Civilization: The West and the Rest
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
Civilization: The West and the Rest
| Author | Niall Ferguson |
|---|---|
| Published | 2011 |
| Recommended | 2 times |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Niall Ferguson asks why a handful of western European states came to dominate the world after 1500 and answers with six “killer applications” — competition, science, property rights, medicine, the consumer society and the work ethic — then makes the uncomfortable point that they are downloadable, the rest of the world has been downloading them, and the West may be losing the confidence that built them. |
Civilization: The West and the Rest
Where I heard about it
- Li Lu — on Li Lu’s Recommended Book List, in the deep-history section, as the institutional answer to the question Morris answers with an index and Diamond with geography. He cites the Penguin 2012 paperback.
- Ferguson’s own TED talk — The 6 Killer Apps of Prosperity (TEDGlobal 2011, Edinburgh), the 20-minute version of the book. Saved October 2026.
Connections
- Li Lu’s Recommended Book List — the list this came from.
- Li Lu — the Himalaya Capital founder who assembled it.
- Niall Ferguson — the author.
- Guns, Germs, and Steel — the geographic explanation Ferguson’s institutional one competes with, also in section I.
- The Wealth and Poverty of Nations — Landes on the same divergence, which Li Lu lists in his value-investing section instead.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.