In 1412, Europe was a miserable backwater, while the Orient was home to dazzling civilizations. So how did the West come to dominate the Rest? In this vital, brilliant book, Niall Ferguson reveals the `killer applications` that did it: Competition: How Europe`s small, piratical states built modern capitalism. Sciense: How innovation gave the West the military edge. Propetry Rights: How the laws of private property built the United States. Medicine: How colonialism transformed the world`s health. The consumer society: HOW shopping made the Industrial Revolution. The work ethic: HOW western religious ideas brought it all together. Do we still have these winning tools, he asks? Or is another power about to triumph?