Civilization: Is the West History episode 4: Niall Ferguson looks at how late 19th-century advances in modern medicine made it possible to export Western civilization to the ‘Dark Continent’: Africa. The French Empire consciously set out to civilize West Africa by improving public health as well as building a modern infrastructure. Yet in other European empires – notably Germany’s in southwest Africa – colonial rule led to genocide. What was the link from medical science to racial pseudo-science?     The imperialists talked of their civilizing mission, but their rivalry ultimately caused world wars that endangered the West’s global dominance.

Civilization: Is the West History episode 3: Professor Ferguson asks why North America succeeded while South America for so many centuries lagged behind. The two had much in common (not least the subjugation of indigenous peoples and the use of slavery by European immigrants), but they differed profoundly on individual property rights, the rule of law and representative government.     There were two revolutions against royal rule between 1776 and 1820, yet Simón Bolívar was never able to be George Washington, and Latin America remained politically fragmented, socially divided and economically backward even as the United States rose to