Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes

by Tamim Ansary

That is, no one looking at machine-made consumer goods said, “Gee, we, too, should have a Reformation and develop a cult of individualism and then undergo a long period of letting reason erode the authority of faith while developing political institutions that encourage free inquiry so that we can happen onto the ideas of modern science while at the same time evolving an economic system built on competition among private businesses so that when our science spawns new technologies we can jump on them and thus, in a few hundred years, quite independently of Europe, make these same sorts of goods ourselves.” No, people said, “Nice goods, where can we get some?”