Neil Ferguson notes: "even at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the very idea that the West would dominate the rest of the world for the next five centuries would seem very strange. However, it did happen." And now the power of the West amazes even the richest imagination... So why did this happen? Why did Europe, which in the year 1500 was inferior to the East in many respects-economic, technological, demographic — manage to rush forward sharply and achieve undisputed world domination? What are the components of the success of Western civilization? It is these tantalizing questions that Neil Ferguson covers extremely boldly, sometimes even defiantly, but nevertheless extremely fascinatingly.