Why Europe Was First

I’ve finally completed the copy-editing and indexing of my Why Europe Was First book. Amazon and other online booksellers announce it as appearing in November 2006. Well, that’s not going to happen, but it looks like an early 2007 launch. That’s fine, the book is not really a stocking-filler anyway.

This is the final version of the cover

Thanks for all suggestions on the draft for the cover picture. Here is the back-cover blurb:

For most of its history Europe was a thoroughly average part of the world. Poor, uncouth, technologically and culturally backward. By contrast, China was always far richer, more sophisticated and advanced. Yet it was Europe that first became modern, and by the nineteenth century China was struggling to catch up. This book explains why. Why did Europe succeed and why was China left behind? The answer, as we will see, does not only solve a long-standing historical puzzle, it also provides an explanation of the contemporary success of East Asia, and it shows what is wrong with current theories of development and modernization.

Would you buy this book? At $23,07 in the US and 14.00 in the UK maybe someone will. Btw, here are the solicited quotes:

“A thought-provoking and well-written book that provides a unique and idiosyncratic contribution to world history” Professor John M. Hobson, author of Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation, CUP 2004.

“Ringmar provides the most concise and powerful explanation fo these phenomena that I have read, and in enjoyable and skillfully-wrought porse. This is an intellectual feast.” Jack A. Goldstone, Hazel Professor, George Mason University.

Too generous of course, but backcover blurbs are that kind of literary genre. In my defense I should point out that neither of the two are friends (although I briefly met John Hobson at a conference once).

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