Why the West has dominated and why it declines

Great book of a great British historian. He wondered about the causes of world domination by the West - that will not last, finally, some four centuries. Development of critical thinking, scientific rationality, free competition among political and social systems, among smaller traders - may the best win and everyone copies; Secure property rights very early incentives to invest and develop his property; representative system pushing the leaders to give satisfaction to the people; Medicine and Hygiene for an extraordinary lengthening of life expectancy, etc.
His approach is arch-teaching; in each area, he opposes a historical model that has succeeded another that failed. Example arch-conclusive: the North American revolution led by Washington (smallholders revolution used to locally manage their affairs and accustomed to religious freedom) and the South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar (the class of arch-haves is reduced, revocable right of ownership, permanent constitutional instability, social conflicts are coupled with racial conflict ... and the dictator dies cursing his work "the only thing we can do in the Americas is to emigrate "he wrote on his deathbed ...) In one case, prosperity and, once settled the conflict between North and South, civil peace and power, in the other, permanent revolutions and a litany dictatorships, underdevelopment.
At the end of the book, it shows that Western domination has ended, that Europe, in particular, is bloodless and sentenced to a decline that will accelerate very fast. The conversion of the major Asian nations to free trade, their intelligent integration into the globalization process, make China and India, the major powers of the XXI century.
The West, in the broadest sense (including North America and Australia) which still represented 20% of the world population in 1950 will fall to 10% in 2050.
Western domination was a historical parenthesis. So she closes. All eyes are now turned towards East Asia, new engine of world history.