[ghaff]

Why the West Rules for Now seemed to make a good case (by my reading) for geographical determinism (i.e. Jared Diamond's thesis) being part of the story but not all of it given the ups and downs of the western and eastern cores over the millennia. I'm not sure he really answered the question at the end of the day--beyond Europe was in the right place at the right time for the Industrial Revolution to happen--but maybe that's pretty much the reality.