How the West Won

Short Review: This is really a 4.5 star book. Rodney Stark has made a career of countering the prevailing mood of Academic historians. So he wrote a generally pro-crusades history and a book about the rise of Christianity that not only used historical and sociological tools but also took seriously the actual spiritual content. Now he is writing a very pro-western culture book about the rise of Western modernity. What keeps this from being a 5 star book is that Stark does some of the things he complains about others doing. He takes his argument too far and dismisses legitimate critique to easily. But this is a very well written history and one that is well worth reading.


My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/how-the-west-won-the-neglected-story-of-the-triumph-of-modernity-by-rodney-stark/