How did the West come to dominate the world?

Ready to sleep this weekend, sutiben was going through the channels on the TV when all of a sudden find a special PBS show called “Civilization: The West and the Rest with Niall Feruguson” 1. It’s a documentary that tries to explain how Western cultures came to dominate the world when in the past the East were in a better position. You can watch the video here until it’s taken down on June 22, 2012, so you should probably hurry.

Even people in history have asked similar questions.

Why do Christian nations which were so weak in the past compared with Muslim nations begin to dominate so many lands in modern times and even defeat the once victorious Ottoman armies?

Ibrahim Muteferrika, Rational Bases for the Politics of Nations (1731)

Niall Feruguson breaks it down to six things:

  1. competition
  2. science
  3. democracy
  4. medicine
  5. consumerism
  6. and the work ethic

Anyway, thought you might be interested in this East vs West kind of thing.

UPDATE:Now in case they’re no longer showing it online, sutiben found another video called “Niall Ferguson: The 6 killer apps of prosperity”. ‘tis by the same author. Same info but not as interesting & no goes into China (which is what sutiben really wanted to show)

  1. Sutiben came in when they were discussing Ming China. (゜∇ ゜)ブ hehe Let’s just say suti no sleep early that night. ↩︎

What led the West to be so influential & powerful compared to the East?

What now? is it possible you can help suti by sharing… just because? (^_^)