesmo não se concordando com os seus pressupostos e conclusões, tem o mérito de trazer a discussão e a reflexão sobre a Civilização, numa altura em que a superioridade do Ocidente está a ser posta em causa.(less)

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Feb 26, 2013 Andrei rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Olen pitänyt Fergusonin aiemmasta tuotannosta. Varsinkin Rothschildien historia oli vaikuttava teos ja The Ascent of Money läpeensä nautittava. Nyt Ferguson päätti kuitenkin astua taloushistorian ulkopuolelle ja kirjoittaa jonkinlaisen suuren, kultturien välisen vertailun synteesin. Tuloksena täydellinen pannukakku.

Fergusson pyrkii selvittämään, miksi "länsimainen sivilisaatio" meni uudella ajalla taloudellisesti ja teknologisesti ohi muista kulttuuripiireistä. Hän päättää että syynä on kuusi lä...more

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Oct 24, 2012 Steven rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sociology, warishell

The Guardin (and what left-leaner doesn't know the Guardian describes this as a "rightwing paean to western values." Partly true, but we read to expose ourselves to new and different ideas. Heere is my straight list of notes from this book:

Idea that the ever-present warfare in western Europe lead to innovation.

Chinese were very concerned with tribute, but it was the Portuguese who were concerned with economic advancement.

Competition in western Europe furthered great economic prosperity.

Perhaps t...more The Guardin (and what left-leaner doesn't know the Guardian describes this as a "rightwing paean to western values." Partly true, but we read to expose ourselves to new and different ideas. Heere is my straight list of notes from this book:

Idea that the ever-present warfare in western Europe lead to innovation.

Chinese were very concerned with tribute, but it was the Portuguese who were concerned with economic advancement.

Competition in western Europe furthered great economic prosperity.

Perhaps the greatest mystery of the entire Cold War is why the Worker's Paradise could not manage to produce a decent pair of jeans"

"The mass consumerism, with all the standardization it implied, could somehow be reconciled with rampant individualism was one of the smartest tricks ever pulled by Western civilization."

Essentially six headings for why the West was best: 1.) Competition, 2.) Science, 3.) Property Rights, 4.) Medicine, 5.) Consumerism, 6.) Work ethic.

In reference to property ownership, Ferguson makes the point that private ownership of land in North America rather that South America makes a tremendous difference. Comment made that in Peru, as recently as 1958, 2 percent of landowners owned 69% of arable land.

Ferguson spends a bit of time extolling religious values and their contribution to Western Civ in general and the protestant work ethic in particular. Ferguson notes. "protestantism made the West not only work, but also save and read. The literacy that Protestantism promoted was essential to the Industrial Revolution workforce.

"From aromatherapy to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the West today is indeed awash with post-modern cults, none of which offers anything remotely as economically invigorating or socially cohesive as the old Protestant ethic."

"Why did the West dominate the Rest and not vice versa? I have argued that it was because the West developed six killer applications that the Rest lacked. These were: 1. Competition, in that Europe itself was politically fragmented and that within each monarchy or republic there were multiple competing corporate entities 2. The Scientific Revolution, in that all the major seventeenth-century breakthroughs in mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology happened in Western Europe 3. The rule of law and representative government, in that an optimal system of social and political order emerged in the English-speaking world, based on private property rights and the representation of property-owners in elected legislatures 4. Modern medicine, in that nearly all the major nineteenth- and twentieth-century breakthroughs in healthcare, including the control of tropical diseases, were made by Western Europeans and North Americans 5. The consumer society, in that the Industrial Revolution took place where there was both a supply of productivity-enhancing technologies and a demand for more, better and cheaper goods, beginning with cotton garments 6. The work ethic, in that Westerners were the first people in the world to combine more extensive and intensive labour with higher savings rates, permitting sustained capital accumulation. Those six killer apps were the key to Western ascendancy."(less)

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Jul 07, 2012 Patrick F rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I give this book a four not because I agree with this, obviously, biased account of how "the West" dominated the world for the last 500 years, but because it was an enthralling read, and it's super enjoyable for me to challenge my own opinions and knowledge.

It's also, at times, relatively nuanced, and it does, in horrendous detail, explain the pseudo-science, hubris, and psychology that precipitated colonization, empire and imperialism, for example. The sections on Nazism, and how it grew from A...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Jerry rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

In my view this is a very valuable book in that it offers a good explanation of why the West dominated the world over the past five centuries. An understanding of this is important to continuing the advancement of civilization. The author offers a different perspective that supplemented what I have learned from Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel; Ridley’s The Rational Optimist; and Fukuyama’s The Origins of Political Order. By the way, there is a PBS video series based on this book.

The author ci...more In my view this is a very valuable book in that it offers a good explanation of why the West dominated the world over the past five centuries. An understanding of this is important to continuing the advancement of civilization. The author offers a different perspective that supplemented what I have learned from Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel; Ridley’s The Rational Optimist; and Fukuyama’s The Origins of Political Order. By the way, there is a PBS video series based on this book.

The author cites six “killer apps” that enabled the West to dominate after 1500: Competition, Science, Property Rights, Medicine, The Consumer Society, and The Work Ethic.

“The critical point is that the differential between the West and the Rest was institutional. Western Europe overtook China partly because in the West there was more competition in both the political and the economic spheres. Austria, Prussia and latterly even Russia became more effective administratively and militarily because the network that produced the Scientific Revolution arose in the Christian but not in the Muslim world. The reason North America's ex-colonies did so much better than South America's was because British settlers established a completely different system of property rights and political representation in the North from those built by Spaniards and Portuguese in the South. (The North was an 'open access order', rather than a closed one run in the interests of rent-seeking, exclusive elites.) European empires were able to penetrate Africa not just because they had the Maxim gun; they also devised vaccines against tropical diseases to which Africans were just as vulnerable.”

The West no longer has a monopoly on the six killer apps. Also, some of the apps, such as the work ethic, have declined somewhat in the west. But only the west has all six. “The Chinese do not have political competition. The Iranians do not have freedom of conscience. They get to vote in Russia, but the rule of law is a sham. In none of these countries is there a free press.”

The author worries that one of the dangers for the West is education that doesn't teach and value Western civilization. The current fad in education to disrespect Western Civilization and suggest other civilizations are morally equivalent or even superior neglects to see the benefits that Western Civilization has afforded society.

In reflecting on the recent movement of American culture towards the characteristics of the French I was particularly taken by the author’s quoting Tocqueville’s observations on differences between American and French society and revolutions:
1. France was increasingly centralized, whereas America was a naturally federal state, with lively provincial associational life and civil society.
2. The French tended to elevate the general will above the letter of the law, a tendency resisted by America's powerful legal profession.
3. The French revolutionaries attacked religion and the Church that upheld it, whereas American sectarianism provided a bulwark against the pretensions of secular authorities.
4. The French ceded too much power to irresponsible intellectuals, whereas in America practical men reigned supreme.
5. The French put equality above liberty.
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May 23, 2012 Daniel Burton rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Daniel by: Benjamin Lusty

Shelves: history, need-to-know, non-fiction, political, economics

The elevator pitch for Niall Ferguson's "Civilization: The West and the Rest" is simple: Western civilization has risen to dominate world affairs over the last five hundred years, a record unmatched in world history and at odds with its population and geography relative to other countries and civilizations, due to six "killer apps" that have provided an advantage on the international stage. Further, it may be the West's loss of those same "apps" that is leading to decline now.

Ferguson pegs the r...more

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May 16, 2012 Carl Brush rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Naill Ferguson’s work deserves a great deal more study than I’m willing to give it to properly assess his account and assessment of where we in America and Western Europe came from and where we might be going. Ferguson not only covers an enormous span of history in Civilization: The West and the Rest, but does it in bewildering detail for a book of this relatively short (325 pp.) length and subject matter.

An interesting companion piece to this book is Dr. Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Compl...more

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Apr 25, 2012 Greg Talbot rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Professor Ferguson always has me on the edge of my seat. His dramatic flair in interviews, brilliant oration and sound conclusions from difficult materials always impress me. Civilization does as well. Similar to "Ascent of Money", but this time with historical development instead of economic development Ferguson walks us through history with the question of how did the West ascend since 1500 a.d. to where it is today.

This is a fascinating topic in itself. Ferguson gives plentiful examples and n...more

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Mar 11, 2012 Doug rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, nonfiction

Another book on how Western civilization came to be the dominant civilization, he outlines the West's advantage in six critical fields. I think he really should also talk about energy: a civilization's access to it, and also the ability to mobilize it. Not just the Industrial Revolution, but the East's access to vast amounts of human labor and the lack of need to find alternative energy sources, while in the West, the Black Plague which decimated the populations and wars put more of a premium on...more

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Feb 10, 2012 Bas Kreuger rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Is Niall Ferguson an historian? Some people doubt it. I can see what they mean when reading "Civilization, the west and the rest". He is certainly no historian who just relates what happend and how it happend. He is not afraid to give his view on the way the West gained supremacy over the rest the last 500 years or so. I see him more as a pamphleteer, an opinionater, a publicist with a historical streak. His thesis why the west became dominant rests on the 'six killer applications' (to use a mod...more

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Jan 10, 2012 Harpal rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ferguson’s latest book, grandiosely entitled “Civilization”, is a vapid, meandering, and mostly pointless effort that falls woefully short of its ambitious goals. His stated intention is to explain the rise of “the West” from the 15th century backwater that was pre-renaissance Europe to the utterly dominant powers they became in the 19th and 20th centuries. Not only does he offer no novel explanation or nuanced interpretation, but his very answer is incoherent, disorganized, and downright simpli...more Ferguson’s latest book, grandiosely entitled “Civilization”, is a vapid, meandering, and mostly pointless effort that falls woefully short of its ambitious goals. His stated intention is to explain the rise of “the West” from the 15th century backwater that was pre-renaissance Europe to the utterly dominant powers they became in the 19th and 20th centuries. Not only does he offer no novel explanation or nuanced interpretation, but his very answer is incoherent, disorganized, and downright simplistic. Moreover, though meticulously referenced, Ferguson pays little heed to the enormous treasure of stellar scholarship that already exists on this question and, more importantly, adds nothing to it.

Ferguson argues that “the West” rose above “the Rest” (his own tedious language, complemented with references to “Westerners and Resterners”) for six key reasons: competition, science, property, medicine, consumption, and work. These six themes are the titles of his six chapters. Of course, upon seeing the generality of the chapter headings, one rightly expects to find the original theses buried deeper within, and yet one never discovers them. Instead, in his usual fashion, Ferguson unfurls dubiously generalizable anecdotes to argue his broader points, which in of themselves are dull and unoriginal. Yet it gets even worse. Some of his tangents veer so far off course as to have no recognizable relation to any broader point. His nine-page treatment of the French Revolution comes under the “Medicine” chapter, as do his thoughts on the First World War. And yet they are hardly thoughts at all, but a regurgitation of basic facts and agreed upon truths. “Yet there was little else that was backward-looking about the empire Napoleon sought to build in Europe. It was truly revolutionary . . . French rule swept away the various privileges that had protected the nobility, clergy, guilds, and urban oligarchies and established the principle of equality before the law.” You will not find any disagreement from me, but nor will you from the legions of high school students worldwide who have already been taught the same thing. Is this first-rate scholarship or an introductory high-school text?

A final point. While I have often appreciated Ferguson’s wit and flippancy, he has crossed the line into frank glibness. For instance, of the French colonial attempt to stamp out native faith healers, he writes “herbs and spells are singularly ineffective against most tropical disease.” Of the 1968 rebellions, he writes “there was one very practical demand that spoke volumes about the revolution’s true aims, and that was for unlimited male access to the female dormitories – hence the injunction to ‘unbutton your mind as often as your fly’.” This is history writing at its finest.

In short, “Civilization” adds nothing to the scholarship on one of the most important questions in the study of modern history. I am tempted to write that it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. An apt description this might be were it not for the sobering truth that the author is no idiot, but rather one of the most prolific and influential western historians of the last decade, a prodigious mind who has now forsaken true scholarship ostensibly in pursuit of more venal ends. Here lies the body of Professor Ferguson. May he one day rise from the dead.
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Jan 05, 2012 Ian Robertson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Prolific Oxford, Harvard and Stanford professor Niall Ferguson continues his excellent string of publications with a well researched and erudite tour of the past 500 years of western civilization. The book is very, very detailed (over 700 end notes, plus a 30 page bibliography), but extremely readable. Its many facts are both interesting and woven together logically and chronologically to support a central thesis - that the West has predominated because it developed six killer apps: competition,...more Prolific Oxford, Harvard and Stanford professor Niall Ferguson continues his excellent string of publications with a well researched and erudite tour of the past 500 years of western civilization. The book is very, very detailed (over 700 end notes, plus a 30 page bibliography), but extremely readable. Its many facts are both interesting and woven together logically and chronologically to support a central thesis - that the West has predominated because it developed six killer apps: competition, science, property rights, medicine, the consumer society, and the work ethic.

Not just another book trumpeting the West’s superiority, Ferguson highlights the West’s good luck as well as it’s superior political and economic structure. He notes the West’s willingness to have its killer apps downloaded by other countries, which will mean more wealth for all but also a change in the balance of power.

Like all history books, the content is filtered through the author’s particular lens - in this case a right wing, British Empire loving polymath and wit - but Ferguson is thorough in supporting his thesis, confronting other historians’ theories and mistakes head-on, and documenting his own views with ample political, economic and cultural references and a fair amount of humour. The prolific references range from esoteric to pop-cultural (e.g. Sid Meier’s Civilization computer game).

There are some minor flaws - the chapter on medicine is mostly about subjects other than medicine; the slave trade to the Americas listed as beginning in 1450, almost half a century before Columbus’ voyage to the New World; and Ferguson seems curiously unscientific in his footnote musing that genetics may explain Jews’ disproportionate success in arts, science and commerce - but on the whole this is an excellent, densely packed historical tour.

For those familiar with Ferguson’s other works, Civilization falls somewhere between his story filled and highly readable “Ascent of Money” and his more academic “The Pity of War”. A broad, detailed canvas with the most interesting of stories laying the foundation for us to speculate about the future of western civilization and the rise of China.

Much better and more thought provoking than other, often economics oriented, books heralding the decline of the West. Civilization the television series will surely cross the Atlantic to North American viewers, just as “The Ascent of Money” did, but read the book for its rich detail. Buy it, read it, and reflect on the future of both the West and the Rest.(less)

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Dec 19, 2011 Dave rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I did not read this cover-to-cover, so take everything with a handful of salt.

I liked what I read, but this book feels uneven and rushed in parts. Perhaps that is because his subject is so big. While it feels incomplete, the book does raise some pertinent questions and issues for us, given the rise of China and India (to a lesser extent).

Ferguson asserts that the great shift in power from East to West that started ca. 1500 can be traced to what he calls six "Killer Applications" (sometimes he us...more

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Dec 18, 2011 Claude Nougat rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone interested in the future of our world

An excellent book, well-written and easy (even fun!) to read. A must read if you're wondering where our world is heading, as we are under siege from Islam on one side and China on the other...

Niall Ferguson does not need to be presented: he's probably the top Historian of our Times, together with Paul Kennedy. When he writes something, you should take notice. You many not agree with him on everything (I certainly don't) but his book is never going to be a waste of your time!

In this case he's don...more

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Feb 25, 2013 Michael Jones rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, worldview-issues, economics

This is a great book to pick up if you want to reflect on the “big picture” historically, economically and culturally.

There are quite a few excellent reviews on Goodreads that give you a breakdown of Ferguson’s six reasons for the success of the West. I found this book to be extremely worthwhile because he sifts through a lot of cultural, political, technological and religious data (“ data “ includes feelings and perceptions-- it is not dry and only numerical) in order to arrive at his conjectur...more

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Jun 23, 2012 Derek Simon rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ferguson has written an interesting and provocative book that seeks to answer the question as to why Western civilization has come to dominate the world in the way it has in the past few centuries. The narrative is fast-paced and his style is entertaining and he manages to pretty effectively give a high-level view, which is necessary to deal with such a complex topic in a relatively brief book. Ferguson's biases are pretty evident, although I appreciated that he did acknowledge some of the short...more

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Jan 03, 2012 H Wesselius rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ferguson is a conservative economic historian and an ardent Anglophile. Although there's nothing wrong with either, the bias comes out throughout the book. Ferguson is only the latest in a series of books trying to assign a cause to the rise of the west over other civilizations. Jared Diamons' Guns, Germs and Steel comes to mind and is more original and better than Ferguson's efforts.

Ferguson neglects to discus natural resource starting points and begins instead with cultural advantages. He pos...more Ferguson is a conservative economic historian and an ardent Anglophile. Although there's nothing wrong with either, the bias comes out throughout the book. Ferguson is only the latest in a series of books trying to assign a cause to the rise of the west over other civilizations. Jared Diamons' Guns, Germs and Steel comes to mind and is more original and better than Ferguson's efforts.

Ferguson neglects to discus natural resource starting points and begins instead with cultural advantages. He posits seven reason behind the rise of the West and outlines each "killer app" and its contribution. There's nothing wrong with any of his choices and in fact they are so broadly defined that its impossible to say that each "app" didn't contribute. However, he never supplies the evidence necessary to prove that each app was essential and that the decline of these factors will allow the Rest to catch up. He needs to do both to be successful. Instead the reader should be left wondering why China and other countries which he admits are catching up don't seem to use all the "apps" and in fact may be using the exact opposite of his factors. In one case, he describes China's new successful foray into the African resource game but doesn't admit this success is due to state owned countries whereas his factors of civilization include the free market, property rights and the individual entrepreneur. This in turn should remind the reader that much of Europe's initial success was due as much to mercantilism as its later success was due to capitalism.

Finally, expressing one's personal opinion does give a book a human dimension but at times Ferguson becomes snide and overly confident. A small but illustrative example; he condemns Marx for never having a job yet Marx was a journalist (correspondent for a New York paper), an entrepreneur (ran several small newspapers which were usually shut down before they could go bankrupt) and a published paid author. One can see the parallel job histories between Marx and Ferguson -- except as a conservative Ferguson has better patrons. (less)

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Apr 06, 2013 John Pendergraft rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Excellent survey of the history of Western culture. Ferguson identifies 6 cultural artifacts or "killer aps" including:

Competition - Western European nation states competing for global resources.

Science, - the Reformation and Enlightenment inspiring a revolution in knowledge and scientific advance.

Property - The Lockean drive for private property and liberty apart from the state, used as a motivation to colonize North America.

Medicine - The result of scientific advance which allowed for longer...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Mark Hartzer rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book had promise and a good premise; namely, how and why Western Civilization was able to run the table on world economics for better than 500 years. Unfortunately, Ferguson really messes up on drawing logical conclusions. I don't have the book at my fingertips, so I may have to go back and edit this, but I don't think he can clearly elucidate his 'killer applications' that allowed the West to dominate the world for these past 500 years. Superficial religious claptrap like 'The Protestant W...more

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Apr 22, 2012 Eric Smith rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Moments of brilliance contrasted with moments of cherry-picking (for the sake of drama) - one is inclined to say this work is a great example of everything good and bad about popular history. Example: constantly the decline of Imperial China was described using examples of the Ming Dynasty - which fell in the 17th Century. This would be fine if he had elaborated at any point that the Ming had essentially been usurped with little disruption by the Manchu-dominated Qing dynasty, but this fact was...more

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Jan 05, 2012 Clay rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Gives a rundown of the six killer apps that led the West to dominate the Rest since 1600 or so: competition, science, property rights, medicine, consumerism and hard work. A broad sweep history that packs in lots of good insights, including how and why China today has more practicing Christians than. Europe. The conclusion is that the end of the dominance of the West may be near, because citizens and their leaders are losing sight of their core values, while countries like China are taking them...more

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Jan 16, 2012 David Nichols rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is almost certainly the best non-fiction book published by a historian named Niall Ferguson in 2011.

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Mar 30, 2013 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

This marks the seventh book by Professor Ferguson that I have read. I started with the two-volume history of the Rothschilds, The House of Rothschild: Volume 1: Money's Prophets: 1798-1848 and The House of Rothschild: Volume 2: The World's Banker: 1849-1999, which were very interesting and well-researched. From there, I continued onto Empire: How Britain Made The Modern World and Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire , his two books on the British and American empires (the British s...more This marks the seventh book by Professor Ferguson that I have read. I started with the two-volume history of the Rothschilds, The House of Rothschild: Volume 1: Money's Prophets: 1798-1848 and The House of Rothschild: Volume 2: The World's Banker: 1849-1999, which were very interesting and well-researched. From there, I continued onto Empire: How Britain Made The Modern World and Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire , his two books on the British and American empires (the British serving as the greek example to America’s Rome). Both of these books were very interesting and illuminating, with Ferguson discussing certain aspects of Empire that most bien pensant "right thinking" intellectuals would not entertain, much less express. In quick succession, Ferguson released The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West and The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. War of the World was a rambling behemoth of twentieth century warfare and death, arguing that World Wars I and II were just the most visible and active aspects of a war of civilizations, lasting from roughly 1898 until the mid 1950’s. Ascent of Money was a more fractured and multi-focused investigation into the history of financial innovations from the ancient to the modern world.

While released in 2011, I have only now had time to sit down with Civilisation. Firstly, it must be read in concert with the documentary series that complements it. I recommend watching the relevant episode, then reading the corresponding chapter. Ferguson argues that the last 500 years of Western Civilization’s superiority, in various realms of human activity such as science, medicine, economics, politics, etc., are a consequence of a fortuitous confluence of six discrete aspects of life in the west: small competing states and the rise of democracies; the scientific method and free scientific investigations; the rule of law and private ownership of property; western medicine; the consumer society; the western/protestant work ethic. Whether you agree or disagree with these particulars is irrelevant. Ferguson is an economic historian, and while many might believe the role of historians is to merely tell what happened in history, one of the role of historians is to offer explanations and discussions as to why history happened as it did. He is putting forward a thesis just as historians before him have put forward theories to explain history, such as positing the price of bread under Louis XVI affected support for the French revolution (Simon Schama), or that supply lines hampered Germany in WWI; that Capitalism’s contradictions contain the seeds of its own destruction (Marx & Engels), or that imperialism is the highest/final form of capitalism (Lenin) Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. For Ferguson, I am not going to spend time evaluating whether his claims are right – as they are not falsifiable in a rigorously scientific sense. Rather, his illuminations and ruminations on history are intriguing. One proposal I found interesting is the contention that religiosity has decreased in Europe while religious feelings have never been higher in America because (much like businesses) religions are affected by market-like forces – in Europe, there are official state religions, the equivalent of economic central planning. However, in the US, there is the separation of church & state, and thus, religions institutions have to compete and evolve if they want to survive and thrive. The US has thousands of competing churches, and some large mega-churches are monopolizing markets just like WalMarts and other “Bigbox” superstores can monopolize regional economies. Meanwhile, in Europe, the religion "market" stagnated under state control, then collapsed from lack of demand.

It must also be mentioned that Ferguson has, over the past decade, gone from academic research to more overtly political works, beginning with Colossus – which argued that American global hyper-power is arguable a good thing, and that American foreign policy can be a benevolent good for the World. At least, considering the hypothetical alternatives – imagine a Nazi Germany with the economic/political/technological/military presence that the USA enjoys. Imagine China in 2080, as much advanced to the rest of the world as America was in 1980. (Are you unsettled by this image of a monolithic global hyperpower?) Still, with his paranoia about western civilization, I have a lingering feeling that Ferguson is veering into bad territory. Is Ferguson of the twenty-first century what Oswald Spengler was in 1922 in The Decline of the West? I am far from the first to worry about this, as the London Review of Books’ review of Civilisation turned into a full-blown NERD WAR, including threats of libel and accusations of "gallimaufry” (The indecency!) Embarrassing for everyone involved.

The organization of this book must be commented on. Why is there a section on personal liberty in the French Revolution discussed in the chapter on Science? Incongruities such as this abound. This is the ramshackle approach to investigating his six discrete topic areas. If anything, the book should have been harmonized along clearer lines of inquiry. The final chapter, “Conclusion: The Rivals”, I have to give rave reviews to, as Ferguson’s voice is powerfully evident as a grand systemitizer and synthesizer of larger historical forces. Another task for historians is to clarify, magnify, and simplify complex occurrences. However, he does not fall into the idealist/continental trap of offering a grant theory of history. Rather, he recounts all the historians who have done this before, checking in with Gibbons, Hegel, and Giambattista Vico, Adam Smith, Spengler, and on to Paul Kennedy, Samuel P. Huntington and Jared Diamond, each offering their steps for the evolution of civilsations, and framing the large struggle of the next century as between the US and China, relying on plenty of economic data. Two failings of this view: 1) he commits the flaw of thinking of civilisations as merely complex systems capable of hard-science number-crunching analysis. He’s over-abstracting the concept of civilization in order to draw out salient/sensational points. Nobody agrees on what exactly “western civilization” is, and in any event, its way more complex than any mere hard science has the conceptual tools or methods to analyze. 2) In his contrast between Western and Eastern Civilisation and his recitation of history’s thinkers on what civilization is, he has wholly omitted Karl Popper’s thoughts on what an open society is, and why this makes the West profoundly stronger than a Closed Society The Open Society And Its Enemies, Volume One: The Spell of Plato. A one-party paternalistic government cannot simply order its people to get creative, innovate, and follow their dreams and build amazing machines and profound works of art to inspire. Only an open society can, a society which allows people the freedom of thought to be themselves and develop, and the freedom of action to built the future. This is the society which we enjoy in the west, and this is the seventh “Killer App” he has somehow overlooked amidst his warnings, lost behind the gathering shadows of trade imbalances and “numbers of patents-filed” statistics.

In all, an interesting, well-researched, thought-provoking, and illuminating read. I would have preferred footnotes rather than endnotes.(less)

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Aug 03, 2011 Karl Rove added it

Shelves: read-in-2011

I read everything this man writes that I can lay my hands on. He’s an opinionated, deeply informed, pungent, pugnacious, provocative and often surprising writer. On these scores, his latest book doesn’t disappoint.

A companion volume to British television series of the same name, this trans-Atlantic historian (he teaches at Harvard and Oxford and this year at the London School of Economics) argues the West grew to world dominance because it embraced competition, the scientific revolution, the rul...more

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Feb 12, 2012 Alfredo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a book that you have to digest...I finished it about an hour ago and I am not totally sure what to make of it.

Ferguson takes us on a whirlwind historical and analytical tour of Western civilization in a quest to explain what differentiated it from other cultures and how those differences gave an economic, cultural, political, and military edge.

The author proposes a thesis around six killer apps that distinguished the West:

1) Competition
2) Cultural and industrial revolutions
3) Science
4) P...more

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Apr 20, 2013 Paul rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

This is the third Niall Ferguson book I've read after War of the World and Empire (which I thought was a very good read). Ferguson for me is always something of a challenge, I'm on the left politically and if there is one thing can be said about Ferguson it is that he is rather keen on the free market, very keen! He kicks opponents of the free market very hard (especially Marx who I think Ferguson mistreats). The book is an argument over why western society transformed itself from feudal backwat...more

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About Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson (born April 18, 1964, in Glasgow) is a British (Scottish) historian who specialises in financial and economic history as well as the history of empire. He is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and the William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He was educated at the private Glasgow Academy in Scotland, and at Magdal...more

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Books by Niall Ferguson

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

Empire: How Britain Made The Modern World

The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West

Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire

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“Was there something distinctive about American civil society that gave democracy a better chance than in France, as Tocqueville argued? Was the already centralized French state more likely to produce a Napoleon than the decentralized United States? We cannot be sure. But it is not unreasonable to ask how long the US constitution would have lasted if the United States had suffered the same military and economic strains that swept away the French constitution of 1791” — 1 person liked it

“-- kulttuurien kamppailu Huntingtonin merkityksessä tuntuu edelleen kaukaiselta mahdollisuudelta. Pikemminkin näemme samankaltaisen siirroksen, joka 500 viime vuoden mittaan päättyi miltei aina lännen eduksi. Yksi sivilisaatio heikkenee, toinen vahvistuu. Ratkaiseva kysymys ei ole, ryhtyvätkö ne taistelemaan, vaan heilahtaako heikompi heikkoudesta suoranaiseen kaaokseen.” — 1 person liked it

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