The Measure of Civilization: How Social Development Decides the Fate of Nations

Description

Over the years, there have been fierce debates over how civilizations develop and why the West became so powerful. Using a numerical index of social development that compares societies in different times and places, the author gives a sweeping examination of Eastern and Western development across 15,000 years since the end of the last ice age.

Ian Morris is the Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and professor of history at Stanford University. His most recent book is the award-winning "Why the West Rules--for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal about the Future" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) which has been translated into eleven languages.

"Stanford University classicist and historian Morris follows up Why the West Rules--for Now with a sophisticated volume designed to add quantitative muscle to his earlier arguments. A big-history theorist working in a vein similar to Niall Ferguson or Jared Diamond, Morris measures societies' historical 'abilities to get things done in the world.' With an impressive data array, he calibrates energy resources, social organization, war-making capacity, and information technology over time to compare the East and West. In the 21st century, he foresees a shift in global power and wealth from West to East, much as it shifted from East to West in the 19th... The ingenuity and style of his arguments will make economists and historians stand up and take notice."--Publishers Weekly Praise for Ian Morris: "Morris is the world's most talented ancient historian, a man as much at home with state-of-the-art archaeology as with the classics as they used to be studied."--Niall Ferguson, Foreign Affairs Praise for Ian Morris: "Morris is a lucid thinker and a fine writer ... possessed of a welcome sense of humor that helps him guide us through this grand game of history as if he were an erudite sportscaster."--Orville Schell, New York Times Book Review