Civilisation: Is The West History?

Civilisation: Is The West History?

Recently shown on Channel 4, leading historian Niall Ferguson looks at Western civilisation and asks whether the Western civilisation that has been dominant for over five centuries is now in decline. Civilisation's come and go, with examples such as the Roman Empire, the Greeks and the Mayans still showing us how the mighty eventually fall. Western civilisation has rather inauspicious roots in the 15th century that over time came to thoroughly dominate the rest of the world. Why was this?

Ferguson argues that the West had six killer apps, or applications, that differentiated Western civilisation from its counterparts and that these are:

Competition
Science
Property
Medicine
Consumerism
Work

In each of 6 episodes, Ferguson explores each of these killer apps (loving the iPhone speak...) and explains how he feels that these helped the West to prosper over over similar civilisations at the time and therefore secure the lion's share of the earth's resources. And he does a pretty good job too. It's clear that Ferguson knows what he's talking about and his explanation carry an authority and authenticity to them. The only problem I had is that his comparisons are limited to a degree. In that I mean that he doesn't compare the killer app with what was happening in the rest of the world but only in a portion of the world, so therefore he talks about Competition with China and Science with Islamic countries. Then he looks at Property as a competition to resettle both the US and South America, but here it's essentially Britain in North America against another Western power (Spain) in South America and their differing views on property ownership.

Overall though, it's a fascinating series that really does give you food for thought as well providing an interesting history lesson. So is the West history? I doubt it, but it's clear that the West overall seems to have lost its self-belief, something that Ferguson holds central to any possible decline. His main point is that despite some of the not so great things that came out of Western Empires, there was also a lot of good and the tendency to ignore those and forever apologise for our past Imperial transgressions is ultimately not helping us.

And there, I quite agree with him...