Civilization: The West and the Rest with Niall Ferguson
Hosted by CBC's Adrian Harewood
Civilization is often beguiling in its detail. Ferguson is good at arresting comparisons. His pairings of places, people and events keeps the argument racing along
From one of our most renowned historians, Civilization is the definitive history of Western civilization's rise to global dominance-and the "killer applications" that made this improbable ascent possible. Yet six hundred years ago the petty kingdoms of Western Europe seemed unlikely to achieve much more than perpetual internecine warfare. How did the West overtake its Eastern rivals? And has the zenith of Western power now passed?
In Civilization: The West and the Rest, bestselling author 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, consumerism, modern medicine, and the work ethic. Yet now, Ferguson argues, the days of Western predominance are numbered-not because of clashes with rival civilizations, but simply because the Rest have now downloaded the six killer apps we once monopolized-while the West has literally lost faith in itself.
