Wow...I'm writing wayyy more than I thought I would...the book is JUST THAT GOOD!! Seriously!Fareed gets things going with a dose of excitement with the story of Chinese Admiral Zheng He. Before reading this book, i'd never heard of the series of amazing voyages that he took more than 90 years before Columbus' voyages. Straight up, these voyages were a spectacular sight, "shock and awe - 1400's style." Designed to show the might, power and reach of the Ming dynasty, Zheng's fleets travelled throughout Southeast Asia and the Indian ocean. They were missions of extending relations, opening trade routes, collecting tribute and showing off the military might when necessary. The smallest of Zheng's ships had five masts and just for comparison purposes, the Santa Maria (picture right...Columbus' flagship) literally had nothing on Zheng's fleet.
During the 1400's, it can be quite easily said that China was the Zenith of human civilization, especially with the West being a mess and struggling to find itself through the Dark Ages, but taking a glance back through history...we see the order of the world changed quite dramatically...so what happened? I touched briefly upon the Renaissance in Europe as a contributing factor (which played a part in establishing the first great powershift that Fareed mentioned waaay back in chapter 1) but there were very significant changes within China that we've not yet talked about.
Zheng He's last voyage was in 1433 and during the 1430's, pro-expansion Emperors Hongwu and Yongle gave way to Emperor Zhengtong. He and those after him saw the expeditions as a rather low-yield side project that was oh so expensive and putting even more strain on an already heavily burdened population. Additionally, China had other domestic pressures (Mongolian Invasions...that'll do it!) and the expeditions (along with the will to expand) were put on the back-burners. Continuing this example, Fareed charts the decline: "In 1500, the court decreed that anyone who built a ship with more than two masts would be executed. In 1525, coastal authorities were ordered to destroy any oceangoing vessels they encountered and throw the owners in prison. In 1551, it became a crime to go to sea on a multimast ship for any purpose. When the Qing dynasty came to power in 1644, (...) it simply scorched a 700 mile-long strop of China's southern coast, rendering it uninhabitable" [1]. Well, as one can guess...all of these decrees had their desired effect and the Chinese shipping industry collapsed and more importantly, China became isolated(-ish) from the world and turned its back on trade and exploration, just as Western Europe began to open up and reach out. This opening up and expansion by Western Europe would later be very significant to the Western rise to dominance and imperialism, and the shaping of the world in which we know and love today.
Fareed states that commonly, people think that China and India (the countries which Fareed often uses to represent the non-West when making comparisons) were just as rich/prosperous as the West right up until the 1800s, when the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions (and by relation, colonization, taxation and the energy revolution) gave Western Europe that leading edge to rise to dominance. Basically, this politically correct way of thinking makes it seem like the West just kinda 'lucked out,' however this is not really the case.
Here's the important part: A country's economy could not really be mobilized or utilized to any useful extent until the industrial revolution and the modern age. The economy was more or less localized ('The Cottage Industry, in British terms) and millions of peasants working the land really didn't contribute much to the usable wealth or power of a country. Now, the populations of China and India alone have always dwarfed those of Western countries, so all those extra people and their small output added up to a large number. In 1913, Britain was a leading world power, on the cutting edge of technology and industrialization, yet peasant-class China could still claim a larger national GDP [2]. So what all this says is that before the age of modernity, analyzing countries based on GDP is pretty useless however, studying countries based on economic growth and GDP Per Capita is useful. This train of thought takes us to a mind-blowing destination. Fareed states that between 1350 - 1950, the GDP Per Capita of both China and India remained roughly constant at ~$600 and ~550, respectively. However, in Western Europe during this same period...we see values of ~$662 for 1350 GDP Per Capita and ~$4,594 for 1950, a 594% increase. THIS IS OVER 600 YEARS and there's next to NO significant change in China/India. Six. Hundred. YEARS! [3].
Basically, from this we can take that the West became FAR more prosperous than the East/Rest during this time period and that living conditions within the East/Rest really didn't change much (which, given these figures is pretty understandable.)
Let's jump back for a second, back to the time of Zheng He. During this time (as I said...scroll up and read it!) China was the apex of Human Civilization and advancement. During the first few centuries of the 2nd millennium, the East dominated the West in just about every respectable measure...and had tremendous influence. While Western Europe burned in the Dark Ages, the Middle East preserved much of the Greek and Roman knowledge that was lost in Europe during this time and made amazing advances in mathematics, science and psychological thought. To the core, much of what we know is traced back to this period of time (Arabic Numerals, the concept of Zero, Algebra and so on) [4]. During this time period, China was making regular use of gun powder, moveable type and agricultural innovations that the West would stumble upon (often through trade and expansion) hundreds of years later. So again, to recap: The great shift in power here largely draws credit from the critical thinking brought on by the Renaissance in Western Europe and changing national policy elsewhere in the world...so i'm not going to talk any further on that.
Fareed stops to dwell on one important life changing innovation that really helped push Western Europe ahead. I'll let my historian friend Daniel Boorstin field this one. "The clock broke down the walls between kinds of knowledge, ingenuity and skill and clockmakers were the first to consciously apply the theories of mechanics and physics to the making of machines" [5]. So basically, from this, it means that man now had the ability to "order the day, define the night, organize work, (...) measure the cost of labour." Now...time had measureable value. It's a bit of a strange concept to us now, but before this...time was nothing, it didn't mean anything and it had no value. With clocks, productivity became relevant, labour mattered and it allowed for a fundamental restructuring of how we do things and how we track what we do.
So. Western Europe was able to now measure productivity, labour and so on and more importantly, the search for increased efficiency became important in Europe. China, on the other hand, did have clumsy water-clocks, but the appreciation for time and what it meant to the Europeans did not resonate with the Chinese. The ramifications of this further added to the rise of the West to dominance over the Rest. However, Fareed identifies that the Taj Mahal, The Great Wall and the Forbidden City were all built during this time...so things couldn't have been that bad, right? The answer here lies with how these construction efforts were carried out (and relates back to the value of time.) The Taj Mahal was built over twenty years and had twenty thousand workers going day and night. The Forbidden City was constructed with one million workers (and a million soldiers to control the population as well.) The Great Wall and Zheng He's fleet were constructed with a similar fashion. The point is that when the entire country is focused towards one goal and resources are (relatively) limitless, that country can achieve great things. One only has to look at the Soviet Union who up until the 1970s had a fantastic space program but was one of the most technically backwards countries around (in Soviet Russia...car drives you! har har har!) Another more current example is North Korea. One of the most restricted, impoverished crazy back-asswards countries in our global society has managed to actually develop nuclear weapons!!!! They never have enough food for their people and they can't even make flat glass without imperfections, yet they have atomic bombs. See what I mean? To further demonstrate his point (and again, draw a connection back to the value of time) Fareed draws us up a comparison between the Yangtze Delta and England in the 1800s. These two agricultural regions were some of the richest in Asia and Europe and were more or less kind of on par with each other at this time (by some measures, anyways.) Both countries needed more food to feed more people, yet decided upon different ways to accomplish this. In what is called "output without development" the Chinese just stuck more workers and farmers on a given plot of land to increase output. The English, however, focused on efficiency and how to make each farmer more productive. As a result, labour saving devices were discovered and implemented in England (the use of animals, the multi-spindle wheel.) As a result, each farmer could produce more and more crops and as a result, England became much more productive in both invested man-hours and in actual yields from the land. All the while, the Yangtze lagged behind and became far less productive with the resources at its disposal. Apply this to a global scale and there you have it, the Rise of the West. As Fareed so eloquently puts it..."This was the tragedy of Asia: even when there was knowledge, there was no learning" [6]. Deep stuff, my friend.
Of course, there is a cultural element to all this as well. In most of the non-Western world, civil society was weak and was dependent on the government and many cultural traditions were, to put it bluntly, barriers to the development of capitalist practices. Fareed quickly identifies a few: During the period of discussion (pre-industrial) Chinese businessmen would abandon their practices to become masters of Confucianism so that they would be favoured by the Imperial courts. Taboos in Hinduism prevented the killing of rodents and insects, resulting in challenges for the storage of foodstuffs. However, there is a much more important characteristic that trumps this sociocultural element...Geography.
Check the two links below and let us compare and contrast some differences.
We have Europe:
We have Asia:
Right away it's evident that the topography of Europe, the hundreds of rivers, mountains and valleys that carve up its landmass, create many natural barriers to a large centralized state. Asia, on the other hand, is dominated by large plains and steppes which allows for the effective spread and control of a centralized authority. Now throw into the mix, people, who also represent ideas or thoughts. Let us say that one central European state has a shift in sociocultural or political ideologies and the ideas that a section of the population represent are no longer favoured. You can decree and kill all you want, but in most cases the topographic boundaries of Europe are going to limit your influence and as a result, some of the people who represent those ideas ARE going to leave your area of influence and just go some where else. That being said, you simply cannot completely put a cap on innovation in Europe...you just can't quash those ideas and as a result, the mixing of these people and their ideas is going to lead to even more innovation. Conversely, let's look at China and use the example at the beginning of the post. At one point, the Emperor went as far as to actually destroy the schematics of China's sea-faring vessels so as to prevent them from being created, further driving China into isolation. Schematics are just paper and even with their destruction, there were people (and a lot of them...Nanjing had a hell of a lot of labourers in the 1400s) who possessed knowledge of ship building. However, due to the shear vastness of the Chinese empire (owing in part to the topography of Asia) the Chinese were able to effectively cease and kill the spread of ideas all together. The ability, then for a government to control, limit or stop the spread of ideas within the region of their influence (and their own geographical region) is now crucial to the rise of the West. The Catholic Church didn't much care for some of the ideas proposed by scholars of the Renaissance, but their influence reached only so far and they were never able to contain the spread of ideas and as a result, the knowledge and innovation marched on and the West rose to dominance. If the Renaissance were to occur somewhere in mainland China, we can almost be sure that the forces of the Emperor would have been able to contain and destroy the ideas with ease (as Fareed puts it...the Chinese Emperor could literally turn back time. I bet Cher is so jealous!!)
When we take this into consideration, it makes it seem like the world was stacked so as the results could not turn out any other way. Fareed makes an incredibly important statement in that "such structural factors only tell you a society's predispositions, what the odds favour. Sometimes, the odds can be beaten" [7]. As we all know, Rome held control and influence over most of Europe for a very long time. The world as our history books describe it is just an account of how things happened to play out. We can identify some key decisions that were made throughout history that could have vastly affected the outcome we live in today and thus, affected 'the odds' (the aforementioned decisions of the Chinese Emperors, or even "The Scourge of God" (Atilla)'s end to his conquest of Rome at the beseeching of Pope Leo I.)
Okay. So Western Europe rules the roost. We must observe one very important fact about the spread of Western contact. "Within one hundred years of European contact, one trend was unmistakeable and irreversible: these encounters changed or destroyed the existing political, social and economic arrangements in non-Western societies" [8]. That being said, the ways of the non-Western world were destroyed upon their 'discovery' by the West and this fact would play a crucial role in the coming dominance of the West in global affairs. However, we must notice that in today's world...the Middle East largely is (more or less, when compared with the rest of the world) devoid of complete Western influence. The Europeans, despite all their achievements, could not completely dominate the Arabs in a military sense (The Crusades, anyone?) and they choose only to trade and their influence remained minimal. In contrast, the European militaries were lightyears ahead of the natives of the Americas and Southcentral Africa and they knew it and as a result, they became dominant and their influence controlled all. The desires for material wealth and resources were soon supplemented by a desire for complete control and influence over all things, which led to land grabs and the formation of great empires and thus, Imperialism. (as they said...The Sun never sets on the British Empire: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/The_British_Empire.png). Through this process of acquiring control through domination of trade, culture, politics and when necessary, military might, the west was able to fully cement its influence and control over the non-Western world, allowing for the creation of the world in which we know today.
Through the processes described above, Western institutions, practices, languages and even the "way of thinking" became the norm through most of the World. Over the last few centuries, there has been a huge drive in the non-Western world to completely "westernize" and Fareed observes that this is mainly because "people want to succeed, and people tend to copy those who have succeed" [9]. This has been observed of many non-Western leaders through history, from Peter the Great of Russia to Kemal Ataturk of Turkey to Yukichi Fukuzawa of Japan and Sun Yat-sen of China and later, even Deng Xiaoping. Many of these leaders believed strongly in the beauty and value of their own cultures (Fukuzawa was a scholar of Japanese history) and to some degree, were fiercely anti-Western and sought to separate themselves politically from the West. And yet, they still sought national policies that would Westernize their countries and to some degree, destroy the cultures (and even the ideologies in the case of Xiaoping) that they so cherished. From this, we can establish that many of the non-Western governments did (and still do) see Westernization = Modernization = Success, bolded because it's an Iron Law, there is no alternative. This train of Western Influenced thought, backed by policies of America as discussed in other chapters are responsible for the rise of the Rest and the modern awakening/industrialization of China and India.
This surge of Westernization and the resulting move away from traditional and cultural values has caused a flurry of discussion within many countries as some seek to modernize while still holding onto their culture.
Fareed then asks the question "Can one be Modern without being Western?" One can easily speculate that in the future, the International world will be far different from what we're used too as in the coming decades, three of the four largest economies will be non-Western (Japan, China and India) and the fourth, the United States, will be increasingly influenced by its growing non-European population [10]. Fareed and scholars such as Samuel P. Huntington argue that Westernism and Modernization are distinct from each other and that the West was noticeably "Western" before it became "Modern." Modernization is instead about Industrialization, Urbanization and improved living conditions (higher rates of literacy, wealth, health care) and that Westernization is Christianity, separation of Church and State, the rule of law and so fourth. The rule of thought that Westernization = Modernization is a product of the fact that the West was the first to modernize and as a result was able to become dominant.
Fareed then asks the question "Can one be Modern without being Western?" One can easily speculate that in the future, the International world will be far different from what we're used too as in the coming decades, three of the four largest economies will be non-Western (Japan, China and India) and the fourth, the United States, will be increasingly influenced by its growing non-European population [10]. Fareed and scholars such as Samuel P. Huntington argue that Westernism and Modernization are distinct from each other and that the West was noticeably "Western" before it became "Modern." Modernization is instead about Industrialization, Urbanization and improved living conditions (higher rates of literacy, wealth, health care) and that Westernization is Christianity, separation of Church and State, the rule of law and so fourth. The rule of thought that Westernization = Modernization is a product of the fact that the West was the first to modernize and as a result was able to become dominant. The rise of the Rest isn't just about non-Western countries beginning to wake up and modernize, it's about the internal struggle to find the path to modernization that best suits the sociocultural and political aspects of each country. It is up to each non-Western country to carve a path for themselves and since the West was so successful, it's only natural for some to see Westernization as the integral link between agrarian and modern civilization. In the drive towards modernization, many non-Western countries are emerging as a mixed society of some Western ideals infused with their own (China and Deng Xiaoping are great examples. While still clutching centralized state-run values, China has been able to make great leaps towards modernization. On the topic, Deng once said "It doesn't matter if it's a black cat or a white cat, as long as it can catch mice, it's a good cat.") It is still common to see many symbols of Western lifestyle as the world standard (the business suit, a descendent of European military uniforms, or blue jeans (denim traces its origins back to France) but we can predict there will be change and integration of styles as the Rest rise up.
However, this integration doesn't apply to all elements of non-Western life. What we're seeing in non-Western 
cultures is an erosion of high-level culture and traditional order and what replaces it is a product of globalization. The products of this globalization are generally Western and often American.
cultures is an erosion of high-level culture and traditional order and what replaces it is a product of globalization. The products of this globalization are generally Western and often American.Fareed makes a very, very important distinction on the rise of globalization and the cries about the negative effects of it upon the world and culture. Globalization and the spread of Western influences such as McDonalds, Rock & Roll and Blue Jeans is now universal and the important fact is that these globalized imports are serving a much larger population than the cultural traditions that generally served a small number of cultural elite within the country. It is worth it to quote Fareed at length: "The French have been decrying the loss of their culture for centuries, when, in fact, all that has happened is the decline of a certain old and hierarchical order. Did the majority of French people, most of whom were poor peasants, eat at authentic bistros (...) in the nineteenth century? Chinese opera is said to be dying. But is that because of Westernization or because of the rise of China's mass culture?
How many 
Chinese peasants listen to opera in their villages decades ago?" [11]. In may places, the ultra-traditional elements of the 'old world' are lost upon the modernized youth. The rise of globalization and the decline in traditional values is a source of underlying unease for many in top political circles in the countries that define the Rest. With the past being left behind, many have strived (as I mentioned earlier) to preserve their values and elements of their cultural past before they are 'erased' by globalization. One must realize that this, too, is natural with globalization and it's no different than the cries of Western conservatives who have sought to preserve their own moral values for centuries (and when I say conservatives, I don't mean nutjob neo-cons like Bill O'Rielly, Glenn Beck and the like.)
Chinese peasants listen to opera in their villages decades ago?" [11]. In may places, the ultra-traditional elements of the 'old world' are lost upon the modernized youth. The rise of globalization and the decline in traditional values is a source of underlying unease for many in top political circles in the countries that define the Rest. With the past being left behind, many have strived (as I mentioned earlier) to preserve their values and elements of their cultural past before they are 'erased' by globalization. One must realize that this, too, is natural with globalization and it's no different than the cries of Western conservatives who have sought to preserve their own moral values for centuries (and when I say conservatives, I don't mean nutjob neo-cons like Bill O'Rielly, Glenn Beck and the like.)The appeal of tradition is strong in every country, whether it is Western or non-Western. However, we cannot argue that the rise of the Rest will produce a social change within these countries that is inevitable. These changes will likely make them appear on a macroscopic level, more European/Western/American than they already are, but it is likely that small elements of their own culture will be infused into this modernization. This is because culture follows power, straight up.
As such, the future we're about to enter as a result of the rise of the Rest will be a pretty mixed up place, vastly different from the world that we know and love today (i've said this already, but it's important so just roll with it.) It's important to understand that globalization isn't just a bulldozer, rolling over everything in its path to make space for McDonalds franchises. Globalization is mutagenic and has entered a second stage, which is fostering growth in local cultural elements (languages, arts and so on) and infusing them with the first stage of globalization (Westernization, Americanism.) Fareed uses another stunning example to explain what is happening in a broad sense. As globalization initially spread, everyone first watched CNN...there was nothing else. CNN was joined media outlets with a more regional focus like the BBC, Al Jazeera, Al Arabia, NDTV(India) and Aaj Tak [12]. What's important is that these outlets don't just provide global news, they provied a regional perspective and lens to the events...they explain these events as it relates to them. Al Jazeera offered an amazingly different perspective on the Israeli bombing raids and invasion of the Gaza strip that occurred last year because they were able to apply a lens to this news and focus it into their own perspective. That's what the second phase of globalization (and more importantly, the rise of the Rest) is all about.
Here's the one thing to really take away from all of this rambling. Modernity was the result of the rise of the West and it is natural that modernity has taken a Western face. Additionally, it's only natural that some would like to emulate this as much as possible...however as globalization evolves and with it, modernity, we see that Modernization becomes a 'melting pot' as each culture, country and group takes its own path towards modernization. It's only natural that in the rise to modernity, some cultural elements may not be compatible and they will wither and die, becoming phased out and forgotten (Feudalism and Modernity aren't down with each other...) So will the future be Western based or modern or something else entirely? This is a complicated question to answer and there are many complex elements that contribute to the result of this question. From what we can see now, as globalization and modernization continue to evolve, as countries take their own path to this end game, we will see the world evolve into something very different than our status quo. In the end, it might be more about power than culture.
References:
F. Zakaria The Post-American World, New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2008.
[1] Pp 50-51
[2] Pp 53
[3] Pp 53
[4] Pp 54
[5] Pp 56
[6] Pp 60
[7] Pp 64
[8] Pp 66
[9] Pp 70
[10] Pp 74
[11] Pp 78
[12] Pp 83
