Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History and What They Reveal About the Future (review) (original) (raw)
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The rise of the West in the context of Spengler’s “world-history” should not only confer the title of great benefactor to one source or civilization rather to all parts of the grand macrocosm of history. While western civilization and the idea of European history can be associated with huge steps in technological innovation and maritime expansion of territory, historians must not discount the fact that other civilizations especially those in the Eurasian continents and Africa have also played a role in the institutionalization of what we now recognize as world history or the modern world.
The Rise of Western Power: a Comparative History of Western Civilization
Reviews in History, 2014
's massive book will serve as a tonic for those anxious that the western world is slipping. It will serve as a red flag for specialists in the history of just about everywhere else, in the unlikely event they read beyond chapter one. As a story of innovation and achievement in the history of the West, this is a fine book, with many insightful passages and interesting details. As a comparative history, it is peppered with intellectual disasters. Fortunately the comparative bits amount to no more than about 10 per cent of the text. The first thing to note about Daly's effort is its sheer mass. It includes 404 pp. of small-print text, followed by 116 pp. of notes and then a bibliography of some 1,900 references. Daly cannot be faulted for industriousness. It appears that either he or his publisher hopes for an audience that includes the segment of the general public that takes part in book clubs: each chapter ends with a handful of 'questions for reflection'. Each begins with a timeline of events. Whether the book-club public has the necessary stamina for Daly's book is an open question.
"The Decline of the West": What Is It, and Why Might It Matter
ASIAGLOBAL PAPERS, 2020
The international order created under the auspices of "American hegemony" appears to be unraveling during the erratic and nationalistic leadership of Donald Trump, and the growing geopolitical and geoeconomic competition between the United States and China. Many commentators fear that such tensions will lead to the demise of the so-called rules-based international order in particular, and to the declining influence of values, principles and norms associated with "the West" in general. This paper analyses these developments by putting them in historical context, considering what was distinctive about the "rise of the West", and explaining why the relative decline of American influence may prove so consequential. The key questions that animate the discussion are: what is at stake in the possible decline of the West? Does the rise of China presage the emergence of a very different sort of international order than the one currently dominant?
Review of How the West Came to Rule
Journal of World-Systems Research
This is a book which invites us to reconsider what we thought we knew and understood about a Europe’s rise. It examines the historical origin of Europe’s capitalism in the growing call for internationality that can explain the uneven and combined histories of European and non-European regions. This view asks us to use the lens of relational and hierarchical perspectives, which contain various types of interconnected narratives between European and non-European regions in Europe’s exceptional rise, instead of accepting the self-generating development of the West.
CHAPTER 7 The Rise of the West
Musket, Map and Money: How Military Technology Shaped Geopolitics and Economics
The Rise of the West 161 Refer to Anderson and Marcouiller (2005) for a theoretical treatment. Refer to Abu-Lughod, J. L. (1989) and Findlay and O'Rourke (2007) on the impacts of the Mongolian Empire on global economic exchanges. 166 Refer to Huang (1974, 1981) for an in depth study of the stagnation and decline of Ming Dynasty. Wesson (1978, p. 198) comments: "...... Commerce brings hand and brain together, as noted by Needham (1953), who saw the weakness of the merchant class in imperial China as the chief cause of the inhibition of science......"
Focusing chiefly on the period from the 18th Century to the present, this course analyzes the most significant political, social, intellectual and economic trends that have shaped contemporary societies. HH216 examines the global impact of European and American cultures over the past three centuries and explores the most important reactions to modernity in both Western and non-Western societies. In doing so, the course situates the West in a global context and prepares students to think critically and comparatively about a changing world.