Civilizația. Vestul și Restul by Niall Ferguson

England on the eve of the Wars of the Roses would have seemed quite primitive by contrast. The first episode begins in 1420 when Ming China had a credible claim to be the most advanced civilization in the world: 'All Under Heaven'. However, Ferguson argues that the days of Western predominance are numbered because the Rest have finally downloaded the six killer apps the West once monopolised – while the West has literally lost faith in itself.

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.

Civilizația. Vestul și Restul by Niall Ferguson