Ian Morris

Biography

Stanford Historian Ian Morris is interested in understanding why the west has dominated the earth for the last few centuries, and his latest book, “Why the West Rules . . . For Now” has bolstered his reputation as one our most important, and interesting, historians.

Why the West Rules … For Now, asks how geography and natural resources have shaped the distribution of wealth and power around the world across the last 20,000 years and how they will shape our future. A professor of history at Stanford University, Morris has written or edited eleven other books. He has appeared on numerous television shows and his prizes and awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities. His teaching includes classes on world history, ancient Greece, slavery, and archaeology.

On “Why the West Rules“:

“A remarkable book that may come to be as widely read as Paul Kennedy’s 1987 work, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.’ Like Mr Kennedy’s epic, Mr Morris’s ‘Why the West Rules—For Now’ uses history and an overarching theory to address the anxieties of the present . . . This is an important book—one that challenges, stimulates and entertains. Anyone who does not believe there are lessons to be learned from history should start here.” —The Economist

“Morris’ new book illustrates perfectly why one really scholarly book about the past is worth a hundred fanciful works of futurology. Morris is the world’s most talented ancient historian, a man as much at home with state-of-the-art archaeology as with the classics as they used to be studied . . . He has brilliantly pulled off what few modern academics would dare to attempt: a single-volume history of the world that offers a bold and original answer to the question, Why did the societies that make up ‘the West’ pull ahead of ‘the Rest’” — Niall Ferguson, Foreign Affairs