“The Japanese seem to love themselves much better than we do, or at least support themselves”:

in The Lessons of Japan, a French historian compares 🇯🇵 and 🇫🇷. He shows that this country, very politically incorrect, escapes many ills.

What I've learned: ⤵️(1/10)
To begin with, Bouissou explains that 🇯🇵 is one of the few countries to have a religion that it doesn't share with any other country.
It was born 15 centuries ago by combining 3 elements: Shintoism (the only indigenous element), Confucianism (imported from China), and Buddhism.

In his masterful work "What is the West?", political ideas historian Philippe Nemo explains the 5 historical processes that have led to the success of the West, shaping the mindset of today's Western civilization:
(1/10)⤵️🧵
1. The Greek Miracle: the invention of democracy, freedom under the law, and science.

He shows that the Greek City constituted an unprecedented revolutionary leap. For the first time in history, power shifts from the secrecy of the royal palace to the agora. This marks the

One of the secrets behind the development of Europe and the West lies right here, in this little corner of Burgundy.

I've long wanted to write about the fundamental role played by the monks of the Cîteaux Abbey in Europe's economic and technological take-off: (1/10)⤵️🧵

The Cîteaux Abbey was founded on 21 March 1098. The Cistercian monks advocated asceticism and made work a fundamental value, in contrast to the wealthy nearby abbey of Cluny, which they criticised for devoting too little time to work in daily life.

The passenger's dilemma, or why Westerners conquered the world.

A friend is driving way too fast and hits a pedestrian. You are a passenger in the vehicle. If you testify that he was within the speed limit, he avoids prison. What do you do?

Westerners respond (1/12)⤵️ 🧵

very differently from the rest of the world. And 🇺🇸 anthropologist and Harvard professor Joseph Henrich explains why in his book "The WEIRDest People in the World - How the West Became Psychologically peculiar and Particularly Prosperous".

From the invention of eyeglasses to the conquest of the world:
in "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, Why some are so rich and some so poor", Harvard historian 🇺🇸 David S. Landes explains why the Industrial Revolution took place in Europe: ⤵️(1/10)🧵
First of all, Landes shows that the Western scientific and economic take-off of the 16th century did not come out of nowhere: far from the cliché of the "Dark Ages", medieval Europe was one of the most innovative and inventive periods in history.
Here are just a few examples:

"How the West grew rich": a few notes on this book by 2 🇺🇸 academics explaining the reasons for the Western economic and technological take-off from the 15th century onwards.

And it has nothing to do with "luck" or colonization. (1/11) ⤵️🧵

The authors point out that for millennia, poverty among the masses was the norm: "These eras of misery have been mythologized and may even be remembered as golden ages of pastoral simplicity", when in reality, the masses lived in the "silence of poverty".