Why the West rules and the lessons of history

Perhaps just before Christmas was not the best time to start writing a blog, as I have been too busy to write much since I started this blog about a month ago (2 posts a month being a shameful output). But better to get started than to never start at all I suppose!

Rather than writing predictions for the year ahead or anything like that I thought I'd write something about a book that I have been reading over the holiday period, and some thoughts it has provoked.

It is a fascinating book that I would thoroughly recommend that you read, which I have only just finished today. The book is called "Why the West Rules - For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future." and was written by Ian Morris (Professor in Classics and History at Stanford University) and published in 2010.

The book is fascinating in a number of ways, as it attempts to go back into ancient history and trace the rise of early human civilizations through to the present day. The book focuses on the two distinct zones of development which gave rise to the Western core (starting in the Hilly Flanks in the modern day Middle East before moving westward through the Mediterranean to North West Europe and then to North America) and the Eastern core which has moved less but expanded almost as much from central China.

It shows how social development (based on a number of measures) has gone upwards and downwards in history. An obvious example for Europe being the period following the collapse of the (Western) Roman empire and the subsequent fall in social development in most of Europe until the days of the industrial revolution in Britain in the 18th Century. During much of this long period the East led the world in social development, and could be said to have ruled the world.

The book discusses some of the key drivers of social development, summarised quite worryingly as fear, laziness and greed. It is also interesting to note some of the theories that are discussed in the book, such as the advantages of backwardness, and how regions which were once peripheries become dominant over time by learning from their more socially advanced neighbours and adapting the best bits to their own cultures. This being how north west Europe slowly became the dominant part of the European continent which had previously been dominated by the Mediterranean area.

It is also interesting to see how all the great empires of history eventually crumbled when they were stretched too thin and their weaknesses were exploited by innovative neighbours. It shows quite clearly that geography is (or maybe that should be was) the main shaper of human history, and that the West took an early lead in social development due to the Hilly Flanks being endowed with a larger range of domestic-able plants and animals than the worlds other early civilisations.

While reading the book it is easy to make comparisons between the big empires of history and more modern and smaller units of political power, and I think there are a number of lessons for countries like Wales and Britain that could be learnt from the book. They would take quite a bit of explaining, and you may draw your own conclusions so I would recommend that you read the book if you want to know what I'm getting at. But I think it is safe to say that countries like Wales (or Britain) have both suffered because of their geography and been saved by it. For example Wales was largely protected from Anglo-Saxon and then Norman advance because of its largely mountainous landscape, it has also suffered more recently as it made connecting much of Wales with itself a more difficult task. Britain in a similar but opposite way, suffered early on from being an island, only for that problem to later on become an advantage, protecting the island from outside aggression and forcing it to become a maritime power. Geography shapes development, and then development shapes geography.

The final part of the book looks to the future and whether the 21st century will be the century when world power shifts from its current location in the United States to the East (largely focused in China, at least to start). It also asks some new questions such as whether the concepts of East and West will exist in the future before straying into the realms of science fiction, discussing how robotics, nanotechnology, genetic science and other new technologies will completely revolutionise social development. There is also a warning that the next 40 years could be the most important years in human history, where we will either face an ever accelerating level of social development or an apocalyptic end of days scenario which the author calls Nightfall after the Isaac Asimov short story. We live in interesting times.

One lesson that I think is relevant at the beginning of a new year being how often we fail to learn the lessons of history and how often we make the same mistakes. But saying that, it also shows how difficult it is to make good decisions in any case, as with the long view of history it is easy to see how decisions that at the time seemed good, but had terrible long term consequences. Let us hope we muddle on through the 21st century with a bit of luck.

If you want to understand why the world is the way it is, why certain countries are the way they are, if you want to have a good grasp of modern geopolitics or you want to see what the future may hold then I think this is a book you should read.



*I hope to comment shortly on the Williams Commission Report which has recently been released and how I think it will effect public services in Wales. Thereby keeping my earlier promise to comment on topical news as well as other things.