If you were able to circumnavigate the Earth in the 15th century, what would impress you the most would be the astonishing cultures of the East. In Beijing, the Forbidden City was being built; in the Near East, the Ottomans were tightening the noose around Constantinople. Europe, on the other hand, would seem to you a miserable swamp, still plagued by epidemics, poor hygiene conditions, and incessant warfare. North America was an anarchic wilderness compared to the kingdoms of the Aztecs and the Incas. The idea that the West could dominate the rest of the world for most of the next five centuries would seem to you absolute fantasy. And yet it happened. What did the civilization of Western Europe have that allowed it to gain an edge over the seemingly superior empires of the East? As Niall Ferguson argues, the answer is that the West developed six 'killer applications' that others did not have: competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism, and work ethic. The crucial question today is whether the West has lost its monopoly over them. Could this be why we are witnessing the end of Western dominance? [Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]