Why The West Rules~For Now

This short review is written by a friend of the Buku Project's, Nazri Awang*

This brilliant book is written by Ian Morris, a professor of history at Stanford University. In it, he argues that it is geography rather than racial supremacy, religion, or luck that somehow shapes the world as we know it today. From the start to finish, the author tries to compress and summarize 15000 years of humanity development into a comprehensive analysis of bits and pieces of history, as left by our ancestors.

Over the very long period of human existence, the old world was already shaped by its two geographically unique communities of the east and the west. Morris focused more on the biggest and most developed civilizations at different time instances, therefore some empires were not mentioned as frequently as the more prosperous ones. The main theme of the book was about the advantage of backwardness, explaining how a previously laggard, poorly governed area can evolve in a span of a few hundred years, overtaking the previous super-power.

Western centre of civilization had changed plenty of times, from the ashes of the Greek empire, more city-states sprawled and grew faster than ever. The Romans, Persians, ancient Egyptians were the stars of their time, each one of them occupying distinct prosperous period. Renaissance movement induced more development in northern Europe, Britain in particular. However, in 20th century Pax Britannica slowly faded away and from there, came the new super-power in the form of the Great United States of America.

A similar kind of development was unfolding in the east as well, largely in Chinese mainland. Throughout history, it was not always the west who hold the the winner cap. The east was far on top for a few hundred years before western Europe bounced back from its dark age. Again, applying the theory of advantages of backwardness, the hegemony of the world will always change, favouring those who successfully adapt themselves to the changes in humanity evolution faster and better than the rest, it is inevitable.

"The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see." ~ Churchill

*Nazri Awang is a final year MORSE student at the University of Warwick and is expected to graduate in a few months. Nazri now lives in Coventry and keeps a very informative blog: http://www.nazriawang.com/