Jonathan Daly is Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago, USA. He is the author of Historians Debate the Rise of the West (2015).

• Prologue: Why the West?1. Innovation in World Civilization2. Medieval Transformations3. Papal Revolution4. Military Revolutions5. Discovery of the World6. Explosion of the Printed Word7. The Reformation8. Scientific Revolutions9. Commercial Revolutions10. Political Revolutions11. Industrial Revolution12. Technological Revolution13. Crises of the West14. Social RevolutionsConclusion: A New Type of SocietyNotesAnnotated BibliographyIndex

Jonathan Daly’s new odyssey of the rise of the West represents a renewed effort to map up the internal conditions that have made the West so special in the world history. The author’s panorama view which covers the whole spectrum of the factors in favour of the West can be boiled down to a single term: ‘revolutions’, either in human mind or in social institutions and they came one after another tirelessly since the previously misunderstood ‘Dark Ages’. In this context, lucks and chances played much less important role, if at all. The author’s narrative therefore spells out the secret of the rise of the West in a highly consistent and coherent fashion. Curious reader may of course ask where the drive for so many revolutions in the West has come from. This will be the author’s next project, hopefully.

Jonathan Daly is Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago, USA. He is the author of Historians Debate the Rise of the West (2015).

• Prologue: Why the West?1. Innovation in World Civilization2. Medieval Transformations3. Papal Revolution4. Military Revolutions5. Discovery of the World6. Explosion of the Printed Word7. The Reformation8. Scientific Revolutions9. Commercial Revolutions10. Political Revolutions11. Industrial Revolution12. Technological Revolution13. Crises of the West14. Social RevolutionsConclusion: A New Type of SocietyNotesAnnotated BibliographyIndex

Jonathan Daly’s new odyssey of the rise of the West represents a renewed effort to map up the internal conditions that have made the West so special in the world history. The author’s panorama view which covers the whole spectrum of the factors in favour of the West can be boiled down to a single term: ‘revolutions’, either in human mind or in social institutions and they came one after another tirelessly since the previously misunderstood ‘Dark Ages’. In this context, lucks and chances played much less important role, if at all. The author’s narrative therefore spells out the secret of the rise of the West in a highly consistent and coherent fashion. Curious reader may of course ask where the drive for so many revolutions in the West has come from. This will be the author’s next project, hopefully.

Jonathan Daly is Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago, USA. He is the author of Historians Debate the Rise of the West (2015).

• Prologue: Why the West?1. Innovation in World Civilization2. Medieval Transformations3. Papal Revolution4. Military Revolutions5. Discovery of the World6. Explosion of the Printed Word7. The Reformation8. Scientific Revolutions9. Commercial Revolutions10. Political Revolutions11. Industrial Revolution12. Technological Revolution13. Crises of the West14. Social RevolutionsConclusion: A New Type of SocietyNotesAnnotated BibliographyIndex

Jonathan Daly’s new odyssey of the rise of the West represents a renewed effort to map up the internal conditions that have made the West so special in the world history. The author’s panorama view which covers the whole spectrum of the factors in favour of the West can be boiled down to a single term: ‘revolutions’, either in human mind or in social institutions and they came one after another tirelessly since the previously misunderstood ‘Dark Ages’. In this context, lucks and chances played much less important role, if at all. The author’s narrative therefore spells out the secret of the rise of the West in a highly consistent and coherent fashion. Curious reader may of course ask where the drive for so many revolutions in the West has come from. This will be the author’s next project, hopefully.