Why the West Rules—for Now Quotes

“It has the heart of a tiger or wolf; greedy, loving profit, and untrustworthy, knowing nothing of ritual, duty, or virtuous conduct.” Yet despite being the antithesis of everything Confucian gentlemen held dear, Qin exploded from the edge of the Eastern core to conquer the whole of”
― Ian Morris, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

“Some think he was trying to invent monotheism; no less a luminary than Sigmund Freud argued that Moses stole this concept from Akhenaten while the Hebrews were in Egypt. There”
― Ian Morris, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

“the Founding Fathers (who, incidentally, tended to use the word “democracy” as a term of abuse, just one step above mob rule).”
― Ian Morris, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

“by restructuring themselves, inventing new institutions that kept them one step ahead of the disruptions that their continuing expansion itself generated.”
― Ian Morris, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

“people invested an estimated 30 million hours of labor in the most enigmatic monument of all, Stonehenge. One”
― Ian Morris, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

“In one grave, dating around 6250 BCE, the deceased’s head had been removed (shades of Çatalhöyük!) and replaced with sixteen turtle shells, two of them inscribed. Some of these signs—in the eyes of some scholars, at least—look strikingly like pictograms in China’s earliest full-blown writing system, used by the kings of the Shang dynasty five thousand years later.”
― Ian Morris, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

“while they were not very subtle instruments, modern Chinese folk songs can be played on them. By”
― Ian Morris, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

“Botanists have not explored the region very thoroughly (not even the Pakistani army has much stomach for poking around these wild tribal lands), so there may be surprises in store. And”
― Ian Morris, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

“(overgrazing, for instance, seems to have turned the Jordan Valley into a desert between 6500 and 6000 BCE), but”
― Ian Morris, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

“History has not come to an end with Western rule. The”
― Ian Morris, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

“An excavation director is a kind of academic impresario, bringing together talented artists who put on the show.”
― Ian Morris, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

“Maybe we need to throw out the old question and ask a new one: not why the West rules, but whether the West rules. If”
― Ian Morris, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future