table of contents COMMON GENIUS: Guts, Grit, and Common Sense

the long version

Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgements Chapter 1 -- The Theory of History 3 Chapter 2 -- Past Summaries of The Past 16 Chapter 3 -- The Nature of Intelligence 23 Chapter 4 -- Philosophers vs. Scientists 42 Chapter 5 -- The Stepping Stones of History 52 Phoenicia -- The First Merchant State 53 Greece -- The Roots of Democracy 56 Iceland -- Overcoming Geography and Climate 62 The Basques -- The Importance of Undesirable Land 65 Florence and the Italian City States -- Drawing on the Past 69 Holland -- Bourgeois Burghers at Work 79 Scotland -- The Protestant Reformation Realized 84 England -- A Thousand Years of Persistence by the Common People 90 America -- Putting it all Together--The Ultimate Stepping Stone 96 Chapter 6 -- Why The West Won 105 Chapter 7 -- Defining Historical Progress 129 Chapter 8 -- How Developing Nations Can Develop 138 Chapter 9 -- Smugglers, Mercantilism, Fishing and Illegal Immigration 156 Chapter 10 -- How Religions Affect Growth and Freedom 165 Chapter 11 -- European Diplomacy -- Two Hundred Years of Failure 182 Chapter 12 -- The Difference Between Principles and Ideas 198 Chapter 13 -- Drifting Backward--Totalitarianism and Genocide in the 20th Century 210 Chapter 14 -- Problems of Mature Societies -- The Intelligentsia Arrives 226 Chapter 15 -- The Decline of Societies -- Following the Wrong Vision 252 Chapter 16 -- What’s So Great About The Common Man 274 Notes 282