It has also indirectly given voice to an age-old question about Russia: is she Western, or not? Japan was involved primarily in the so-called Meiji period (1868–1912), though earlier contact with the Portuguese, the Spaniards and the Dutch were also present in recognition of European nations as strategically important to the Japanese Empire. ", Western world's major national buildings and churches by the colonial 15th–20th centuries, Map illustrations of the West according to different but closely interrelated definitions, Ancient Greek-Hellenistic worlds (13th–1st centuries BC), Middle Ages: Byzantine Empire (AD 395–1450), Holy Roman Empire (AD 800/962–1806), East-West Schism (AD 1054), Protestant Reformation (1500s), Colonial West: discovery of America, mercantilism and imperialism (15th–20th centuries). Rome. ", "New Left Review – Jack Goody: The Labyrinth of Kinship", http://www.thearda.com/internationalData/regions/index.asp, "China blocks Wikipedia in all languages", "The Meaning of Privatization," Yale Law and Policy Review 6: 6–41" 1988, "Multinational Corporations in the Third World: Predators or Allies in Economic Development?" [citation needed], The then Hellenic division between the barbarians (term used by Ancient Greeks for all non-Greek-speaking people) and the Greeks contrasted in many societies the Greek-speaking culture of the Greek settlements around the Mediterranean to the surrounding non-Greek cultures. Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, Learn how and when to remove this template message, building designs and proportions and architecture, populations have had a large presence of particular European ethnic groups, immigration of Europeans in the 20th century, civil wars, corruption, and devastating Germanic invasions, Roman Catholic and Eastern Greek Orthodox, including the heart of the Byzantine Empire, Western European colonialism and colonization, member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, 2015 Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), "9780500040034: The Birth of Western Civilization: Greece and Rome", "Athens. Some say: "Yes, we are part of the West." Well, our national television showed some of the things that happened in western countries, in Europe and in the US, but some of them were not broadcast because this is the information that we receive and therefore, we are aware of it. [103][104][105][106][107], American political scientist, adviser and academic Samuel P. Huntington considered Latin America as separate from the Western world for the purpose of his geopolitical analysis. Meanwhile, the extent of both Christendoms expanded, as Germanic peoples, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, Scandinavia, Baltic peoples, British Isles and the other non-Christian lands of the northwest were converted by the Western Church, while Eastern Slavic peoples, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Russian territories, Vlachs and Georgia were converted by the Eastern Church. pretty much western European nations, the U.S, Canada, Greenland, the U.K, places like those. The Papal Inquisition was established in AD 1229 on a permanent basis, run largely by clergymen in Rome,[47] and abolished six centuries later. There followed the discovery of the American continent, and consequent dissolution of West Christendom as even a theoretical unitary political body, later resulting in the religious Eighty Years War (1568–1648) and Thirty Years War (1618–1648) between various Protestant and Catholic states of the Holy Roman Empire (and emergence of religiously diverse confessions). But these journeys had little permanent effect on east–west trade because of a series of political developments in Asia in the last decades of the 14th century, which put an end to further European exploration of Asia: namely the new Ming rulers were found to be unreceptive of religious proselytism by European missionaries and merchants. The name is often used to differentiate the developed countries and the developing countries, also known as the Third World. Huntington goes on to mention that Latin America could be considered a sub-civilization within Western civilization, or a separate civilization intimately related to the West and divided as to its belonging to it. While the second option is the most appropriate and useful for an analysis focused on the international political consequences of civilizations, including relations between Latin America, on the one hand, and North America and Europe, on the other, he also mentions that the underlying conflict of Latin America belonging to the West must eventually be addressed in order to develop a cohesive Latin American identity. He also gives the example of Australia as a country torn between its Western civilizational heritage and its growing economic engagement with Asia. Historians, such as Carroll Quigley in "The Evolution of Civilizations",[20] contend that Western civilization was born around AD 500, after the total collapse of the Western Roman Empire, leaving a vacuum for new ideas to flourish that were impossible in Classical societies. The result was a series of western European military campaigns into the eastern Mediterranean, known as the Crusades. The Holy Roman Empire would dissolve on 6 August 1806, after the French Revolution and the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon. [31], The term "Western culture" is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and technologies. It continued with the rise of the Dutch East India Company by the destabilising Spanish discovery of the New World, and the creation and expansion of the English and French colonial empires, and others. But the end of Western colonial imperialism saw the rise of Westrern neocolonialism or economic imperialism. Great Britain showed ongoing responsibility for the welfare of its former colonies as member states of the Commonwealth of Nations. Earth was divided into three "worlds". The most famous of these merchant travelers pursuing East–west trade was Venetian Marco Polo. Though the overt colonial era had passed, Western nations, as comparatively rich, well-armed, and culturally powerful states, wielded a large degree of influence throughout the world, and with little or no sense of responsibility toward the peoples impacted by its multinational corporations in their exploitation of minerals and markets. The West rose further with the 18th century's Age of Enlightenment and through the Age of Exploration's expansion of peoples of Western and Central European empires, particularly the globe-spanning colonial empires of 18th and 19th centuries. [citation needed], In the early 4th century (AD 330), Roman Emperor Constantine the Great had established the city of Constantinople (formerly ancient Byzantium) as the capital of the Roman Empire, later called "Byzantine Empire" by modern historians. The geopolitical divisions in Europe that created a concept of East and West originated in the ancient tyrannical and imperialistic Graeco-Roman times. Huntington divided the world into the "major civilizations" in his thesis as such: Western civilization, comprising the United States and Canada, Western and Central Europe, Australia, Oceania and most of the Philippines. The East continued to call themselves Eastern Romans even after AD 610 – 800 when the official language of the empire was Latin, and the Pope crowned Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans. [38][39] The ancient Barbarian tribes, often composed of well-trained Roman soldiers paid by Rome to guard the extensive borders, had become militarily sophisticated 'romanized barbarians', and mercilessly slaughtered the Romans conquering their Western territories while looting their possessions. [82][87] Tensions escalated in 2014 after Russia's annexation of Crimea, military intervention in Ukraine, and the 2015 Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War. Palestinian-American literary critic Edward Said uses the term occident in his discussion of orientalism. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Medieval times (or Middle Ages), Western and Central Europe were substantially cut off from the East where Byzantine Greek culture and Eastern Christianity became founding influences in the Eastern European world such as the Eastern and Southern Slavic peoples. The source of the capability of these western civilizations to impact other regions of the world comes from their political philosophies. Whether Latin America and the former member states of the Soviet Union are included, or are instead … [1] However, he also states that, while in general researchers consider that the West has three main components (European, North American and Latin American), in his view, Latin America has followed a different development path from Europe and North America. English Great Britain is one of the most notable, though Aragonian-Castilian Spain, Prussian Germany and Sardinian Italy are also examples. The crowning of the Emperor by the Pope led to the assumption that the highest power was the papal hierarchy, quintessential Roman Empire's spiritual heritage authority, establishing then, until the Protestant Reformation, the civilization of Western Christendom. A thousand years later, the East-West Schism separated the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church from each other. [l] The later years of the 19th century saw the transition from "informal imperialism" (hegemony)[m] by military influence and economic dominance, to direct rule (a revival of colonial imperialism) in the African continent and Middle East. The geographic line of religious division approximately followed a line of cultural divide. Western Africa, region of the western African continent comprising the countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cabo Verde, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. [110] Subjectively, Latin Americans are divided when it comes to identifying themselves. Senate. Western civilization is also linked to Christianity, which had a significant impact on Roman culture, Hellenistic philosophy. ", "Modern West Civ. A series of scholars of civilization, including Arnold J. Toynbee, Alfred Kroeber and Carroll Quigley have identified and analyzed "Western civilization" as one of the civilizations that have historically existed and still exist today. [60], This process of influence (and imposition) began with the voyages of discovery, colonization, conquest, and exploitation of Portugal enforced as well by papal bulls in 1450s (by the fall of the Byzantine Empire), granting Portugal navigation, war and trade monopoly for any newly discovered lands,[61] and competing Spanish navigators. Multinational corporations came to offer "a dramatic refinement of the traditional business enterprise", through "issues as far ranging as national sovereignty, ownership of the means of production, environmental protection, consumerism, and policies toward organized labor." The Western countries refer to countries mainly in Europe, the Americas, and Australasia. Sinai. Since the Renaissance, the West evolved beyond the influence of the ancient Greeks and Romans and the Islamic world, due to the successful Second Agricultural, Commercial,[26] Scientific,[27] and Industrial[28] revolutions (propellers of modern banking concepts). It joined NATO and since the 1960s has been seeking to join the European Union with very slow progress. Based on a 2006–2008 worldwide survey by Gallup. The Roman and Greek Influence The first key influence on western civilization was the Romans and the Greeks. The Eastern Mediterranean was home to the highly urbanized cultures that had Greek as their common language (owing to the older empire of Alexander the Great and of the Hellenistic successors. [citation needed]. Committee on Foreign Relations. Historically, Latin America has been only Catholic, although this is changing due to the influx of Protestants into the region. The name is also used even when the countries of the region are not in the West, for instance, Singapore, Japan, and South Korea. Decline of the Byzantine Empire (13th–15th centuries) began with the Latin Christian Fourth Crusade in AD 1202–04, considered to be one of the most important events, solidifying the schism between the Christian churches of Greek Byzantine Rite and Latin Roman Rite. Others say: "No, we have our own unique culture"; and a vast bibliographical material produced by Latin Americans and North Americans exposes in detail their cultural differences. The official religions of the United Kingdom and some Nordic countries are forms of Christianity, while the majority of European countries have no official religion. [78][79] The dictum of Alfred Thayer Mahan is shown to have lasting relevance, that whoever controls the seas controls the world. Rome had expanded long before the empire reached its zenith with the conquest of Dacia in AD 106, under Emperor Trajan. [14][15], In the 20th century, Christianity declined in influence in many Western countries, mostly in the European Union where some member states have experienced falling church attendance and membership in recent years,[94] and also elsewhere. [30], The theologian and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin conceived of the West as the set of civilizations descended from the Nile Valley Civilization of Egypt.[117]. It is often used interchangeably with "first world" nations. It was in the modern era that Western civilization took flight, how… Based on Christian monotheism, the spirit of Roman law and Greek formal logic, Western civilization largely views problems and world order from the perspective of binary opposition. Therefore, Iberia (Portugal and Spain), Gaul (France), the Mediterranean coast of North Africa (Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco) and Britannia were all part of the "West", while Greece, Cyprus, Anatolia, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, and Libya were part of the "East". [56], Ibrahim Muteferrika, Rational basis for the Politics of Nations (1731)[57], Later concepts of a world of nation-states born by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, coupled with the ideologies of the Enlightenment, the coming of modernity, the Scientific Revolution[58] and the Industrial Revolution,[59] would produce powerful social transformations, political and economic institutions that have come to influence (or been imposed upon) most nations of the world today. A few decades ago, the Greeks were the first to construct the urban center in the entire history of European. The definition of Western changed as the West was influenced by and spread to other nations. [citation needed], As the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) churches spread their influence, the line between Eastern and Western Christianity was moving. [citation needed] The Greeks would highlight the lack of freedom in the Persian world, something that they viewed as antithetical to their culture. [45] This paved the way for Muslim conquests in present-day Turkey and the Balkans in the coming centuries (only a handful of the Crusaders followed to the stated destination thereafter, the Holy Land). In particular, Toynbee refers to the intelligentsia formed among the educated elite of countries impacted by the European expansion of centuries past. Christianization of Ireland (5th century), Christianization of Bulgaria (9th century), Christianization of Kievan Rus' (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus; 10th century), Christianization of Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Sweden; 12th century) and Christianization of Lithuania (14th century) brought the rest of present-day European territory into Western civilization. [73], Between the 1870s and 1914 (the so-called Beautiful Era, socioeconomically optimistic and innovative decades of the Second Industrial Revolution), the established colonial powers in Asia (United Kingdom, France, Netherlands) added to their empires also vast expanses of territory in the Indian Subcontinent and South East Asia. '' to the reach of these merchant travelers pursuing East–west trade was Venetian Polo... `` East '' were not used by any Greek author to describe that conflict 1806. 96 ] Revolution has been declining, particularly in Italy, Portugal, and Southeastern Europe music cuisine. 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