Uncivilised: A science historian explores ten founding ideas of Western civilisation, and their fatal flaws

Knowledge is power. Time is money. Justice is blind.

Western civilisation is a powerful brand, and full of accepted wisdoms like these that we rarely question. Taking cues from Greek philosophy and honed in the Enlightenment, certain notions about humanity and society grew into the tenets many of us still live by today.

But if we take a closer look at these ideas, it seems they are not all they are cracked up to be. In fact, some of them are outright lies – and we can start to ask who really benefits from them. What is the value of a scientific worldview that conjured up ‘race’? Are the Western concepts of ‘saving’ and ‘wasting’ time really the best ways to live? Who are our laws actually designed to serve? And the real question: is the West as civilised as it likes to think it is?

In an age of division and entrenched inequality, Uncivilised is a timely, provocative and entertaining counter to the ideas and assumptions that have shaped the West, exposing the fatal flaws at its core.