The Early Modern Period

First, I agree that the Western civilization has a clear lineage that focuses on the majority of the following attributes: competition/innovation, science, property rights, personal freedoms, and a free-market economy. Ferguson (2014) points out that competition, property oriented government and science are some of the unique attributes that enabled the West rise to power. As a result of competition, the western people became more innovative and business-oriented, thus, making them aggressive in areas

China before the 1800s was very isolated. The West comes in and gains control by selling Opium to the Chinese for tea and silk. This was nowhere fair, eventually, China wanted to ban this trade that led to war. The Royal Navy’s modernized ships versus poor china’s unadvanced ships, I wonder who won. China was forced into the world of modernization. The British came in and reshaped China like it was clay, with no regard to the natives. This eventually leads to some failed rebellions. These past three examples are how western modernization helped or ruined countries, and that it isn't always black and

During the late seventeenth century under the leadership of Peter the Great, Russia underwent a period of modernization and westernization due to Peter’s reforms. However, without the reforms he instituted, Russia would have remained the most culturally unevolved country in Europe for quite a long time.

Peter recognized that his country was falling behind the European countries in knowledge, technology, trade, and governing ability. Using his absolute power as a czar, he brought in foreign advisers to help him modernize, westernize and educate his people. Peter had a great respect for Europe, and his reforms had a lasting influence in Russia, though there was of course opposition from the more conservative nobles.

Finally, Peter the Great reformed Russia by reorganizing the country’s economic structure and altering the social scene to mirror Western culture. Historically, Russia was an agricultural country whose tiny middle class took on the tax burdens of the exempt nobility. After traveling abroad, Peter the Great saw the need for internal reform, wanting to apply ideas of western mercantilism to stimulate economic growth by developing industry and commerce. For “When Russian

Lars Brownworth took the pleasure of writing the novel “Lost to the West.” Where within this he elaborates on a period of history that is seamlessly ignored in history. Courses instructing this discipline habitually over look the ‘new’ Rome deeming it insignificant. Brownworth’s dominant emphasis is too merely educate his readers on this gap in history. Which he does commendably however; his interpretations are not ineludibly bipartisan and quite candidly that leads to the book to be less successful in its purpose. These biases include: subjectively identifying other nations, glorifying his obviously favorite emperors and villain-zing his less favorite. While his approach is chronologically adequate he plagues his book by not only the previously stated biases, but creating the book too brief, and having to decide what information is substantial to retain; which he decides.

The New Western Historians such as Patricia Nelson, William Cronon, Donald Worster, Walter Webb and Walter Nugent have different views of the West. They believe the West is not a process and not a place that civilization took a place. The West is the place that like other regions such as the South, the Midwest we can set no boundaries. As Patricia Nelson mentioned, “recognized the history of the West is a study of a place undergoing conquest and never fully escaping its consequences” (Patricia Nelson, p. 8). The West as a place instead of process explains the migratory. Immigration could never have been explained by calling the West as a process or the frontier. Patricia Limerick sees the West as another chapter in Europe’s enlargement

Western Europe was Democratic Republicans while Russia was ruled by communism. The difference this made was large. Russia being ruled different then Europe made them think and live differently,

The Western world originated in Europe with Christianity but quickly spread across the whole western side of the world including many races and religions. The west is said to value widespread employment, free thought, equality, assimilation for human rights, and democracy. The European culture grew with an all inclusive ethos and strived to influence other cultures around the world.

Although the Westernization movement has shown deep influence upon Chinese people’s exploration of the modernization of China, it finally failed to accomplish the Chinese

In Samuel P. Huntington’s article “The West: Unique, Not Universal,” he addresses his audience with a very controversial question: Is Western Culture universal or unique? Huntington elaborately opens up this question with research and examples to explain and persuade readers that the West will never be a universal culture for all, but rather a unique culture that will be accepted by those who appreciate it. For decades now, historians and scholars have debated with one another to determine who is right and wrong. However, from a handful of articles from different scholars, Samuel Huntington’s statement that the West is unique rather than universal is supported and even further elaborated on by these particular sources. A common understanding between all the sources, that must be noted, is that a civilization’s culture is not comprised of material goods but rather their culmination of their religion(s), values, language(s) and traditions. While although there are scholars out their that negate the West is unique, a large amount of scholars still argue and strengthen Huntington’s argument that the West has unique and exclusive characteristics that make them distinctive and rare.

Previously, during the Early Middle Ages (500-1350), Western Europe went through a time of Feudalism and Manorialism, and many political, economic, social, and several other, changes were made. Then, during the Late Middle Ages (1300-1600), Western Europe was truly starting to form and become its own territory. At the same time, Eastern European Russia was just beginning to form, and it soon became one of the top civilizations. These two European territories were similar and different. First, England and Russia had their similarities and differences politically.

Westernization, which primarily spread in the mid to late 19th century, brought forth a profound change of ideas and cultures across the world. Both Japan and India were affected greatly as Western practices and ideologies seeped into the minds of individuals throughout various societies. Influential individuals, such as Thomas Babington Macaulay and Fukuzawa Yukichi wished to reform India and Japan by introducing Western ideas into these countries. Artists such as Honda Kinkachiro and Werner Forman showed the effects of Westernization on Japan. Through the writings and artwork of Macaulay, Yukichi, Kinkachiro, and Forman, we are able to understand that Europe’s colonizing mentality, as well as Asia’s acceptance of new ideas, were both supported by the belief that the West is superior.

Western culture and policies have shaped the modern world, especially the Middle East, in many ways. Since the sixteenth century, the nations of Western civilization have been the driving wheels of modernization. Globalization is simply the spread of modern institutions and ideas from one high power to the wider world. Technological innovation and economic growth along with such concepts as democracy, individualism, and the rule of law administered by an impartial judiciary, set Western societies above and beyond any possible rival. Other cultures looked to the West as a model, a threat, or some combination of both. One country that was most successful in their confrontations with Western states was Japan, who incorporated Western

Orientalism that view the societies of the world in a dualistic manner—the West sees and defines itself in relation to a culture of opposites. While it identifies itself as familiar and normal, it characterizes the Other according to its deficiencies. The Western world will never be able to fully understand other societies and their differences in relation to one another if it continues to perpetuate these distinctions. Wolf’s perspective places an emphasis on the role of history in perceptions of the non-Western world and how the West does not account for the history of these other peoples. By “people without history,” Wolf means the societies that the West has deemed insignificant and primitive yet continues to exert power over.