Review: Civilization: The West and the Rest, by Niall Ferguson
Q&A: Niall Ferguson is one of the world’s leading historians but he does have his critics.
Last Updated: June 15, 2011
Some suggest he is nothing but an old colonialist dressed up in intellectual garb. Is that fair? That's a bit of an over-simplification. Ferguson is certainly aware and proud of his western heritage, but his works really are well-researched and well-argued. You don't get to be professor of history at Harvard if you're just an imperial throwback.
Does he ignore those other "achievements" of western civilization, like the world wars and mass murders of the 20th century? No, he does not, in fact they are something of a speciality. He calls them "barbaric and atavistic", and has special condemnation for the behaviour of the European imperialists in Africa, although he says the French and British were better than the Germans.
So, should we all start to learn putonghua, the "common tongue" as the Chinese call their language? Well, up to a point. Ferguson says that one of the reasons the Rest have caught up and might be overtaking the West is that they have successfully adapted some of the "killer apps", and the English language, to their own circumstances. You'll probably get by with English for the next few years.
What fun it must be being Niall Ferguson. The Glasgow-born history professor is perhaps the most prominent of the circle of "celebrity academics" who have risen to fame in recent years, and he makes the most of it.
Handsome, smart and energetic, with high-profile jobs on both sides of the Atlantic - Harvard, London School of Economics - he enjoys the lifestyle that goes with the fame, and the multimillion-dollar TV spin-offs that accompany his books.
Good luck to him. He writes beautifully, and is always ready to take on the big themes of history: the rise and fall of empires; mankind's fatal fascination with war; and the role of money in historical development.
His latest work, Civilization: The West and the Rest, is a slight departure because it is almost as much futurology as history.
Ferguson poses the big question: why, for a period of 400 years or so, has European and American culture, technology, language and science apparently dominated the rest of the world? And, crucially, can western hegemony continue with the rise of Asian countries, mainly India and China, as global economic and military powers?
The past four centuries, he notes, have been the historical exception rather than the rule. For most of the past 2,000 years it was Asian states that dominated the world via trade and military power. Ferguson draws an illuminating contrast between mighty Nanjing in 1420, when the Chinese city was the biggest in the world, and down-at-heel, plague-ravaged London.
Six factors, what he calls irritatingly "killer apps", changed it all in the West's favour, some time about the year 1600: entrepreneurial competition; modern science; property-owning democracy; medicine; consumerism; and the work ethic. These gave the West such dynamic advantages that by 1900 Europe and North America dominated the Rest.
5: Books by Niall Ferguson
1 The House of Rothschild (1999)
2 The Cash Nexus (2001)
3 Colossus: The Price of America's Empire (2004)
4 War of the World (2006
5 The Ascent of Money (2008)
Will it continue? He suggests in the end that the West has lost its old self-confidence, and needs to rediscover those virtues if it is to continue lording it over the Rest.
The Quote: Somehow the communists failed to understand the appeal of a garment that could equally well have symbolised the virtues of the hard-working Soviet citizen - blue denim jeans. From Niall Ferguson's Civilization: The West and the Rest