Civilization: Is The West History?

Civilization: Is The West History? Sundays at 9pm on Channel 4.

Niall Ferguson asks why Western civilization, from inauspicious roots in the 15th century, came to dominate the rest of the world; and if the days of Western ascendency are coming to an end.

Industry. Science. Democracy. Empire. The Consumer Society. Not forgetting Christianity. Western civilization gave the world the way it works, the way it thinks, and the way most of it now governs itself. The West once ruled more than half the world. The religion it exported is still followed by a third of mankind. Above all, the way people live - or aspire to live - is unmistakably an invention of the West.

But are we living through the beginning of the end of the West's ascendancy? Once so dominant, the economies of the United States and Europe are now facing the real prospect of being overtaken by China within a generation. There is mounting scepticism, too, about the West's recipe of the free market plus democracy. The Protestant ethic of thrift that once seemed so central to the Western project has all but vanished. And, of course, Western societies are beset by almost millenarian fears of a coming environmental apocalypse.

What's more, Western civilization has lost confidence in itself. The grand narrative of Western ascent has fallen out of fashion. Most children leave school knowing only unconnected fragments of Western history: Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr, with not a lot in between. Moreover, the argument is gaining currency that it is other cultures we should study, not our own. We have been persuaded that every aspect of Western expansion after 1500 was a form of evil imperialism and that we should atone for the sins of our ancestors by forgetting them.

Yet the study of other civilizations should not lead us to think that there was nothing special about the West. There was, and this new series sets out to explain what it was. After the success of the Emmy award-winning Ascent of Money , Harvard historian Niall Ferguson takes on the even bigger subject: why did the West dominate the Rest, and are the days of Western dominance coming to an end on our watch?

Only by juxtaposing the West and "the Rest" can we hope to uncover the keys - the six killer applications - of Western ascendancy: the real explanation of how, for roughly five centuries, a clear minority of mankind managed to secure the lion's share of the earth's resources. 

The answer Niall Ferguson comes up with is surprising and provocative. The West has triumphed, after all. Western ideas and institutions have been adopted all over the rest of the world. The six killer applications he identifies as crucial to Western success have finally been downloaded by the Rest. But, in the process, Western civilization has lost faith in itself. It is that loss of self-belief that poses the biggest threat to our continued predominance. 

Intelligent, entertaining and educational, but also visually stunning, Civilization will do more for the public understanding of world history than any series since the original BBC series of the same name by Kenneth Clark more than 40 years ago.

Civilization: Is The West History? Sundays at 9pm on Channel 4.