QT: Niall Ferguson TED Talk on the Great Divergence

Niall Ferguson provides a TED talk summary of his forthcoming Civilization: The West and the Rest (2011). In this talk and book (I've read reviews of its publication in the UK this spring), he provides an account of why China, especially, fell back from the West (Europe, U.S./Canada/and Autral-asia) at the beginning of the 19th century, and how China, other Asian nations, and perhaps Latin America, have closed that gap and will likely soon end it. An intriguing and important issue. Ferguson does a fine job of making his points.