Civilization shows exactly how a dozen Western empires came to control three-fifths of mankind and four-fifths of the world economy.
These became the "killer apps" that allowed the West to go ahead of the Rest opening global trade routes, exploiting new scientific knowledge, evolving representative government, increasing life expectancy, unleashing the industrial revolution, and hugely increasing human productivity.
In Civilization: Is the West history?, the British historian Niall Ferguson argues that, beginning in the fifteenth century, the West developed six powerful new concepts that the Rest lacked: competition, science, the rule of law, modern medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic. How did the West overtake its Eastern rivals? And has the zenith of Western power now passed? It was Ming China or Ottoman Turkey that had the look of world civilizations. Yet six hundred years ago the kingdoms of Western Europe seemed like miserable backwaters, ravaged by incessant war and pestilence. All around the world, more and more people study at universities, work for companies, vote for governments, take medicines, wear clothes, and play sports, all of which have strong 'western' influences. Description Īccording to the historian, Western civilization's rise to global dominance is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five centuries. Presented by Niall Ferguson, the show reveals the 'killer apps' of the West's success – competition, science, the property owning democracy, modern medicine, the consumer society and the Protestant work ethic – the real explanation of how, for five centuries, a clear minority of mankind managed to secure the majority of the earth's resources. British TV series or program Civilization: Is the West History?Ĭivilization: Is the West History? is a 2011 British TV documentary that tells how Western civilisation, in five centuries, transformed into the dominating civilisation in the world.
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