West And The Rest Civilization

The year 1500 is considered a major turning point in world history according to Paul Kennedy in his article “The Rise of the Western World”. This date has been chosen by countless scholars to mark the split between premodern and modern times. In the premodern world, the “gun powder empires” of the east, including the Ming of China and the Ottoman Turks had many achievements, making them two of the dominant world cultures prior to 1500. However, these great civilizations did not continue to gain greater power after 1500. Meanwhile, what Kennedy refers to as “the European Miracle” created a dynamic and competitive western world. As the eastern civilizations discontinued their overall progress, Europe began its rise to power.

In regard to the rest of the postclassical world, Western Europe was well behind politically, economically and technologically. It chose to adapt the advancements of other civilizations rather than creating its own. Yet because of their geographical position and lack of political unity, Western Europe was not required to be as advanced as the rest of the postclassical world. Instead, Western Europe was defined by a desire to emulate the Roman Empire, Christian authority, learning and philosophy and political and economical systems based on relations between different classes.

Civilization: The West and the Rest, presented by Niall Ferguson, is a documentary in which Ferguson reveals what he calls the six killer applications which has helped Western civilization dominate over everyone else. These six applications are competition, science, property, medicine, consumerism, and work. Ferguson asks many questions over the course of the series as well as provides examples as to how Western civilization has surpassed other nations and empires. Ferguson’s main question in each episode is, “If we lose our monopoly over apps like these, could Western civilization be consigned to history.” This paper will analyze Ferguson’s questions and the examples he provides for the killer applications of competition, science, property, medicine, consumerism, and work, as well as his conclusions as to why the West has risen to the top, how the rest are passing up the West, as well as his conclusions to if the West can remain above the rest.

Southernization is a much debated topic that describes when important developments started in southern asia and eventually spread to the entire world, similarly, westernization is when such developments started in western Europe. Many civilizations played a role in Southernization including the Malay sailors, who by using the Monsoon winds to their advantage, managed to reach africa and spread ideas there; and the Indians who laid the foundations for modern mathematics by inventing the number zero, which China would integrate into their number system inadvertently making it more complex. Southernization also changed life for many people, during the Tang and Song dynasties, it helped China learn about Champa rice, which was much more drought resistant than normal rice, and it was the reason for all of China’s inventions, from the printing press to gunpowder. it is nigh irrefutable that Europe would not have been the nation it was today if southernization had not occurred, for without the compass, South Asian trade items, and gunpowder, it would become powerless against the far more progressive Asia.

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

In his book, Carnage and Culture, Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian and professor at California State University, reasons that the west and its armies have been the most lethal and effective force in the world because of the inseparability between armies and their cultures. He illustrates the cultural superiority of the west by explaining the tenets of western society (freedom, citizenship, right to property, capitalism, and individualism) and applies them to nine landmark battles in which the west take part. Hanson uses “the term ‘Western’ to refer to the culture of classical antiquity that arose in Greece and Rome; survived the collapse of the Roman Empire; spread to western and northern Europe; then during the great periods of exploration and colonization of the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries expanded to the

Documents 4, 5, 8, and 10 all showcase why the change in economy helped the west rise. Document 4 is a graph representing different technological inventions created during the rise of the west. These creations, such as the crossbow, gunpowder, and paper, had positive outcomes. These innovations helped increase the trade throughout Europe as the demand for them drastically increased. This demand in trade from all over the world greatly increased the western economy, empowering the nations in the west. In document 5, the point of view of William McNeill, the author, is that the east ultimately benefited as a direct result of the borrowing from the west. He believes that since the west was so successful and powerful, that the only reason the east caught up with it was because they borrowed from the west. He also believes that borrowing was the only way to come to power and boost the economy. In document 8, there is evidence that the east was once the leaders in dominance and economics, but lost that standing during the rise of the west. But, there is the argument that the rise was not for the west, as it was for the world economy. Document 10 argues that there was an intentional driven European growth, and a similar growth happened in East Asia. Although this growth didn’t happen until the 1800’s, there is still the resemblance between the two. This growth in Europe helped shape its

Development in the West did not occur until later in American History. Although the West was seen as a large desert, the West quickly became the target behind the expansionist campaigns of the United States during the 18th century. Many settlers travelled to the West, dreaming of the idea of opportunities. Although factors such as Native Americans, motivations and railroads played a large role in shaping the West, their influence came about only as the result of the inherent economic potential of the region, as well as the incredibly diverse climate which outnumbered all else in the development in the West.

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

The west is a vast of lands west of the Mississippi river. Before white people came to the land, it was inhabited for centuries by tanned skinned Native Americans whose ways of living are far different from the foreign people. For centuries big colonial empires tried various ways to claim the west until it became a part of United States of America. However, many Natives sacrificed their lives to protect their land, yet in the end their arrows cannot match the power of the foreigner 's guns and cannons. The west is not only abundant in terms of resources, but also in folklore, history, and became the birth of the modern American culture. Furthermore, PBS provided a helpful links in order to understand and appreciate the stories about the stories about how the west became the frontier of United States. These links are "The People" and "Empire upon the Trails" which gave some interesting facts about the beginning of the West.

The West drastically evolved after the Civil War. The gold mining boom brought businessmen and crooks to the West. While mining for gold, the discovery of silver, copper, and ore caused more destruction of the land. The railroads were needed to transport mining materials and equipment. In the meantime, the demand for grains in the North caused corporations to buy up land and plant crops purely for profit.

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.

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

Western civilization can be traced back to the Western Mediterranean and Western Europe. It has been linked by many Historians to the Roman Empire, as well as with Medieval Western Christendom which came out of the Middle Ages in order to experience transformative ideas such as the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment. On the surface it may seem that there are abundant reasons to why Western Civilization was able to develop and grow during the Middle Ages. But ultimately it comes down to three main reasons Western Civilization in the Middle Ages was able to grow so rapidly. With all of this said, In order to truly understand how Western European Civilization was able to flourish and grow during the Middle Ages, one must look at the role of the Church during these times, how war and conflict shaped territories, and how disease and famine changed the world. First, during the Medieval Ages the Catholic Church was able to rise to one of the most powerful institutions in Europe. Second, wars such as the Crusades where the Catholic Church began to start military expeditions, otherwise known as Crusades, to kick Muslims out from what they considered the Holy Land. Finally, diseases such as the Black Death changed the way people during the Western Civilization acted and felt.

Looking back at the world in the past few hundred years, it would have been difficult to imagine that one day, majority of Western Europe would come to dominate the world in global economy (Landes, European Exceptionalism: A Different Path, 1998). Frank (2001) described the process of which the western society