Why The West Rules – For Now Book Summary - Why The West Rules – For Now Book explained in key points

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Why The West Rules – For Now summary

Name: Why The West Rules – For Now
Rating: 4.4 (72 reviews)
Author: Ian Morris

Ian Morris

The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

4.4 (72 ratings)

24 mins

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Wars European History Global Politics

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Why The West Rules – For Now
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What’s in it for me? Learn how the West became the West.

Without doubt, the modern world is dominated by the West. The West, particularly England, was the crucible of the Industrial Revolution that began in 1760. It boosted Western economies, and since then the dominance of the West has been unquestioned.

But there’s more to history and understanding the world than just contemporary politics. There are other ways to explain current Western rule.

To uncover this, we have to go back thousands of years to the birth of two civilizations: one in Mesopotamia and one in China. The birth of these two civilizations was the beginning of the West-East divide. Since then, each has had its own respective golden age. The West is currently outpacing the East, but for how long will it last?

In these blinks, you’ll learn:

why the earliest artistic cave paintings were found in Europe and nowhere else;
how one eighteenth-century Scottish inventor helped the West leap ahead of the East; and
when the Chinese-dominated East will take over from the West in the future.

Common theories for today’s Western dominance are easily debunked.

There’s no escaping it. The West still dominates global politics and development. The explanations for how this came about are varied, but they broadly fall into two schools of thought.

There are what have been termed “short-term accident” theories. They argue that today’s Western rule results from mere historical luck. In contrast, “long-term lock-in” theories advocate that some sort of critical factor exists in the foundations of the West, consequently "locking in” the certainty of Western dominance millennia ago. Unfortunately, many proponents of lock-in theories favor arguments for Western genetic or cultural superiority.

It’s not just that lock-in theories are problematic; they also don’t hold water.

Let’s take long-term lock-in theories based on biological reasoning as an example. They argue that the genetic lock-in occurred 600,000 years ago when two distinct species of Homo developed, the Eastern Homo erectus and the Western Homo antecessor.

But that means nothing, as Homo sapiens – modern humans – superseded both of these species around 300,000 years ago. Racial theories based on genetic superiority can, therefore, be disproved.

But how do cultural lock-in theories stack up?

In 1879, archaeologists discovered incredible cave paintings of animals in Altamira, dating back 30,000 years. No other art this old has been found. This information is used by some lock-in theorists to suggest that Western culture is uniquely creative.

But it’s just coincidence. At the time, Europe was confronted with the Ice Age. Consequently, early Western humans spent more time in caves keeping warm. That’s where they refined their drawing skills. The argument’s strengthened by the fact that after the Ice Age ended, we have no more evidence of similar cave drawings.

We’re going to have to delve a good deal deeper to explain today’s Western dominance. We'll find that neither long-term lock-in nor short-term accident theories can explain it.

As we’ll see, it’s all about a dynamic interplay between biology, sociology and geography.

Eastern and Western historical development has barely differed.

West and East are amorphous terms, so the author is precise. For him, the West began in the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East and Egypt and expanded westward from there. The East encompasses civilizations that developed between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers in China.

If you want to compare East and West, you must start by evaluating social development scientifically and rigorously.

The West got a running start after the last Ice Age thanks to geography.

About 100,000 years ago the world slid into a long glacial period. Ice covered large portions of the Northern hemisphere.

To survive this harsh environment, humans developed a strategy. They lived as small groups, set up camps, killed animals and scavenged for edible plants before moving on to the next location.

By the first millennium BCE, Eastern and Western social development were almost level.

After ten thousand years of coursing ahead, the West found that its lead over the East had been reduced to a whisker.

In 1200 BCE, Eastern development was a thousand years behind. However, the West's sudden crisis in the Mediterranean meant that Eastern social development could begin to catch up. This crisis is known as the Late Bronze Age collapse.

The start of the first millennium saw the rise and fall of great empires.

The arrival of centrally organized high-end states meant the age of empires had arrived. In the West, the Assyrian and Persian empires were the first fully-fledged high-end states. In the East, it was the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE) that blazed the trail.

But these forerunners paled in comparison with what came next. In the East, the most prominent high-end state was the Chinese Han Empire. In the West, the Romans were dominant.

In 1100 CE Eastern social development peaked, but the West split.

Western social development continued to outpace Eastern at the start of the first millennium. The Roman Empire at its peak had double the coinage in circulation as the Han dynasty.

It was only when the western half of the Roman Empire began its decline that the Chinese Eastern empire hit its stride. For starters, the East recovered more quickly from the downfall of its early empire. By 1100 CE it had reached a new peak in social development and overtaken the West.

Between 1000 and 1500 Western social development leaped forward due to new trading routes.

You’ll no doubt know the Venetian merchant Marco Polo who composed his celebrated travelogue at the start of the fourteenth century. It was a marvelous account of his journeys in the East. The Chinese palaces and the wealth of rulers he described knew no equal in the West. China’s social development was simply eons ahead of his world’s.

But things would soon change. By the late thirteenth century, Eastern social development had plummeted. China was fighting interminable wars against the Mongols on their northern frontiers. In the wake of the Mongol advance, China’s complex infrastructure collapsed. Instead of an expected industrial advance, China was faced with destruction, famine and disease. By the time Polo put pen to paper the world he portrayed had already ceased to exist.

The Industrial Revolution signaled the start of Western rule.

Between 1500 and 1800 the social development scores of both the East and West continued to rise. But the pace of change was uneven. Western social development was advancing at twice the rate of the East.

By the late eighteenth century, the West had finally managed to overtake the East.

Despite major wars, the twentieth century was a high point for the West.

The twentieth century was grim. It saw the largest, most abominable and disastrous wars known to humankind: the First World War and the Second World War. The Cold War that followed stretched over almost half a century, between 1947 and 1991.

Among them, the three wars resulted in a hundred million deaths and threatened human survival itself.

The East is expected to regain its lead by 2103, but there are many unknowns.

So the West rules – for now. But how long will it last?

The author has extrapolated Eastern and Western social development indices and calculated that the East will regain its lead by 2103. Or rather, that will be the point when Western rule comes to an end.

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What is Why The West Rules – For Now about?

Why The West Rules – For Now (2010) is a treatise on Western rule. It examines what “the West” is and how its current dominance came about. Starting with the earliest development of humankind, it rules out racist genetic beliefs and theories of cultural superiority. It describes how East and West have been locked neck and neck in a race for advancement up to the present day. And, of course, it goes on to address the question: will the West’s dominance last?

Best quote from Why The West Rules – For Now

Scientists are often criticized for taking the wonder out of the world, but they generally do so in the hope of putting truth in its place.

—Ian Morris

Who should read Why The West Rules – For Now?

Anyone wondering why or if the West rules – and what “the West” is
Historians and archaeologists
Politicians and those interested in politics

About the Author

Ian Morris is the Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and a fellow of the Stanford Archaeology Center. He has written and edited a number of academic books, including The Greeks and The Dynamics of Ancient Empires. Morris is a popular guest on television shows.

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