Why the West Rules—for Now
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
Why the West Rules—for Now
| Full title | Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future |
|---|---|
| Author | Ian Morris |
| Published | 2010 |
| Pages | 750 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Morris argues Western dominance is neither an accident of the last two centuries nor evidence of superior culture, but geography acting on a species that is everywhere much the same — measured with a “social development index” run from the last ice age to the present, on which East and West trade the lead repeatedly and the East regains it this century. |
Why the West Rules—for Now
Where I heard about it
- Li Lu — on Li Lu’s Recommended Book List, the Himalaya Capital bibliography, in its first section, Science, Philosophy, Evolution, History of Human Civilization, Human History. Li Lu opens with the claim that you should understand human beings as an evolved species and civilisation as a measurable process before forming opinions about markets or nations; Morris is the most quantitative version of that claim on the list.
About this edition
Morris is a Stanford classicist and archaeologist. His index is built from energy capture, urbanisation, war-making capacity and information technology, and on it the industrial revolution is only the most recent swing. Li Lu cites the Picador 2011 paperback; the book first appeared in 2010.
Connections
- Li Lu — the curator, and the reason a book of deep history sits alongside Graham and Munger.
- Himalaya Capital — the firm whose bibliography this is.
- Historical Futurism — reading long-run patterns forward is exactly the move.
- Evolution — Morris’s premise that human beings are the same everywhere, so the variable is environment.
- History and Progress — the measured, indexed version of both.
- China — the half of the story the index says is returning to the lead.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.