getAbstract Summary: Get the key points from this book in less than 10 minutes.

Europeans and Americans have taken some shots in recent decades. Even the most patriotic Westerner feels some self-doubt about a history that includes slavery and imperialism. But here comes Harvard professor and historian Niall Ferguson to offer a bracing pep talk, shouting: "We're the best thing that ever happened to the world!" Ferguson argues that European and North American dominance was a gift to the globe, particularly when the alternatives were the then-stagnant cultures of China, Japan and the Muslim-dominated Middle East. While acknowledging the two great sins of the Western world – slavery and Nazism – he puts a brave face on everything else. Even the 20th-century Western invention of "total war" produced progress because it spawned so many medical advances. Ferguson is deliberately provocative and sometimes rambles, but he is always compelling. getAbstract recommends his fresh perspective on history and his entertaining rebuke of political correctness about the "West and the Rest."

Book Publisher:

Penguin Press