In Nail Ferguson’s 2012 book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, he tackles why the West succeeded, to the degree it has and has come to dominate the globe? After a detailed outline of how the European powers compared to those of the Ottoman and Chinese empires 500 years ago — not well. Ferguson goes on to detail how, through circumstances of violence, poor decisions, and empirical overreach, the well-established Chinese and Ottoman empires created the right conditions for the rise of Western Civilization and its 400 years of dominance. He describes 6 particular developments that separated the West from the rest, which in keeping with the times he describes as “Killer Apps.” (This will make more sense in a few). Here are Ferguson’s civilizations killer apps:

• Competition
• Science
• Property Rights
• Medicine
• Consumer Society
• Work Ethic

I’ve read reviews of this work dismissing its oversimplification on one end and its Western-centric position on the other. I think the former missed the point of the exercise while the latter likely didn’t read the text because Ferguson’s conclusions are far from flattering for where the West is heading.

I enjoyed his framing the social developments that gave rise to Western Civilization as Killer Apps. In doing so, Ferguson illustrates how these can and have been downloaded by the rising powers — China for one.

Ferguson spends a good deal on the colonial period and the horrors they incurred on native peoples and also highlighted some of the benefits that came out of said periods, particularly around medicine. 

Below is a TED Talk by Ferguson where is discusses his killer apps. He is a master presenter, and his summary of the apps is compelling and informative.

Ferguson does not shy away from the horrors delivered by Europeans as they marched and conquered the world. These horrors were critical in establishing and maintaining their dominance. But Ferguson did fail to identify an operating system for his apps. I would call it OSR, the operating system of ruthlessness. Without ruthlessness, empires cannot retain their hold for too long, and the rest of the killer apps would not have had an operating system on which to run.