Would the world have modernised without Britain?

I am just beginning to read Nial Ferguson's fascinating history - Empire: How Britain made the modern world. The question he poses near the beginning is whether the modernisation of the world would have occurred anyway, or whether it fundamentally depended on Great Britain. For example, would someone else have had the Industrial Revolution, the great scientific strides of the Enlightenment, the development of democracy and the Common Law - to name but a few British achievements?

Certainly, the USA, Canada, Australia, India, Asia and Africa would look very different today without Britain. Ferguson's answer is "probably, no". He thinks the world would have remained pre-modern at least until now and probably longer.