The Measure of Civilization
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
The Measure of Civilization
| Full title | The Measure of Civilization: How Social Development Decides the Fate of Nations |
|---|---|
| Author | Ian Morris |
| Published | 2013 |
| Pages | 400 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Ian Morris builds a numerical index of social development — energy capture per person, organisation and urbanism, war-making capacity, information technology — and scores East against West from the end of the last ice age to now. The quantitative companion to his Why the West Rules — for Now, it exists to make claims about why the West pulled ahead, and when that lead might end, checkable rather than rhetorical. |
Where I heard about it
- Li Lu — on Li Lu’s Recommended Book List, in the opening deep-history section, where Morris is one of the authors listed twice (this book alongside Why the West Rules — for Now), which makes the measurement method part of the recommendation. He cites the Princeton University Press 2013 edition.
Connections
- Li Lu’s Recommended Book List — the list this came from.
- Li Lu — the Himalaya Capital founder who assembled it.
- Why the West Rules—for Now — Morris’s narrative companion volume, the entry immediately before this one on the list.
- Guns, Germs, and Steel — the entry that opens the same section; Morris is arguing in Diamond’s territory with a scoreboard.
- Sapiens — also in section I, the same deep-history frame told as narrative.
- Progress — the underlying question the index is trying to quantify.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.