Why the West Rules - For Now

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Author :
Publisher : McClelland & Stewart
ISBN 13 : 1551995816
Total Pages : 767 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (519 download)

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Book Synopsis Why the West Rules - For Now by : Ian Morris

Download or read book Why the West Rules - For Now written by Ian Morris and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2011-01-14 with total page 767 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does the West rule? In this magnum opus, eminent Stanford polymath Ian Morris answers this provocative question, drawing on 50,000 years of history, archeology, and the methods of social science, to make sense of when, how, and why the paths of development differed in the East and West — and what this portends for the 21st century. There are two broad schools of thought on why the West rules. Proponents of "Long-Term Lock-In" theories such as Jared Diamond suggest that from time immemorial, some critical factor — geography, climate, or culture perhaps — made East and West unalterably different, and determined that the industrial revolution would happen in the West and push it further ahead of the East. But the East led the West between 500 and 1600, so this development can't have been inevitable; and so proponents of "Short-Term Accident" theories argue that Western rule was a temporary aberration that is now coming to an end, with Japan, China, and India resuming their rightful places on the world stage. However, as the West led for 9,000 of the previous 10,000 years, it wasn't just a temporary aberration. So, if we want to know why the West rules, we need a whole new theory. Ian Morris, boldly entering the turf of Jared Diamond and Niall Ferguson, provides the broader approach that is necessary, combining the textual historian's focus on context, the anthropological archaeologist's awareness of the deep past, and the social scientist's comparative methods to make sense of the past, present, and future — in a way no one has ever done before.

Why The West Rules - For Now

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Author :
Publisher : Profile Books
ISBN 13 : 1847652948
Total Pages : 767 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (476 download)

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Book Synopsis Why The West Rules - For Now by : Ian Morris

Download or read book Why The West Rules - For Now written by Ian Morris and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2010-11-04 with total page 767 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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!' Jared Diamond '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.' Andrew Marr

Why the West Rules—for Now

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Author :
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 1429977043
Total Pages : 766 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

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Book Synopsis Why the West Rules—for Now by : Ian Morris

Download or read book Why the West Rules—for Now written by Ian Morris and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2010-10-12 with total page 766 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book for 2011 Sometime around 1750, English entrepreneurs unleashed the astounding energies of steam and coal, and the world was forever changed. The emergence of factories, railroads, and gunboats propelled the West's rise to power in the nineteenth century, and the development of computers and nuclear weapons in the twentieth century secured its global supremacy. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, many worry that the emerging economic power of China and India spells the end of the West as a superpower. In order to understand this possibility, we need to look back in time. Why has the West dominated the globe for the past two hundred years, and will its power last? Describing the patterns of human history, the archaeologist and historian Ian Morris offers surprising new answers to both questions. It is not, he reveals, differences of race or culture, or even the strivings of great individuals, that explain Western dominance. It is the effects of geography on the everyday efforts of ordinary people as they deal with crises of resources, disease, migration, and climate. As geography and human ingenuity continue to interact, the world will change in astonishing ways, transforming Western rule in the process. Deeply researched and brilliantly argued, Why the West Rules—for Now spans fifty thousand years of history and offers fresh insights on nearly every page. The book brings together the latest findings across disciplines—from ancient history to neuroscience—not only to explain why the West came to rule the world but also to predict what the future will bring in the next hundred years.

The Measure of Civilization

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400844762
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis The Measure of Civilization by : Ian Morris

Download or read book The Measure of Civilization written by Ian Morris and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-27 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking look at Western and Eastern social development from the end of the ice age to today In the past thirty years, there have been fierce debates over how civilizations develop and why the West became so powerful. The Measure of Civilization presents a brand-new way of investigating these questions and provides new tools for assessing the long-term growth of societies. Using a groundbreaking numerical index of social development that compares societies in different times and places, award-winning author Ian Morris sets forth a sweeping examination of Eastern and Western development across 15,000 years since the end of the last ice age. He offers surprising conclusions about when and why the West came to dominate the world and fresh perspectives for thinking about the twenty-first century. Adapting the United Nations' approach for measuring human development, Morris's index breaks social development into four traits—energy capture per capita, organization, information technology, and war-making capacity—and he uses archaeological, historical, and current government data to quantify patterns. Morris reveals that for 90 percent of the time since the last ice age, the world's most advanced region has been at the western end of Eurasia, but contrary to what many historians once believed, there were roughly 1,200 years—from about 550 to 1750 CE—when an East Asian region was more advanced. Only in the late eighteenth century CE, when northwest Europeans tapped into the energy trapped in fossil fuels, did the West leap ahead. Resolving some of the biggest debates in global history, The Measure of Civilization puts forth innovative tools for determining past, present, and future economic and social trends.

Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels

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Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691175896
Total Pages : 394 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels by : Ian Morris

Download or read book Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels written by Ian Morris and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The best-selling author of Why the West Rules—for Now examines the evolution and future of human values Most people in the world today think democracy and gender equality are good, and that violence and wealth inequality are bad. But most people who lived during the 10,000 years before the nineteenth century thought just the opposite. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, biology, and history, Ian Morris explains why. Fundamental long-term changes in values, Morris argues, are driven by the most basic force of all: energy. Humans have found three main ways to get the energy they need—from foraging, farming, and fossil fuels. Each energy source sets strict limits on what kinds of societies can succeed, and each kind of society rewards specific values. But if our fossil-fuel world favors democratic, open societies, the ongoing revolution in energy capture means that our most cherished values are very likely to turn out not to be useful any more. Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels offers a compelling new argument about the evolution of human values, one that has far-reaching implications for how we understand the past—and for what might happen next. Originating as the Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University, the book includes challenging responses by classicist Richard Seaford, historian of China Jonathan Spence, philosopher Christine Korsgaard, and novelist Margaret Atwood.

War! What Is It Good For?

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Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 0374286000
Total Pages : 513 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis War! What Is It Good For? by : Ian Morris

Download or read book War! What Is It Good For? written by Ian Morris and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining how war has positively changed our society, a renowned historian and archaeologist tells the riveting story of 15,000 years of war, going beyond the battles and brutality to reveal what war has really done to and for the world. 50,000 first printing.

Anne Carson: Antiquity

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350174777
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis Anne Carson: Antiquity by : Laura Jansen

Download or read book Anne Carson: Antiquity written by Laura Jansen and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-10-07 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From her seminal Eros the Bittersweet (1986) to her experimental Float (2016), Bakkhai (2017) and Norma Jeane Baker of Troy (2019), Anne Carson's engagement with antiquity has been deeply influential to generations of readers, both inside and outside of academia. One reason for her success is the versatile scope of her classically-oriented oeuvre, which she rethinks across multiple media and categories. Yet an equally significant reason is her profile as a classicist. In this role, Carson unfailingly refuses to conform to the established conventions and situated practices of her discipline, in favour of a mode of reading classical literature that allows for interpretative and creative freedom. From a multi-praxis, cross-disciplinary perspective, the volume explores the erudite indiscipline of Carson's classicism as it emerges in her poetry, translations, essays, and visual artistry. It argues that her classicism is irreducible to a single vision, and that it is best approached as integral to the protean character of her artistic thought. Anne Carson/Antiquity collects twenty essays by poets, translators, artists, practitioners and scholars. It offers the first collective study of the author's classicism, while drawing attention to one of the most avant-garde, multifaceted readings of the classical past.

Why Did Europe Conquer the World?

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691175845
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Why Did Europe Conquer the World? by : Philip T. Hoffman

Download or read book Why Did Europe Conquer the World? written by Philip T. Hoffman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The startling economic and political answers behind Europe's historical dominance Between 1492 and 1914, Europeans conquered 84 percent of the globe. But why did Europe establish global dominance, when for centuries the Chinese, Japanese, Ottomans, and South Asians were far more advanced? In Why Did Europe Conquer the World?, Philip Hoffman demonstrates that conventional explanations—such as geography, epidemic disease, and the Industrial Revolution—fail to provide answers. Arguing instead for the pivotal role of economic and political history, Hoffman shows that if certain variables had been different, Europe would have been eclipsed, and another power could have become master of the world. Hoffman sheds light on the two millennia of economic, political, and historical changes that set European states on a distinctive path of development, military rivalry, and war. This resulted in astonishingly rapid growth in Europe's military sector, and produced an insurmountable lead in gunpowder technology. The consequences determined which states established colonial empires or ran the slave trade, and even which economies were the first to industrialize. Debunking traditional arguments, Why Did Europe Conquer the World? reveals the startling reasons behind Europe's historic global supremacy.

When China Rules the World

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101151455
Total Pages : 631 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis When China Rules the World by : Martin Jacques

Download or read book When China Rules the World written by Martin Jacques and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-11-12 with total page 631 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Greatly revised and expanded, with a new afterword, this update to Martin Jacques’s global bestseller is an essential guide to understanding a world increasingly shaped by Chinese power Soon, China will rule the world. But in doing so, it will not become more Western. Since the first publication of When China Rules the World, the landscape of world power has shifted dramatically. In the three years since the first edition was published, When China Rules the World has proved to be a remarkably prescient book, transforming the nature of the debate on China. Now, in this greatly expanded and fully updated edition, boasting nearly 300 pages of new material, and backed up by the latest statistical data, Martin Jacques renews his assault on conventional thinking about China’s ascendancy, showing how its impact will be as much political and cultural as economic, changing the world as we know it. First published in 2009 to widespread critical acclaim - and controversy - When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order has sold a quarter of a million copies, been translated into eleven languages, nominated for two major literary awards, and is the subject of an immensely popular TED talk.

Geography Is Destiny

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Publisher : Profile Books
ISBN 13 : 178283351X
Total Pages : 546 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (828 download)

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Book Synopsis Geography Is Destiny by : Ian Morris

Download or read book Geography Is Destiny written by Ian Morris and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2022-05-12 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Ian Morris has established himself as a leader in making big history interesting and understandable' Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs and Steel 'Morris succeeds triumphantly at cramming 10,000 years of history into a single book' Robert Colvile, The Times For hundreds of years, Britannia ruled the waves and an empire on which the sun never set - but for thousands of years before that, Britain had been no more than a cluster of unimportant islands off Europe's north-west shore. Drawing on the latest archaeological and historical evidence, Ian Morris shows how much the meaning of Britain's geography has changed in the 10,000 years since rising seas began separating the Isles from the Continent, and how these changing meanings have determined Britons' destinies. From being merely Europe's fractious, feuding periphery - divided by customs, language and landscape, and always at the mercy of more powerful continental neighbours - the British turned themselves into a United Kingdom and put it at the centre of global politics, commerce and culture. But as power and wealth now shift from the West towards China, what fate awaits Britain in the twenty-first century?

Why Nations Fail

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Publisher : Currency
ISBN 13 : 0307719227
Total Pages : 546 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis Why Nations Fail by : Daron Acemoglu

Download or read book Why Nations Fail written by Daron Acemoglu and published by Currency. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.

The Decline of the West

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Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 9780195066340
Total Pages : 500 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (663 download)

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Book Synopsis The Decline of the West by : Oswald Spengler

Download or read book The Decline of the West written by Oswald Spengler and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1991 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spengler's work describes how we have entered into a centuries-long "world-historical" phase comparable to late antiquity, and his controversial ideas spark debate over the meaning of historiography.

No One's World

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Publisher : OUP USA
ISBN 13 : 0199739390
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis No One's World by : Charles Kupchan

Download or read book No One's World written by Charles Kupchan and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2012-03 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that as China, India, Brazil and other emerging powers rise, the founding ideals of the West will not continue to spread, and that in the near future, Europe and the United States will need to fashion a new consensus with these powers on issues of legitimacy, sovereignty and governance.

Suicide of the West

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Publisher : Forum Books
ISBN 13 : 1101904941
Total Pages : 482 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis Suicide of the West by : Jonah Goldberg

Download or read book Suicide of the West written by Jonah Goldberg and published by Forum Books. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An urgent argument that America and other democracies are in peril because they have lost the will to defend the values and institutions that sustain freedom and prosperity. “Epic and debate-shifting.”—David Brooks, New York Times Only once in the last 250,000 years have humans stumbled upon a way to lift ourselves out of the endless cycle of poverty, hunger, and war that defines most of history. If democracy, individualism, and the free market were humankind’s destiny, they should have appeared and taken hold a bit earlier in the evolutionary record. The emergence of freedom and prosperity was nothing short of a miracle. As Americans we are doubly blessed, because the radical ideas that made the miracle possible were written not just into the Constitution but in our hearts, laying the groundwork for our uniquely prosperous society. Those ideas are: • Our rights come from God, not from the government. • The government belongs to us; we do not belong to it. • The individual is sovereign. We are all captains of our own souls, not bound by the circumstances of our birth. • The fruits of our labors belong to us. In the last few decades, these political virtues have been turned into vices. As we are increasingly taught to view our traditions as a system of oppression, exploitation, and privilege, the principles of liberty and the rule of law are under attack from left and right. For the West to survive, we must renew our sense of gratitude for what our civilization has given us and rediscover the ideals and habits of the heart that led us out of the bloody muck of the past—or back to the muck we will go.

Biohistory

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781443871655
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (716 download)

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Book Synopsis Biohistory by : Jim Penman

Download or read book Biohistory written by Jim Penman and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biohistory is a revolutionary new theory that explores the biological and behavioural underpinnings of social change, including the rise and fall of civilisations. Informed by significant research into the physiological basis of behaviour conducted by author Dr Jim Penman and a team of scientists at RMIT University and the Florey Institute in Melbourne, Australia, Biohistory examines how a complex interplay between culture and biology has shaped civilisations from the Roman Empire to the modern West. Penman proposes that historical changes are driven by changes in the prevailing temperament of populations, based on physiological mechanisms that adapt animal behaviour to changing food conditions. It details the history of human society by mapping the effects of these epigenetic changes on cultures, and on historical tipping points including wars and revolutions. It shows how laboratory studies can be used to explain broad social and economic changes, including the fortunes of entire civilizations. The authors shocking conclusion is that the West is in terminal and inevitable decline, and that its only hope may lie with the biological sciences. Drawing on the disciplines of history, biology, anthropology and economics, Biohistory is the first theory of society that can be tested with some rigour in the laboratory. It explains how environment, cultural values and childrearing patterns determine whether societies prosper or collapse, and how social change can be both predictedand potentially modifiedthrough biochemistry.

The WEIRDest People in the World

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Author :
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0374710457
Total Pages : 420 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (747 download)

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Book Synopsis The WEIRDest People in the World by : Joseph Henrich

Download or read book The WEIRDest People in the World written by Joseph Henrich and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 A Bloomberg Best Non-Fiction Book of 2020 A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2020 A Human Behavior & Evolution Society Must-Read Popular Evolution Book of 2020 A bold, epic account of how the co-evolution of psychology and culture created the peculiar Western mind that has profoundly shaped the modern world. Perhaps you are WEIRD: raised in a society that is Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. If so, you’re rather psychologically peculiar. Unlike much of the world today, and most people who have ever lived, WEIRD people are highly individualistic, self-obsessed, control-oriented, nonconformist, and analytical. They focus on themselves—their attributes, accomplishments, and aspirations—over their relationships and social roles. How did WEIRD populations become so psychologically distinct? What role did these psychological differences play in the industrial revolution and the global expansion of Europe during the last few centuries? In The WEIRDest People in the World, Joseph Henrich draws on cutting-edge research in anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology to explore these questions and more. He illuminates the origins and evolution of family structures, marriage, and religion, and the profound impact these cultural transformations had on human psychology. Mapping these shifts through ancient history and late antiquity, Henrich reveals that the most fundamental institutions of kinship and marriage changed dramatically under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church. It was these changes that gave rise to the WEIRD psychology that would coevolve with impersonal markets, occupational specialization, and free competition—laying the foundation for the modern world. Provocative and engaging in both its broad scope and its surprising details, The WEIRDest People in the World explores how culture, institutions, and psychology shape one another, and explains what this means for both our most personal sense of who we are as individuals and also the large-scale social, political, and economic forces that drive human history. Includes black-and-white illustrations.

Europe’s Promise

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Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 052094450X
Total Pages : 488 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (29 download)

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Book Synopsis Europe’s Promise by : Steven Hill

Download or read book Europe’s Promise written by Steven Hill and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2010-01-19 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A quiet revolution has been occurring in post-World War II Europe. A world power has emerged across the Atlantic that is recrafting the rules for how a modern society should provide economic security, environmental sustainability, and global stability. In Europe's Promise, Steven Hill explains Europe's bold new vision. For a decade Hill traveled widely to understand this uniquely European way of life. He shatters myths and shows how Europe's leadership manifests in five major areas: economic strength, with Europe now the world's wealthiest trading bloc, nearly as large as the U.S. and China combined; the best health care and other workfare supports for families and individuals; widespread use of renewable energy technologies and conservation; the world's most advanced democracies; and regional networks of trade, foreign aid, and investment that link one-third of the world to the European Union. Europe's Promise masterfully conveys how Europe has taken the lead in this make-or-break century challenged by a worldwide economic crisis and global warming.