The Asian Century
In 1900, the West ruled the world. From the Bosphorus to the Bering Strait and beyond, nearly all of what was then known as the Orient was under some form or another of Western imperial rule. The British had long ruled India, the Dutch the East Indies, the French Indo-China. The Americans had just seized the Philippines; the Russians aspired to control Manchuria. All the imperial powers had established parasitical outposts in China.
This Western dominance was remarkable in that over half the world’s population were Asians, while barely a fifth belonged to the dominant countries of the West.
What enabled the West to rule the East was the former’s systematic application of scientific knowledge. In 1900, the West produced more than half the world’s output and the East barely a quarter. Democracy, liberty, and equality: all of these concepts originated in the West. So did nearly all the significant scientific breakthroughs from Newton to Einstein.
The story of the 20th century was the crisis of the European empires, the ultimate result of which was the inexorable revival of Asian power and the descent of the West.
From The War of the World by Niall Ferguson