Take a photo of a barcode or cover
marc129 's review for:
This is another real doorstopper (750 pages, without notes and bibliography) about "the Great Divergence", the debate about why the West has gained such a head start in human history that it has come to dominate the world. Archaeologist Ian Morris is not just anyone, he’s a professor at Stanford University (California), and has a good reputation in Western ancient history. It is a bold undertaking that he has dared to tackle this tricky issue that so many others have gotten their teeth in. Judging from his bibliography and the notes, he did not do that a blink of the eye: this thick book is based on a cartload of reading material and every claim is, as it should be, substantiated with references.
Morris' view on the Divergence issue is that geographic coincidence was decisive for the (temporary) dominance of the West: because as a peripheral area in the Middle Ages, Western Europe frantically tried to get up to the level of the much richer Islamic world (which according to him at that time was the core area of the West), and because the Atlantic gave it much easier access to a vast area (the New World) with huge resources. Put a bit briefly, according to Morris everything else really didn't matter that much. The East (for him only limited to China) could just as well have achieved dominance, but it was much less challenged by geography.
The great strengths of this work are Morris' own systematic approach, with even an attempt to make a measurable comparison of human cultures, and the very legible, narrative character of this (almost) world-wide history. His major weaknesses, on the other hand, are a very negative view of what drives humanity, a questionable interpretation of what the terms "East" and "West" cover, and a geographical determinism that particularly undervalues the cultural factor in human history. For a detailed discussion of those strengths and weaknesses, see my review in my Senseofhistory account on Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/900953925
Morris' view on the Divergence issue is that geographic coincidence was decisive for the (temporary) dominance of the West: because as a peripheral area in the Middle Ages, Western Europe frantically tried to get up to the level of the much richer Islamic world (which according to him at that time was the core area of the West), and because the Atlantic gave it much easier access to a vast area (the New World) with huge resources. Put a bit briefly, according to Morris everything else really didn't matter that much. The East (for him only limited to China) could just as well have achieved dominance, but it was much less challenged by geography.
The great strengths of this work are Morris' own systematic approach, with even an attempt to make a measurable comparison of human cultures, and the very legible, narrative character of this (almost) world-wide history. His major weaknesses, on the other hand, are a very negative view of what drives humanity, a questionable interpretation of what the terms "East" and "West" cover, and a geographical determinism that particularly undervalues the cultural factor in human history. For a detailed discussion of those strengths and weaknesses, see my review in my Senseofhistory account on Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/900953925