Ian Morris | Why the West Rules -- For Now

Ian Morris, Professor of History at Stanford University, lecture Why the West Rules -- For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures.
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[@HueghMungus]

I finally watched this after having this in my bookmarks for so long. Enlightning, informative, and eye-opening lecture. For anyone else that's daunted by the video's length. Don't be, this is invaluable information and you owe it to yourself.

[@santiagoelchan]

stop yapping

[@bhaktapeter3501]

daunted by its length? its only 1 hour lol

[@MrCher2]

There is another geographical reason why the leader of the industrialization was the United Kingdom and not the other countries involved (at that moment) in big international trade, conquest and colonization (like France, Portugal, Spain, or the Netherlands). The reason is that there were no good coal deposits in the rest of those western European countries. The best coal deposits of Europe were in Great Britain, Belgium, and what would become Germany. There were less quality coal deposits in France, and other parts of Europe, and there were no good coal deposits in southern Europe. And something similar happens with iron.

[@Botwinka13]

I'm afraid you're wrong. The biggest and easiest to obtain are coal deposits in Central Europe where Poland and Czech Reoublic are right now. The reasons they were not utilized are mostly political/historical.

[@cybair9341]

Mr Cher - True. Coal energy has been a major reason why the West ruled. To be fair, this is also a matter of geography.

[@VaxtorT]

The main reason why the rest ruled was the Provenance of the Christian God. The West contains the so-called Lost Tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

[@gerrit.lslopsema8996]

@@Botwinka13 de

[@walker1812]

@@cybair9341geology more than geography I’d think. ;)

[@richdobbs6595]

It seems to me that he should have used a log-log plot for his index vs time. I suspect that if he had done so, the scatter in data between 100BC and the present would have been significant. I'd like to see the data plotted this way so that I could judge how useful extrapolating the trends is.

[@erichoogland4791]

I had that same thought about a log plot

[@huyenbo]

It's in the book

[@countfloyd8360]

Use a log scale for the vertical and it might show a better representation.

[@here_we_go_again2571]

Watching a four-year old lecture; and its conclusions and reading the comments from two years ago has been interesting, to say the least.

[@gein2287]

I'm reading this 2 years in the future. From your past timeline to my present to our future.

[@nursetobee.]

@@gein2287 and now almost a year later I'm reading your comment in my timeline.

[@Bobby-ik6vo]

​@@nursetobee. Here I am reading yours 3 months later while everything will collapse to 0 eventually.

[@jayaet]

His book (Why the West....) is the best I've ever read on the history of our species. Its the big picture. We can learn from history but our record of doing so is not very encouraging, so far. Nice that Mr. Morris ends on an optimistic note. Like Winston Churchill said: " For myself, I am an optimist because its not really worth being anything else".

[@EuropeanQoheleth]

A realist is the only thing worth being.

[@simonxag]

A Company I used to work for was going great guns. Middle management kept telling and telling and telling senior management that all future work had dried up. But the people at the top had their graphs which went up and up and up, so they ignored their underlings. Guess what happened next? ;-) I couldn't help thinking of this when looking at Mr . Morris's graph.

[@patriciaholman8938]

When I was going to school, back in the 1950's, I absolutely HATED history. If I'd ever had a teacher like this, it would have been a whole different story. I could listen to Professor Morris all day and all night. Thank you very much.

[@Inquisiteur007]

The main issue is that us (Historians) are rarely allowed to teach history in the lower education levels, and if we are then we are forced to adapt to the school's curriculum on what History must be taught.

[@gandalfthegrey2592]

woah ur old amazing

[@ba1anse]

Hear hear

[@_S0urR0ses_]

@@Inquisiteur007 Which ends up being a waste of time for everyone involved. If students aren’t interested in it, they are not learning to remember but to pass a test. That only includes the students who are mature enough or who hold the skills to learn under such circumstances! No wonder so many have resorted to homeschooling

[@gbk6846]

Fascinating presentation. Thank you Professor Ian Morris!

[@deusexaethera]

20:11 - The problem with the graph is, the values aren't normalized to some hypothetical maximum at each year. Alternately, a logarithmic y-axis would be helpful.

[@paulahucklesby8921]

What an interesting programme. I am at home self-isolating at the bottom of the world because of the Corona Virus. A lot of change in six year.

[@Byronic19134]

No it's because of China.

[@GaryLePleb]

I really like his approach and humour, and his general theory makes a lot of sense, and indeed, is much like what I had been thinking, as I had been exploring this question since my college days 30 years ago, albeit with far less research. I like how he ties in with and specifically mentions Jared Diamond's work, as these two works complement each other. On the other hand, he seems to just focus on ancient/classical Europe vs China. Don't see a lot of mention of the Latin American early civilizations, or even India, which was older than China. Also, an important point that should be covered is that just before Europe started sending out its waves of explorers, China sent out a massive fleet a few times through Southeast Asia, but China chose not to build the massive marine merchant empire, due to intra-national politics of the "hermit kingdom". Of course, trying to explain the whole of history to show why the West has been paramount, and do it all in a one hour university lecture, one must leave out a lot of info. Thus, I would say, the info and theory he presents is very valuable and insightful, but still incomplete, as it leaves out so much and still oversimplifies a bit. Perhaps I will need to simply buy his two books to get more detail. I did thoroughly enjoy Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel.

[@GaryLePleb]

Prof. Morris focuses a lot on the trade triangle in the Atlantic, but there was also significant maritime trade between all the various kingdoms throughout East, Southeast, and East Asia, which is how Indian, Chinese, and Arab influence spread through Southeast Asia. And that trade is what excited the Portuguese to build a trading port on the Melaka Straits in the 15th century. Before that, the massive fleet that China sent out before the Europeans even started exploring would have scared the Europeans out of their wits if the two fleets would have met, which they wouldn't, as they were in different oceans. The Chinese massive fleet was sent out simply to impress and intimidate, not to build trade routes. Indeed, upon the conclusion of the short series of sailings, the fleet and even the ship yards were destroyed. Why? We could say Geography. China already had a large and unified land empire, so didn't feel compelled to make new trade routes. Topics like this could be covered in his theory, but of course, only so much can be covered in an hour.

[@GaryLePleb]

Also, China did not know or care about the new world. They were happy with their own cosmology as "The Middle Kingdom," meaning that all the world were their tributaries, including the earliest representatives from European nations. Ludicrous ideas. Europe knew about the New World because of stories from the Vikings, who had been alternately exploring, raiding, trading, and pillaging throughout Europe for hundreds of years, and had made it to the New World and back. Centuries later, the voyages to the New World were actually trying to find alternate routes to East and Southeast Asia; at that time, spices from the Spice Islands, such as pepper and cinnamon, were literally worth their weight in gold, due to the long and perilous maritime journey, and the old land trade routes being blocked by wars and newly hostile states in the Middle East.

[@GaryLePleb]

Ah, but perhaps this Southeast Asian trade through the Melaka Straits was not as society changing as the Atlantic trade was.

[@elonif4125]

@@GaryLePleb He actually discusses that in his book, if i remember correctly

[@niklaspotter7003]

I can't judge on just this one lecture but I wish he had said a bit more about how the foundations of science and mathematics were largely inherited from elsewhere and in general a bit more about what we got from the middle East etc.

[@nv7287]

The Mediterranean Sea was the central superhighway of transport, trade and cultural exchange between diverse peoples encompassing three continents: Western Asia, North Africa, and Southern Europe. Spuring development of all of those cultures. Great lecture cant wait for more... 28:23 social development scores 27:00 geography determines social developments

[@avd-wd9581]

I wish he focused more on the "for now" part. Specifically - why/how.

[@winnebago2]

By simply extrapolating the line forward from two convenient data points, of course!

[@lechandler4041]

Very insightful and instructive information. I will have to read his book on what is war good for. Unfortunately many posters here seem to have either missed or ignored his basic argument.

[@sambulls]

I agree

[@MrGOTAMA420]

War ,what is it good fpr. Absolutely nothing..."

[@lechandler4041]

Not a real deep thinker, huh?

[@deusexaethera]

If war were actually good for nothing, there wouldn't be so many people and nations getting rich from it. War is good for getting a few people fabulously wealthy and for redistributing the remaining pittance a little more generously among the surviving population.

[@crct2004]

Thank you. I was looking forward to the comments but was actually rather disappointed.

[@GhassanB]

Fantastic talk. One thing that stands out to me though: Prof indicates that sailing tech comes to Europe from China through the Muslim world and that the reason Europeans went to the Americas was technology and geography (41-43m in). However, by this logic wouldn't the Muslims have gone first? The fall of Muslim Garnata was only one year before Columbus sailed to America and Ummayad Andalusia lasted 600 years up until this point. What stopped the Ummayads from this voyage and what drove Europeans? Curious to hear viewers thoughts :)

[@andrewcornelio6179]

Advancements in ship technology weren't necessary to cross the Atlantic. A few years ago, some people made a replica of an ancient Phoenician ship like the kind that would have sailed the Mediterranean 2000 years ago. They were able to sail the replica from Tunisia to Florida. The point of this was to demonstrate that you don't need advanced ships to cross the ocean, and it could theoretically have been done much earlier. In fact it had been done earlier. The vikings crossed the Atlantic 400 years before the Spanish using much more primitive ships. However, they weren't able to create a permanent settlement. Scientists have also realized that monkeys in South America are related to monkeys in Africa. Using genetic analysis and fossils they determined that monkeys evolved in Africa, and about 40 million years ago somehow rafted over to South America. The monkey rafts were definitely not advanced ships! The true technological advancement was the discovery of the trade winds. In the 1300s, Portuguese sailors had a problem. At the time, Portuguese sailors wanted to sail around the Atlantic coast of Europe and Africa. The sailors found that it was very easy to sail south from Portugal to Africa because the wind was at their back. However, it was very difficult to sail north back to Portugal because they would be fighting the wind. Sometime in the 1400s, they realized that instead of sailing directly north, they could instead sail west into Atlantic and away from the coast, and then sail north. Surprisingly this actually made the journey shorter, since away from the coast is a westerly wind that would carry them back. The Portuguese called this this technique of sailing south, then west, then north east "volto do mar" which means turning of the sea. Using volto do mar, Portuguese explorers discovered a set of islands called the Azores, that had previously been unknown to humans. In 1492, a man named Christopher Columbus realized that you could theoretically sail as far west as you wanted using the technique, and then come back. Coming back was always the most difficult part. It doesn't really matter if you discover something new, but then get stuck and can't come back. Anyway, Columbus was able to discover the Americas. Over the next few centuries, thousands of people retraced his route and began to call it the "triangle trade". Dr. Morris has a map if it at 44:44. You can see that it was really the discovery of volto do mar (which is essentially the trade winds) that unlocked everything afterwards. The question is why it took so long to discover the trade winds in the Atlantic. Other trade winds were discovered before. The Polynesians had known about the trade winds in the Pacific for centuries. People in the Indian ocean had known about the monsoon winds for millennia. I'm not sure why. Due to the geography of the trade winds, the only people who could have found it were the Spanish or the Portuguese. However, for most of their history, the people there focused more on sailing the Mediterranean rather than the Atlantic.

[@sudhirchopde3334]

7 years old lecture....a lifetime of change

[@DirkCaswall]

this guy is great! Stamford is lucky to have him

[@peterfmodel]

Ian Morris is correct, however he does not cover a rather significant point, which is why did Europe combine ships with gunpowder. The fact Europe was a collection of competitive and waring states there was always a strong driver to develop new weapons. China was a single country where that pressure was lacking. In summary, social development evolved quickly in Europe because of state based competition. Change often occurs where there is no alternative, its easier for those who rule to keep the status quo, but if faced with conquest the status quo is quickly junked.

[@zephans]

... which is a reasonable case for "adversity is the mother of invention".

[@thomassteele5748]

The problem with exponential curves is that depending on what scale you use any part of the line can appear nearly horizontal or any part of the line could appear nearly vertical.

[@Art_N_Science]

I have read his book, 3 times. It changed my view to the world and understanding the human nature and history. Yuval Harari's book is a piece of cake compare to this.

[@ontoseno9653]

did he say borobudur is made in the west?

[@atwilliams8]

Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond is the first book to put all this together which he mentions.

[@viswaghosh1]

I think, a more interesting question to consider is, "Why Britain could overtake France, Spain and Portugal?" Since, the geographical factors are generally same for all 3 (except that Britain is effectively an island nation), social development factors are more likely to explain the difference - barring some tactical victories on the battlefields and oceans. And, I hope, we STOP SPLITTING THE WORLD INTO EAST vs WEST, ISLAM vs CHRISTIANITY, and so on. TIME THE HISTORIANS AND PHILOSOPHERS CONSIDER HOW TO MAKE THIS WORLD SAFER AND BETTER.

[@rlbbe5369]

Some of you with the negative comments I think completely missed the point. He's also talking about 15k bc up to 1900ad

[@lorenzogumier7646]

Brilliant sweeping overview over human history. Facts are also proving him right as the ongoing pandemic is reshaping our world as we know it. Open point is whether geography is really going to hold the same importance as it has had till now.

[@jonstewart8189]

"Plato to NATO"... I like that line

[@jiayisong5909]

Beautiful. Fascinating. Enlightening. As an incoming freshman @ Stanford I will def. take a course by Prof. Morris

[@blueskies5451]

Fascinating talk. If geography is indeed the driving force, then I wonder how the lines on those graphs would be different if project Orion had not been cancelled. An 8-13M-ton nuclear orion is certainly a huge risk, but we would've added the moon to our sphere of reach, altering geography. It would also have allowed for solar-based power at an affordable rate. Solar power currently needs advances other than just getting the arrays into space, but with the capacity to get them there there might be more incentive to actually work on those problems. Here's to hoping we make it.

[@KManAbout]

I have my own criticisms, but mostly agree, his lecture borrows heavily from the work of Jared Diamond’s: Guns, Germs, and Steel. Of which, he mentions along with the work of a few others. At this point I believe that the view of geographic determinism is the standard for how I form my basis of understanding geopolitics and history over long periods of time since I read Guns. First, I think despite our control of physical violence, humans have simply developed tools of control in other areas which are causing widespread social effects that we have never seen before that are incredibly damaging. The rise in depression and suicide is unprecedented and an indicator that a very different era has been encountered to those before. I don’t think that most of the problems the west is likely to face will be because of famine, or even disease. I think we have largely conquered these though disease to a lesser extent than famine. I don’t think that either is a real major threat to civilization. I think a major threat are rather different from before, and I think I am justified and saying that this time will be different. The United Kingdom didn’t collapse its empire because of mass migration or disease, but because they simply couldn’t hold on to territories anymore while still being efficient. Other global powers took their place when geography changed again. So too will the United States collapse, we already see the widespread strong competition from other global powers, specifically: China, India, and Russia which are making it hard for the United States to continue to assert global dominance. This trend will continue until the U.S. becomes a much more minor power in geopolitics. Civilization I believe can handle many of these things that were once threats, the biggest threat to civilization is to a large extent not anything else but civilization itself. Climate change is being pushed by civilization and developing higher degrees social development comes with the destruction of our native social landscapes. Instead I argue that this social development ought to take a radically different course if we are to continue the trend or even if the trend will continue it isn’t something that really ought to be desired. An increase in destruction of native social attitudes can have disastrous effects on a humans’ conceptions of a self. The rise in modernity has put the self under siege and these are the new problems that civilization inherently creates. Instead we should think of alternatives that push past civilization. A post-civilization framework of social development that develop and keep intact native social networks or develop viable alternatives to this.

[@sedeslav]

Excellent lecture, an briliant speaker.

[@norawheeler2555]

His facts are interesting and educational. His conclusions are his own. Where he repeatedly states "Geography changed", what he then explains is human utilization of their geography changed. Which is only partly dependent on actual geography, and the rest on human characteristics.

[@urbankoistinen5688]

A log scale might have made the graph easier to read.

[@brianyule1289]

Not as funny though

[@yaceya]

And it may be justifiable by the fact that it is likely that index of development is also multiplicative like many other economic or social indices: you get better at a certain rate from your baseline. However, bringing attention to the graph without log was part of the presentation.

[@malfabian1690]

a very good video for those with an hour of free time , a short summary of mainly western history and a more global look forward 100 years , lots more could be said in his summary of history but he crams lots into this one hour video , I suspect the rapid spread of printed books probably deserves a mention as to why the west was able to grow so fast so quickly and over take the world . The internet will probably do the same as the printing press to spread knowledge instantly and cheaply to everybody in the near future

[@osmanyousaf7866]

I believe it would have been worthy of mentioning. More brains were nurtured and put into work to answer the questions that they were confronted with. Also, in technology and knowledge driven economies, the systematic spread of education and access to knowledge, internet included as you well mentioned, will indeed give massively populated regions of the east an edge over the west. (*healthy and with no nutrition deficit populations).

[@osmanyousaf7866]

I believe it would have been worthy of mentioning. More brains were nurtured and put into work to answer the questions that they were confronted with. Also, in technology and knowledge driven economies, the systematic spread of education and access to knowledge, internet included as you well mentioned, will indeed give massively populated regions of the east an edge over the west. (*healthy and with no nutrition deficit populations).

[@normankeena]

sanitation, toilet paper is the future

[@shpazhist]

Summary in a nutshell: - the reason why ppl started farming in Asia - geography - the reason why ppl invented ships in Asia - geography - the reason why ppl invented powder for the use as weapons in Asia - geography - the reason why ppl Westerners invented calculus - geography - the reason why the development results in higher energy consumption per capita/ more sophisticated systems of organization/ability to start conflicts/and more advanced information systems - geography - the reason why ppl are more and more adapting technology for their use - geography - the reason why the mass disasters will take place in 21st century - geography *Conclusion* => Buy my book

[@masterbakers]

I wonder if the book was inspired or even published through the UN, certainly looks familiar, "Mass Migration , Epidemic disease, State failure, Famine, Climate change".

[@cattycorner8]

Thank you, thank you very much. lol

[@MetaverseAdventures]

Wonderful and insightful talk. I would like to chime into the conversation as I believe geography while still a dominant factor, is facing a new factor with the Internet. The Internet transcends nations (even ones who filter/censor) and the Metaverse is going to only accelerate this. The Metaverse is all the Virtual and Augmented Realities that are just coming on stream now and will continue to gain steam in the 2020s. The Metaverse is the Matrix (movie reference) for a lack of a better example. Humans will live both a physical and virtual existence. We already do when we look at our many screens, and Immersive Computing is only going ti exponentially increase this. I would love to hear others opinions on this and how they believe it will impact our future.

[@cybair9341]

Hey Matthew ! - We already live in virtual reality when everybody believe we are in the middle of a pandemia. The mass media rules the virtual world.

[@jstanley011]

Whenever anybody says, "this historical phenomenon is due to this one thing," you can bet your money that they're wrong.

[@thabomuso4768]

Amen!

[@thabomuso4768]

This man has lots of knowledge and is very intelligent, but he has succumbed to the addiction of simplicity. He is also more deterministic than Karl Marx or Max Weber. Marx saw the production and distribution of goods and services as the basis for all history. Weber thought that it was the "development of the Spirit" of humankind. Mr. Morris and others thinks that it is all of geography. But still and if I allow myself to compare developments between nations and humans in a geographical area between the life of a handful, a dozen or a hundred persons. Either living in proximity or distance from each other. Their life will certainly develop quite differently regardless of when they lived. One cannot simply say "well it is all pre-determined", as some religions or religious congregations think.

[@sathishkumargovindasamy56]

No, Geography is almost all , Almost.

[@Shain1914]

Very nice. Although not fully convincing. I think the main reason is different. The Chinese not only had the technology, they could also find other "triangles" , like china, Africa , Australia and others. I also recall that a Chinese fleet reached Africa and the Chinese did not pursue it. China was very centralized and afraid from change. While on western europe (especially in England) the power was more distributed with influential social classes that we not afraid from change but actually strive to it wanting to become "rich". I claim that distribution of power and capitalism is the main difference. The "atlantic triangle" was just an important eco system that promoted the change like it was done later in india and other places.

[@kirgan1000]

China-Australia-Africa is significantly longer than West-Europa-Africa-America.

[@denverbritto5606]

or China India South east asia, or Indonesia, or Japan. They could have used land routes to trade with Russia or the Arab states too.

[@wisdomleader85]

Denver Britto Russia didn't expand to the east (Siberia) until the mid 17th century, but China did trade with the north and the west through land routes, although they were inconsistent due to regional unrest in central Asia.

[@JohnSmall314]

Hypothesis: The west pulled ahead temporarily because (a) roman letters work well with moveable type, hence Gutenberg's idea could take off and (b) the prevailing wind makes it easy to explore the seas going west, which is why China explored the east coast of Africa before the west coast of America.

[@AlfredoPelaez]

Brought here by ASIA 100. If only I had seen this video as a kid I might have appreciated geography.

[@sergiodutra3330]

And maybe appreciated geometry too... This looks like an isosceles triangle. :)

[@occultaveritas77]

The problem with his theory is the fact that east Asia's economic development is the result of a massive amount of help by western (particularly the US) governments. If the US decided to stop making exceptions and favorable deals with east Asia (China) then their miracle of a "a new millionaire every day" would end very quickly.

[@sumitgaikwad8854]

US is not doing any favours to East Asia, they work harder and make things cheap, that's why USA is helping them.

[@deusexaethera]

"Plato to NATO". Clever.

[@masterbakers]

More like Zen to UN, ha, ha.

[@deusexaethera]

@@ryansetliff7416: Ah, I was unaware. Still clever, regardless of who authored it.

[@asafbeeri4037]

Great book, I loved it! It is so exciting to see this lecture!

[@larryparis925]

Fascinating lecture and book. A key point, with its prelude, for explaining social development achievement, and the patterns of history, begins at 25:00.

[@catchalotmor]

Confirms my thinking. One thing missing though, Energy conquers geography. If we can move fast, heat/cool anywhere and fertilise anywhere with lots of energy, then geography becomes less important. It will be coming down from our fossel fuel super boost, which will cause the next collaps, not nuclear weapons.

[@cattycorner8]

The sooner we switch over to total nuclear power the better.

[@walker1812]

In your forward projections I think it would be interesting to look at the notion of space. The Atlantic shrunk and the US rose. The Pacific shrunk and East Asian power rose. Space is the next frontier, and love him or hate him, SpaceX is actively bringing that far horizon closer and nobody else is even close. To be fair, SpaceX has largely done this in the 10 years since this lecture. Which illustrates your point about the rate of change speeding up. This lecture was even before AI.

[@ed6750]

Wonderful presentation! Want to read your books now….

[@ivancsapod]

Great talk! Thank you! I believe that that there are in fact TWO factors contributing to the skyrocketing of the West. One is definitely GEOGRAPHY, with that I completely agree. With that goes a lot of things, like the grains and plants available for consumption and plantation, the large animals suitable for beast of burden, and of course the higher IQ that developed in the temperate climate zone. But the other as important factor is FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING or FIAT-MONEY, as you like. When that was introduced sometime during the 16th century, the European economy started to change significantly. The supply of money became at least 10X almost overnight, and suddenly there was ample money to pay for inventions and all the products it produced, and that was an unresistable incentive what started the social and industrial revolution, and with that the complete revolution of basically all the aspects of everyday life. The Romans were as clever as we are now. (I think I read in Carl Sagan's book Dragons of Eden that if you took a baby from beside a paleolithic campfire from 70 thousand years ago and put him or her in a modern school, he or she could might easily program a computer by the teenage years.) But the Romans simply didn't have enough money (abstract money that is) to pay for things (you can't easily go to the store to buy a new robe or a belt with a sack of grain or salt), which was a great drawback to the economy. If the Romans, or the Greeks, or the Phoenicians had limitless supply of absract money (like we have today), they would've likely been as advanced in technology as we are today...

[@xiaobai1541]

This guy is a really good speaker. Interesting

[@johnmeyers1559]

I'm not saying that geography is not a major factor, because it is, but what people do when they have access to good geography is what separates populations.

[@alikazemi5491]

The Athenians, in the age after the Persian Wars (say after 479), have adapted Persian ideas on the fields of architecture and government. In the fields of architecture and politics, the Athenians of the fifth century BCE copied several Persian innovations. In the branch of architecture, this happened in two ways: practical and ideological. The first of these can be found in the production and elaborating of rhytons, but also in the building of the Odeon and the Prytaneum. The second type of emulation can be found in the Parthenon frieze and the caryatids. The difference is twofold: in the first place, the caryatids and the frieze are not based on something tangible like rhyta or tents; in the second place, not only a from, but also a general idea are copied. In the Parthenon frieze, the Persian ideal of "unity under the king" has been "translated" to Greece. The image and idea were adapted to Greek tastes, which made the work of art more accessible. In the caryatids, the original image (a bull or a feline) has been ignored and only the essence, the general idea, is copied - to women. Apparently, the Greeks found women better motifs to show subjection than animals. Nineteenth-century European historians, however, have often ignored the Persian contribution to Greek culture. They believed in a "Greek miracle" and were unable to conceptualize oriental influences. (They had more or less the same perspective on European history, which had developed - in their view - autonomously.) Cultural contacts were ignored. Today, in a world in which cross-fertilization and clashes between cultures can no longer be ignored, scholars are more interested in cultural contacts. This perspective does more justice to the complexities that existed when two cultures encountered each other.

[@jhorne18]

Sounds like a warmed over Ellsworth Huntington's geographical determinism ("IM: "Geography explains why the West rules."), minus the racism . Geography is an important factor, but I'd be weary of having it as an "explain all".

[@darladrury76]

No such thing as racist u communist. Its something thrown at white men that have done nothing to you out of evil envy. DNA and the fact they engineered every single important in the world and shared it. We have fed haiti and africa for 100 years. So call our good men racist. Shows you have a very low iq. Our men have the least ingroup prefence to the point its destroying us. Shove it. 75 percent of minorities live there whole lives and generations for free while our men work hard pay for there disrespect.

[@darladrury76]

Omg I thought you were saying opposite. Lol opps

[@Abhishek-sr2pu]

@@darladrury76 huh I am pretty sure all those good things wouldn't be possible without hindu-arabic numerals, zero, paper, gunpowder, paper money, printing, etc.

[@lalaboards]

@@darladrury76 dude the only other person with half a brain on this thread able to look at history objectively without isms !!!!!! Well done !!!!!

[@andrewtheworldcitizen]

​@Abhishek-sr2pu Still butthurt about being ruled by the British, I can see.... 😂😂😂 If the Hindus such as the Marathas and Jats, as well as the Sikhs, wouldn't have rebelled against the Great Mughals of Hindustan and caused strife and division that directly led to the fall of the Mughal Empire, then the British would never have been able to take control of the entire Indian subcontinent...... It was the Hindus who ruined their own country and land..... They have their own selves to blame for the complete decline and decay of India...... They made it possible for Great Britiain to take the entire subcontinent and colonize it and subjugate it.... The Mughals of Hindustan created the greatest empire in South Asian history..... It was the Mughals who made Hindustan the very richest land on Earth.... When the Great Mughals ruled in Hindustan, between the reign of the Mughal Emperor Akbar and the reign of the Mughal Empire Alamgir (Aurangzeb) c. 1556 - 1707, the English couldn't do anything in India but open some small forts on the coasts to do trade, and they could do that only after groveling and begging the Mugahl Emperor for permission....! The English were at the complete mercy of the Mughal Emperor and couldn't even do trade without first being granted a firman from the Mughal Emperor..... That's probably why the Hindus hate the Mughals so much, because the Mughals made India greater and richer than it had ever been before, and it certainly has never even come close since, so they burn with the most awful jealousy and hatred..... lol Isn't it poetic justice that the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan's mausoleum to his beloved wife and queen Mumtaz Mahal, is the global symbol of India! 😂😅😅 The Marathas and Jats and Sikhs didn't want to be ruled by "foreigners"..... Despite the fact that the Timurid-Mughal Dynasty certainly was originally a foreign dynasty of Turko-Mongol origin, the Mughal Empire of Hindustan, by the late 17th century at the latest, had become a truly Indian Empire..... So the complaint that the Mughals were foreigners ruling India was completely unfounded and simply false.... Then, after the Hindus caused the collapse of the Empire of Hindustan and caused chaos and division in their own land, they end up being ruled by the British, who were as foreign as could be!! Hahaha I wonder if Hindus in India have ever heard of this concept called karma.... 😂😅😅

[@hosecutter0474]

Our recent social developments of our quest to dominate space should indicate that over time geography will no longer be the catalyst for development as we begin conquer its boundaries & limitations by conquering/manipulating space itself.

[@CENTURION-xs6ky]

Very enlightening, thank you.

[@phithor]

I don't think anybody has mentioned it yet, but he should have used log scale in the graph for more clear presentation

[@zwatwashdc]

Is this why modernity seems to be very sticky in the west and Asia, yet not so much in other places in the world?

[@ISAC_UChicago]

Watch Ian Morris, Professor of History at Stanford University, lecture Why the West Rules -- For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

[@patrickmcgoohan115]

it's an interesting hypothesis. But to assume that the exponential progress made in the last 100 years and the industrial revolution was spured by geography to the america's seems conjuncture. Carrolle Quiqley theorized that because land was plentiful in the US but labour was scarce the US adopted mechanization to increase productivity while China had an excess of labour but scarce land so no emphasis for mechanization. Also Asia has been very isolationist, funny enough, cheap mass industrial manufactured products from Britain undercutting Chinese artisans was responsible for the boxer rebellion according to Quiqqley. How history changes aye.

[@Nah_Bohdi]

The Oriental Institute 20:45 Wrong wrong wrong ...where is ANY of your source data?! This couldn't be further from accurate! F-- SEE ME AFTER CLASS!

[@maxx1014]

Somehow intriguing map at around 29:00: The areas were civilisation started are now roughly the ones who falter very badly. Northern Europe, Northern America, Japan and South Korea are lying just above those lucky latitudes and are now the wealthiest regions/countries on earth.

[@KManAbout]

I have my own criticisms, but mostly agree, his lecture borrows heavily from the work of Jared Diamond’s: Guns, Germs, and Steel. Of which, he mentions along with the work of a few others. At this point I believe that the view of geographic determinism is the standard for how I form my basis of understanding geopolitics and history over long periods of time since I read Guns. First, I think despite our control of physical violence, humans have simply developed tools of control in other areas which are causing widespread social effects that we have never seen before that are incredibly damaging. The rise in depression and suicide is unprecedented and an indicator that a very different era has been encountered to those before. I don’t think that most of the problems the west is likely to face will be because of famine, or even disease. I think we have largely conquered these though disease to a lesser extent than famine. I don’t think that either is a real major threat to civilization. I think a major threat are rather different from before, and I think I am justified and saying that this time will be different. The United Kingdom didn’t collapse its empire because of mass migration or disease, but because they simply couldn’t hold on to territories anymore while still being efficient. Other global powers took their place when geography changed again. So too will the United States collapse, we already see the widespread strong competition from other global powers, specifically: China, India, and Russia which are making it hard for the United States to continue to assert global dominance. This trend will continue until the U.S. becomes a much more minor power in geopolitics. Civilization I believe can handle many of these things that were once threats, the biggest threat to civilization is to a large extent not anything else but civilization itself. Climate change is being pushed by civilization and developing higher degrees social development comes with the destruction of our native social landscapes. Instead I argue that this social development ought to take a radically different course if we are to continue the trend or even if the trend will continue it isn’t something that really ought to be desired. An increase in destruction of native social attitudes can have disastrous effects on a humans’ conceptions of a self. The rise in modernity has put the self under siege and these are the new problems that civilization inherently creates. Instead we should think of alternatives that push past civilization. A post-civilization framework of social development that develop and keep intact native social networks or develop viable alternatives to this.

[@superflyrico]

Inaccurate statements made throughout this to paint a very plausible picture of history... how did Europe develop NEW mathematics to navigate the world etc when Afrikans had already done all of that?

[@mattlawyer3245]

I read a book by Andrey Korotayev called "Introduction to Social Macrodynamics" in which he displayed a graph similar to the one shown here. I don't remember the quantity being plotted, but it had something to do with either population or estimated GDP and was almost certainly something which would be highly correlated to the quantity plotted in this video. Korotayev showed that, though the data appears exponential, a regression onto a hyperbola is a statistically better fit. But of course, a hyperbola implies a singularity, meaning that after some point in time it must necessarily be dominated by some stabilizing term. (I don't remember what he did to stabilize the hyperbola beyond that he added some clever term somewhere, which produced a tapering-off.) I'm sure that a similar thing must be true of the trend shown here. The real interesting question is, how high does the curve become before tapering off? Other things to consider. There is a theoretical limit to the amount of energy that humanity could consume within a given amount of time, even if we were 100% efficient in our use of energy. Is the curve in the video bounded above by this theoretical limit, or does it exceed it after some amount of time? If it's the latter, then the model must be modified at some point. Also, if 5000 "points" on his scale implies we become a "different animal," should we expect that with 5000 points we will have changed our human nature? If so, then how does this affect the model? After all, the model so far depends on the ways in which human nature has led humans to interact with geography. What would the implications on an engineered (or possibly accidental) change in human nature be on the projections of our growth?

[@awuma]

This should be read (or listened to) alongside Niall Ferguson's "Civilization: The West and the Rest" (2011). Quite different points of view, but I think both contain a lot of truth. Morris' "geography" versus Ferguson's "six killer apps".

[@thefisherking78]

This was genuinely great

[@timothyparish4031]

Blatantly missing from this discussion is the driving force of climate changes on every aspect of this discussion: empires and dynasties rising with global warming-enhanced food production, falling during global cooling with famines, pandemics, fleeing/migrating populations, and resultant conflicts. Projections into the 21st century absolutely must take into account the next 30-50 years of global cooling as our current grand solar minimum deepens and brings all of these factors into the mix again.

[@xavierdiaz2962]

I am assuming he read Jared Diamond's Book. "Guns Germs and Steel"

[@larryparis925]

Uh, well, he even says so. Did you actually watch and listen to this?

[@gregt4202]

Excellent presentation. Thanks!

[@benitocamelo3219]

The answers: 1) Mongols destroyed Asia 2) Byzantium offered a shield to Europe of 1100 years, and when it perished, all the knowledge went to the West.

[@moorek1967]

+Benito Camelo Mongols destroyed Central Asia, China kept itself isolated for much of history. The incorrect assumption is that Greeks were the height of civilization and all our Eurocentrism comes from the Greeks. You would be Islamic today if it weren't for Sigismund of Hungary.

[@indatext]

moorek1967 Mongols created Central Asia, and brought an order to what is now Russia

[@moorek1967]

@ommunist The Mongols may have created a geo-political border in Central Asia, they didn't create the geography of Central Asia.

[@indatext]

moorek1967 they used it much the way British used the Atlantic ocean. Where Britons came across with gunships, Mongold did fine with 2 horses per warrior and a very special bow, combined with hit and run tactics. Their organisational weapon allowed them to run empire from Pacific to the Black Sea for around 400 years

[@indatext]

moorek1967 Ehm, Mongol state was religiously agnostic. They have been sort of animistic buddhists themselves. Khasars were iudaic, karaims were christian, uzbeks were muslim, and they all lived happily under Mongol rule

[@painlord2k]

The projections are nice but they feed back from the past: I would ask myself "What route will be shrinked tomorrow?" It appear to me, China and Russia want to increase their interconnections. China want to build and create a corridor from China to Europe, by land and sea. And this would, longterm, shrink the importance of the US. It would, BTW, increase the importance of India and Iran. But what if the space to shrink is space itself, or the seasteading become economically feasible?

[@painlord2k]

The presentation is very nice and I share many assumptions, but the emphasis is over geography and not over the changing meaning of geography. The meaning (and its changing) are driven by humans and their minds. Humans evolve in specific ecological niches in specific times. Humans adapted to specific conditions, when they develop (or adopt) new technologies lose the limitation of the previous environment and start expanding as much as the new conditions allow them. And in this regard a "technology" is also a new social structure, a new religion and so on. If this religion give specific advantages not to the individuals but to the society adopting it compared to others, the society will thrive and the other will fade.

[@cybair9341]

Mirco - I agree. His point of view is reductionist or minimalist. The evolution of civilisation is too complex to be reductible to a specific pattern. But geography is certainly a very important factor.

[@painlord2k]

@@cybair9341 Surely.

[@ryanlintott6849]

These comments are great. I just love humanity

[@jimtaggert42]

these fuckers are high as a kite

[@juusohamalainen7507]

I like dogs more.

[@naufala93]

Great and fascinating presentation!!

[@WagesOfDestruction]

What happened to India here, it had the largest economy of any region in the world from the most part from the 1st century to the 18th century?

[@CarterFeldman]

In a world where the majority of goods are traded digitally (and where an increasing percentage of the goods being traded are themselves virtual), it seems hard to accept the Professor's assumption at 53:54 that geography will continue to play the central role it once did in shaping social development. Otherwise good talk

[@dovbarleib3256]

You ignore how Monotheism leads to a moral culture where large populations can agree on what is evil. Agreeing on what is evil binds large population centers together with a common moral bond. But this was a far greater binding principle in America than it was in Europe.

[@smyrnianlink]

"Geography is destiny" Ibn Khaldun 1389.

[@lacedemonians]

Demographics is destiny.

[@annepoitrineau5650]

Pinker also argues that life is less violent now. I am not convinced by his arguments, nor by Ian Morris's.

[@adanshajdin8247]

What about ancient egypt?

[@madaffi2434]

I wish he said more about what he mentions at the very end, about violence - that we got better at management of war in comparison to all previous times in history. to me it seems we got more "inclusive" in violence, all-encompassing...

[@bakters]

They measured the frequency of violent deaths in primitive societies. As it turns out the *average* is equal to the *worst case during WWII*. About 20%. What you mean I guess, is that in recent years killing civilians became a bit more common. That could be true, but I doubt it. Sacking cities was the norm, ethnic cleansing was too. On top of that soldiers used to die much less back then, so I'd expect it all evens itself out.

[@garmd4953]

yes, but the friction of geography and economy inspired the right questions.

[@artemisrose9526]

all explained so well by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, & Steel

[@erichoogland4791]

Mostly agree--great book. However, for additional provocative reading check out the sections of the Bell Curve relating to "the long tail" by Murray and Herrnstein.

[@otsoko66]

@@erichoogland4791 So long as you read that with a grain of salt as big as the Ritz. It's pretty much data manipulation to support their pre-existing conclusion. It really is pretty bad science.

[@Ziggy84x]

Pretty cool insights. He forgot to mention 'normal' crime violence, which is taking off in the US:(

[@ifktka8308]

The answer of "Why we are so great" will always be wrong because the assumption is wrong, it exaggerates how great the ancient greeks were compared to ancient near east. Although I know that in this video the speaker counts the near east as (West) but I'm taking in general. Ancient Greece's greatness is Ultra-Hyper exaggerated in compression to others, it minimize the importance and achievements of ancient near east (including Egypt). Then we go to Islamic era to which there is also a minimize the importance and achievements as they are viewed only as transmitters of greek philosophy, and a few achievements here and there, but with no real abstract intellectual heritage. To give you ONE example, Descartes's famous book Discourse on the Method is strikingly similar to Al Ghazali's in his famous book (Al Mongth mn Al dalal). There is a book in german that compares Descartes's method with A; Ghazali's, it is called (Philosophie im Vergleich mit Descartes), fascinating.

[@donaldmiller8629]

IFKTK A , You've missed your calling. I have already had a Muslim previous to you tell me that Islam discovered North America many centuries before Columbus. He told me that North America was settled by Islam and that the American Indians are in fact Muslims !

[@sarad6627]

I tend to agree with the first premise. I don't see it that Greece was any better than other civilizations. But, the rest is nonsense.

[@lacedemonians]

Why do you claim that Descartes's famous book Discourse on the Method is strikingly similar to Al Ghazali's?

[@cattycorner8]

@@donaldmiller8629 Someone told me last week that Africans came to the Americas millenia ago

[@donaldmiller8629]

@@cattycorner8 , Well , why not ? Didn't Superman come here from Krypton ?

[@elonif4125]

A good tip for you: if you want a good laugh, read the review by Richard Duchesne and the answer by Ian Morris. The review is amazingly stupid and the answer by Ian Morris is partly really funny.

[@defnecelik7214]

I wonder if the "east" asked the same question during thousands of years they ruled.

[@soulscanner66]

yup

[@nomoteticus]

That's the thing modern racists do not understand, that they may be on the other end of racism 50-100 years from now.

[@lacedemonians]

​@@nomoteticus - All races always have and always will be "on the other end of racism". It's just that whites are made to feel guilty about that reality.

[@intlprofs]

I seemed to have missed two or three: Geography, War and?

[@philmcgroin1661]

This from 2013 the conditions on the ground have changed making this presentation invalid in 2018,

[@jameslong9921]

Just as well he added that last line, I was about to have a breakdown.

[@FalseProphet501]

I might've missed this in the video, but how is he compiling the projection of social development past the modern day? Is it just that we're looking at trends today continuing for x years or?

[@LockSteady]

12 mins in and I'm checking out

[@dondarcy829]

Interesting - History will repeat more quickly & the simple lessons from deep history (no longer taught) will be more relevant than ever. Perhaps for Geographical reasons - as Humanity will likely be off the planet to Mars etc by Ian's magic date of 2103. It is worth noting that Chinese perfomance on Ian's graph made no mention of the isolationist policies put in place in Imperial China that lasted millennia up unitl the industrial era. China is patient if nothing else as it has always thus had better a better sense of & continuity with its deep past (5000 yrs of it). Where the West now views with apologetics its short term policies (Colonialism / Imperialism etc.) - Traditional Chinese sentiments merely view things from the perspective; ''ok, now its our turn''. In these times with the modern tools & politics of Reformist Gradualism & Soft Power - this is already happening. Do we now add Law, Ethics & Religion to the list of Ian's Horsemen. At this point in our collective history as we still don't learn from our past, I disagree that the 21st Cent. will be full of blundering but well meaning optimism. I think we will heading into more a turbo-charged version of ''same old same old''.

[@andres6868]

A point made by Jared Diamond not made here is that because modern Europe was never dominated by one state, the way China did in the East, major scientific breakthroughs that threatened the economic status quo (most inventions, actually) were not banned as in China

[@nebojsagalic4246]

Snowball effect. Power and privilege give the motive, the means and the opportunity for their own increase. And geography gives that initial boost to some human groups, who then go on to boost their own privilege at the expense of others.

[@Byronic19134]

Privilege? Or fruits of labor?

[@Henok_T]

@@Byronic19134 multiplier effects

[@paulfaulkner6299]

I enjoyed that - very informative

[@amarforest]

THe process he describes tentatively is perfectly and much better described by the Indian Epic Mahabharat. The process is cyclical which is a point he misses among many others emphasized by the Mahabharat.

[@MymilanitalyBlogspot]

I was wondering about how he would fit India into his panorama, too, but we also have to ask, Why a cyclical point-of-view - as expressed in, not determined by the Mahabharata - developed in that part of India?

[@floriansteiner5666]

A log-log scale on the first graph would have helped alot !

[@erichoogland4791]

Thought of how a log scale would have helped, but then again that would have made it mathematics, not history.

[@stuart940]

just goes to show predictions are notoriously difficult " the future will be richer, safer, and more amazing than ever " 1:02:50 lol

[@maxx1014]

Somehow intriguing map at around 29:00: The areas were civilisation started are now roughly the ones who falter very badly. Northern Europe, Northern America, Japan and South Korea are lying just above those lucky latitudes and are now the wealthiest regions/countries on earth.

[@axrn5323]

great lecture

[@TheJamesRedwood]

Umm, ever heard of *Guns Germs and Steel* ? I know Diamond is not a professor of history, but does this not support his thesis? 28:00 OK, thanks.

[@atlerthedark3639]

It's tough to say why societies succeed when we don't know why individuals succeed.

[@AlexVictorianus]

But Agnus Madison Project research shows that Italy and the Low Countries were already the most rich in the high and late Middle Ages. Definitely not because of the New World. But it were actually institutions (Catholic Church vs Holy Roman Empire in conflict with each other) which allowed the city states to florish. It was also the Catholic Church which wiped out tribal structures and diminished the enlarged family's role in favor of community. It were also specially European crops like rye, that forced Europe to develope the three field system

[@knutthompson7879]

We (humans) will be running up against resource and environmental limitations over the next hundred years. That makes things hard to predict. That has happened before, of course, but not a global scale.

[@leroysmith8828]

Western Europe (extended to North America) rose to the top because they had to. They were constantly at war with each other to control the limited resources on their continent or control the sea lanes to to have access to resources available elsewhere. America rose to the top not because of any great attempt to get there but by virtue of being the world's only major power who's homeland did not come under attack during WWII so following that conflict we were the only nation able to provide the means for others to rebuild and the market for their goods.

[@sabineb.5616]

Jared Diamond would agree with Ian Morris' conclusions. His book "Guns, Germs and Steel" explained it all quite a few years ago. Diamond has been attacked from all sorts of political and sociological directions. And he may have been wrong now and then as far as details are concerned. But his principle arguments hold up pretty well!