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?… [Publisher’s book website]

Author’s book website

Book review in The Economist, October 2010

Book review by George Walden in The Guardian, January 2011

Book review by Dr Ricardo Duchesne in Reviews in History (review no.1091)

Book review by Orville Schell in The New York Times, December 2010

Book review by Jonathan Healey