Western Civilization Research Paper

Ancient civilizations have had profound effects of what we know as the modern world today. The primary purpose for anything that lives is to survive. Throughout history animals, plants and humans have adapted to their surroundings. All living things have changed throughout time. The thing that differs humans from rest is, humans are more cognitively advanced. Over the course of time the shape and size of the human skull has changed. The size of the human brain has increased, which has allowed humans to adapt more to their surroundings. To survive, humans were making tools for hunting and to cut with. The closer you lived to the equator the darker your skin may have been, so you could adapt to the intensity of the sun’s rays. If you lived further

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.

All the way from the start of civilization through to the Early Christianity there has been a pantheon of; destruction, recognition, wars, cultural diffusion, religious breakthroughs, laws that have been established, kings and queens crowned and dethroned. The Mesopotamian Civilization it was the land between two rivers the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers that civilization first began.

Ancient civilizations such as Sumeria, Egypt, and Babylon have all contributed to humankind and some way through their major achievements. the achievements of these civilizations have all helped later civilizations develop due to the examples of these past groups. some ancient civilizations developed techniques of farming and others comma some of the first written languages. All of these achievements are equally important for later developing civilizations. The Sumerians were a civilization that helped to contribute to humankind with their achievements involving architecture, weapons, and writing.

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

Civilization: an advanced state of human society, in which a high level of culture, science, industry, and government has been reached.

The Western Roman Empire had its light for ____ years, and grew to be the greatest empire of the time. but four major factors contributed to its great downfall. Political issues caused uncivilized actions, economic problems created famine, deadly diseases plagued thousands, and to end it all foreign invaders burned Rome down.

Through out the history of Western Civilization we have seen many important moments occur. From the Neolithic revolution, to humans conquering and spreading across the globe, there are many moments that have shaped its history and the present day. In this essay I will mention 5 of the most important moments/changes in Western Civilization and the reasons for why they are so important to societies in the western world and beyond.

The Western Roman Empire was one of the greatest Empires of the world. With all of the advances made by them, no one thought, especially them, that their empire would fall. There were many factors to the fall but, the four main factors were horrendous politics, a bad economy, deadly diseases and foreign invaders.

First of all, one characteristic of a civilization is its writing system. Stated from document 3 “Civilizations develop writing systems” “Writing

Rome was considered one of the greatest empires in history, but eventually the empire meets its end. Although there were many factors contributing to its downfall, there were four major reasons for the fall of the western roman empire. They were political issues, economic problems, dangerous diseases and attacks from foreign invaders.

Arnold Pacey published Technology in World Civilization: A Thousand Year History in the year 1991. Arnold Pacey was an associate lecturer at The Open University in Britain as well as an author to three additional books: Meaning in Technology, The Maze of Ingenuity, The Culture of Technology. He published all four of his books within a ten-year span. Arnold Pacey was trained as an engineer but is well known as a historian of technology because of the conclusions he drew of society and technology and their relationship. Society is defined as the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community. Technology is defined as the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry. Technology influences every aspect of our lives today, but we often forget that it profoundly affected the lives of past generations dating back to the beginning of civilization. Perhaps not to today’s extent, but the impact was still dramatic. New inventions or innovations produced more food, created new processes and tools, made life easier and made war more devastating. This course traces the evolution of technology and its impact on civilization from the creation of elementary tools up to today’s latest devices and even looks into future technologies.

The most important reason for the decline of the Western Roman Empire was the political corruption. Although the decline in morals and values, unemployment, and military spending also contributed to the downfall of Rome, political corruption was the most important reason for the decline of the Western Roman Empire. When the political leaders in any society get lazy and set a poor example, the civilization will decline. According to “Decline of the Western Roman Empire,” “Gradually, the Praetorian Guard gained complete authority to choose the new emperor and in 186 C.E., the army began the practice of selling the throne to the highest bidder. During the next 100 years, Rome had 37 different emperors - 25 of whom were removed

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.

     A pattern that was common among the ancient civilizations of China, Rome, Greece, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India was that most of them started as a dictatorship, a monarchy, or a dynasty. Eventually, most of them changed to a democracy, republic, or to class systems. Almost all of the civilizations had one or two great leaders. For example, Egypt had King Tut, Greece had Alexander the Great and Rome had Julius Caesar.