I’ve just finished Ian Morris’s Why the West Rules…For Now and can confidently suggest that if you only ever read one history book, this is it. Morris tells a new kind of scientific history, beginning with human evolution, the growth of technology, and shows how our civilisation really works. He shifts the perspective to show how parochial some of our concerns are. In short: it’s the big picture he gives us.
The analysis of the past is utterly compelling but it’s his prognosis that is most telling. We are reaching one of the great barriers to development, such as human beings have faced several times before: in the Younger Dryas Cold Spell around 10,800 BCE, the Bronze Dark Age of 1200 BCE, the Fall of Rome, etc. He says there are two ways it could go and there is unlikely to be a fudged halfway house. In many respects his work ties in with several other recent thinkers. Jared Diamond is his most obvious influence. James Lovelock is in there too and this probably isn’t an influence but there are similarities to David Deutch’s recent The Beginning of Infinity. These are two magnificent books that everyone should read.
The analysis of the past is utterly compelling but it’s his prognosis that is most telling. We are reaching one of the great barriers to development, such as human beings have faced several times before: in the Younger Dryas Cold Spell around 10,800 BCE, the Bronze Dark Age of 1200 BCE, the Fall of Rome, etc. He says there are two ways it could go and there is unlikely to be a fudged halfway house. In many respects his work ties in with several other recent thinkers. Jared Diamond is his most obvious influence. James Lovelock is in there too and this probably isn’t an influence but there are similarities to David Deutch’s recent The Beginning of Infinity. These are two magnificent books that everyone should read.
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