The West Was the Best
“The west still rules—but this will change in the coming decades; indeed, geography may cease to matter.” Ian Morris says the rate of global change is accelerating.
“The west is still the ‘best’—if by that we mean richest, strongest, and most inventive. True, China now has the second biggest economy in the world and Japan the third; but Europe and north America still generate two thirds of the world’s wealth, own two thirds of its weapons, and spend more than two thirds of its R&D dollars—all despite having less than one-seventh of its population. The west still rules the roost. But will this last? No. This much we know, because history tells us so. As Winston Churchill (no mean historian himself) put it: ‘The farther backwards you can look, the farther forwards you are likely to see.'”
