MORRIS, Ian - Why The West Rules - For Now - (Excellent Hardcover in Wrapper)

Book looks new and unread to me - Fascinating reading - 750 pages - Illustrated with maps and graphs - WOW !!! - Great index behind.  >>>   Why did British boats shoot their way up the Yangzi in 1842, rather than Chinese ones up the Thames? Why do Easterners use English more than Europeans speak in Mandarin or Japanese? To put it bluntly, why does the West rule? There are two schools of thought: the 'Long-Term Lock In' theory, suggesting some sort of inevitability, and the 'Short-Term Accident' theory. But both approaches have misunderstood the shape of history. Ian Morris presents a startling new theory. He explains with flair and authority why the paths of development differed in the East and West and - analysing a vicious twist in trajectories just ahead of us - predicts when the West's lead will come to an end.'Here you have three books wrapped into one: an exciting novel that happens to be true; an entertaining but thorough historical account of everything important that happened to any important people in the last 10 millennia; and an educated guess about what will happen in the future. Read, learn, and enjoy!  'A great work of synthesis and argument, drawing together an awesome range of materials and authorities to bring us a fresh, sharp reading of East-West relationships. (Methinks Africa doesn't figure) The nearest thing to a unified field theory of history we are ever likely to get. With wit and wisdom, Ian Morris deploys the techniques and insights of the new ancient history to address the biggest of all historical questions: Why on earth did the West beat the Rest ?  Ian Morris is a classical archaeologist, an ancient historian and a writer of such breathtaking vision and scope as to make him fit to be ranked alongside the likes of Jared Diamond and David Landes. His magnum opus is a tour not just d'horizon but de force, taking us as it does on a spectacular journey to and from and many points between the two nodal cores of a Euramerican West and a far east Asian East, alighting and reflecting as suggestively upon 10,800 BC as upon AD 2010. The shape of globalizing history may well never be quite the same again. 'So what', he asks himself and us? The answer can only be - a very great deal indeed. At last - a brilliant historian with a light touch. - Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography, UCLA, and Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel loved it.

 *N.B.*  Dis natuurlik beter om meer as een boek by my te koop want dan betaal jy net R 6 posgeld vir elk van jou verdere boeke – Kyk wat het ek nog, dis dalk die moeite werd.