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Will The Rest Of The World Catch Up To The West?

Part 3 of the TED Radio Hour episode Haves And Have-Nots.

About Niall Ferguson's TED Talk

Historian Niall Ferguson explains why, when it comes to amassing wealth, it's been the West versus the rest for the past 500 years. He suggests six killer apps that promote wealth, stability and innovation — and are now shareable.

About Niall Ferguson

It's not advantageous for the wealthy countries of the West to inhabit a planet alongside impoverished countries.

Niall Ferguson teaches history and business administration at Harvard University and is a senior research fellow at several other universities, including Oxford.

He has written about everything from German politics during the era of inflation to a financial history of the world. He's now working on a biography of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

His latest book and TV series, Civilization: The West and the Rest, aim to help 21st-century audiences understand the past and the present. He asks how, since the 1500s, Western nations have surpassed their Eastern counterparts and come to dominate the world. And he wonders whether that domination is now threatened by the rise of Asia.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

NPR/TED Staff
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