The Rise of the West

Summary

A grand synthesis of world history that rejects civilization-by-civilization isolation in favor of a story driven by contact, borrowing, and exchange among Eurasian societies. McNeill argues that technological and cultural diffusion, rather than any innate Western superiority, account for the eventual global ascendancy of European powers after 1500. The book helped inaugurate the modern field of world history and influenced a generation of comparative historians.