Generally speaking, scientists are always used to sketching out a brand-new future in a way different from "history", while historians always try to sort out the general trajectory of human development from the past. Or based on this professional habit, in this book, ian morris, a famous historian and professor of history and classical literature at Stanford University, tries to answer two major propositions from history: Why does the West rule the world? What will happen in the future?

From the beginning, Morris divided the world into two camps, the East and the West. Standing in the 50,000-year history of human development, he pointed out that the long-term dominance of the West is neither long-term predestined nor short-term accidental. At the same time, he resolutely opposed genetic determinism. He believes that this historical difference between the East and the West is essentially a geographical factor that determines the pace of social development in all countries of the world, and social development in turn changes geography.

The object of Morris's "East" is relatively fixed, that is, China is the center, including a few East Asian countries such as Japan, while the concept of "West" is too broad, including ancient Rome, ancient Greece, Islamic world and all civilizations different from "East" in the Western Hemisphere. In order to prove his viewpoint that "geography determines development", Morris established a social development index by integrating four factors: energy acquisition, social organization, war capability and information technology, and listed that the key for the "West" to lead or dominate the world for a long time lies in the unique geographical environment of the West. Because of the Mediterranean, the "western" water trade is cheaper and more convenient. Morris believes that although Zheng He made seven voyages to the Western Ocean as far away as Africa in the Ming Dynasty, the Pacific Ocean was as wide as the Atlantic Ocean. Due to the limitation of technical strength, it was impossible for the "orientals" at that time to cross the Pacific Ocean and take the lead in discovering the new continent of America. It was the discovery of America that led to the "industrial revolution" in the West rather than the East.

The author is knowledgeable and has a good grasp of many interesting details of world history. However, the understanding of history seems to coincide with a fatalistic proposition-based on the objective fact that the geographical environment of the earth has not changed fundamentally since the birth of human civilization, does it mean that the trajectory of human development has long been "predestined"? So, is today's human just walking on a development path that has long been determined by geographical factors? So, what is the meaning of science? ...

For the future development of the world, Morris made a more optimistic outlook, thinking that with the closer international exchanges and cooperation, in the 2 1 century, "wealth and power will inevitably shift from the west to the east" and "it is almost certain that before 2040, China's GDP will surpass that of the United States". In the further future, there will be a "convergence of things". Interestingly, here, "geographical determinism" quietly gave way to the late-comer advantage of "East". Obviously, "geographical determinism" may explain the long-term lead of "the West", but it may not be a reasonable footnote for the rise of "the East".

Is the development of history really only influenced by individual major factors such as geography? Also discussed the rise and fall. In his book The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, paul kennedy pointed out that great powers often "decline due to the shift of the focus of international productive forces, and excessively invade and expand, resulting in the relative decline and backwardness of economy and science and technology". For another example, samuel huntington, who put forward the theory of "clash of civilizations", was not as optimistic as Morris. He believes that different civilizations may become "fertile soil" for future conflicts. In recent years, the local wars and the war on terrorism have actually further verified Huntington's advice with guns and blood.

In the history of the development of human civilization, geographical factors must be extremely important, even in some key historical periods, but historical development is more like the sum of the comprehensive effects of various social factors. Maya civilization once became the leader of the civilization of the times. If it had not suffered from drought for many years, the Mayans might have rewritten the narrative of world history. The real uniqueness of history is that there are not many ifs and it is irreversible. Of course, history can be a powerful mirror for future development, but this kind of empirical support seems to be insufficient to support the development theory of fatalism.

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