history

Civilization: Is the West History episode 6: The sixth element that enabled the West to dominate the rest was the work ethic. Max Weber famously linked it to Protestantism, but the reality is that any culture regardless of religion is capable of embracing the spirit of capitalism by working hard, saving and accumulating capital. The question is why that ethic seems now to be fading in the West. Europeans no longer work long hours; Americans have almost given up saving completely.     The real workers and savers in the world are now the heirs of Confucius and not Calvin.

Civilization: Is the West History episode 5: Today the world is becoming more homogenous and, with increasingly few exceptions, big-name brands dominate main streets, high streets and shopping malls all over the globe. We dress the same; we want the same latest technological kit; we drive the same cars. But where did this uniformity come from? The answer is the combination of the industrial revolution and the consumer society.     Originating in Britain but flourishing most spectacularly in America, the advent of mass consumption has changed the way the world worked. Led by the Japanese, one non-Western society after

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