[Davout06]

I must say at the outset that I'm not a great fan of Ferguson, he's probably my least favourite neo conservative revisionist historian. Not that I have anything against right wing writers, I have a lot of respect for Andrew Roberts and yield to no man in my admiration for Max Hastings.

However, this latest opus is unavoidable and what utter nonsense it is. The idea that there were six features or "killer apps" (which I'll need to pick up later) which were unique to 'the west' and which enabled it to dominate the world is far too simplistic. You can pick so many holes in his argument it's unreal. Western work ethic? Have you seen how hard the Chinese work and have you ever tried to get anything done in Spain between 2 and 6pm? Yet Spain and Portugal amassed vast empires. The Indian's didn't have a competitive cotton industry, of course they didn't after the British East India Company destroyed it. As for the advances in medical science which 'doubled life expectancy' and were "exported to Africa" by the colonising western countries, please! Medical science in the west was little more than guesswork until the mid nineteenth century and life expectancy for colonised countries in Africa only went up after independence in the 50's and 60's.

It's true that western countries did start to dominate the globe from the 16th century but I think 'competition and property rights' is putting a bit of a shine on it. This level of domination was achieved largely through the ruthless application of superior military technology and a determination to accumulate wealth through, if necessary (and it was), mass murder and theft on a global scale.

Leaving aside the off-puttingly smug, sneering and bombastic presentation style of the TV programme I'd like to address the "killer app" issue. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Have you ever heard such a clunky and contrived attempt to sound trendy and 'modern'. Does anyone remember William Hague with a baseball cap on, hilarious.

For a more balanced and realistic take on how 'the west' came to triumph over 'the east' I can recommed Barnaby Rogerson's "The Last Crusaders".

[barbieloon]

Has anyone tried Ian Morris's 'Why the West Rules - for now' ? I found Niall Ferguson's TV offering rather squirm making in its efforts to engage a younger audience, and did not persevere. Nor have I tried his book. I have Ian Morris's book, and the section on the dominance of the West is very logical, but my lack of knowledge of eastern history/culture lets me down rather when attempting to assimilate parallel developments. I have read complaints about children not learning enough about British history - focus on US of A for example - but I would clearly have benefitted from some background in other histories, and some other context than the purely western one.

[Tufty Porcupine]

To say that Professor Niall Ferguson is not one of my favourite historians would be putting it mildly.
This is only the second time that I have felt strongly enough to write/e-mail in to the magazine and both occasions have been in response to ludicrous pronouncements by this man.
In November 2008 I had to write in protest when he was essentially acting as an apologist for the Pinochet regime in Chile, which had rescued the country from the "catastrophic rule of the far-left Allende government". Apparently, the Pinochet dictatorship,"for all its violations of human rights, was one that understood the need for economic modernisation." Good old General Pinochet! The fact that the nasty democratically elected, socialist Allende government was undermined by the US government and CIA was not mentioned of course.

Now, in the July 2012 issue of the magazine, I read with incredulity that Professor Ferguson condemns those of us who feel the global financial crisis was a result of poor regulation and a result of the natural boom-and-bust cycle of free market economics, as believing in "a simplistic fairytale". Apparently what really happened is that the nasty big bad US government forced all those poor lickle banks to do things they didn't want to do.
Quite how this fantasy is to be stretched to explain the collapse of Northern Rock and RBS I'm not quite sure, but undoubtedly Professor Ferguson would claim there was a socialist behind it somewhere.
The idea that if we just let bankers get on with things without government interference then everything would be OK is just preposterous - the latest calamity at Barclay's is evidence enough that free market profit driven systems are inherently corrupt.
If the UK government had not bailed out Northern Rock and agreed to underwrite other banks, the entire UK banking system would have collapsed.
If Professor Ferguson is to be allowed to his right-wing propaganda into print, could be at least ensure that readers and economic experts be allowed to cross-examine him?