Civilization

“What I found interesting and what I like about this book is the fact that Niall takes a very broad look at the East-West theme. When people are looking at this issue of East versus West, or West versus the Rest, they tend to focus either on politics (which is very important and we’ll talk about that when we discuss Richard McGregor’s book on the Chinese Communist Party) or on economics. But there has not been anything that I have read that has been more all-encompassing: looking at religion, looking at East versus West not just as US versus China, but also bringing in other elements like Islam, cultural aspects, historical context, work ethic, Calvinism. So that’s what really drew me to this book. If I were to be critical of an economist’s perspective, it’s that we tend to have a very narrow lens. What Niall has done is added additional pillars to the discourse by bringing in the historical context, covering religion, technological advance, and many other things that are relevant but would fall outside the purview of an economist or a political scientist.” Read more...

The best books on The Decline of the West

Dambisa Moyo, Economist