Western World

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The term Western world, the West or the Occident (Latin occidens -sunset, -west, as distinct from the Orient) the West AKA Occident at World Book Encyclopedia can have multiple meanings dependent on its context (e.g., the time period, or the social situation). Accordingly, the basic definition of what constitutes the West will vary, expanding and contracting, in relation to various circumstances. The historic West originated in the Mediterranean (ancient Greece and ancient Rome), but it came to include Central Europe and Western Europe, although does include the whole of Europe as well as all of Russia (except during the U.S.S.R. era when considered part of the East). Linguistically the frontier would run as far as the Indian Subcontinent. Since Christopher Columbus the notion of the West has expanded to include the Americas, through much of Latin America's more List of pre-Columbian cultures cultural influence.As well Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and South Africa are cultural hubs due to colonization. However during the Cold War the core of the West was often confined to NATO countries.Founded in 1949, N.A.T.O. in 1952 admitted Greece and Turkey. Today, in a political or economic context, perhaps the West would also include developed and fast developing countries such as Japan, Republic of China, India and South Korea, etc. In a world religious context, some would include those faiths acknowledging Abrahamic religion, however this umbrella's Islamic countries into the category as well. Western society has survived and evolved due greatly to the efforts of the Ancient Greece, Roman Empire, more recently the European empires, and more notably the British Empire. Generally speaking, the current consensus would locate the West in, at the very least, the cultures and peoples of the mainlands Europe, the two Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. Broek and Webb, A Geography of Mankind (2nd ed., 1973) at 199, 201; cf., Arnold Toynbee, Change and Habit (Oxford Univ., 1966).

Historical divisions The origins of the word "West" in terms of geopolitical boundaries started in the 1900s. Prior to this most humans would have thought about different nations, languages, individuals, and geographical regions, but with no idea of "Western" nations as we know it today. Many world maps were so crude and inaccurate before the 1800s that geographical and political differences would be harder to measure. Few would have access to good maps and even fewer had access to accurate descriptions of who lived in far away lands. Western thought as we think of it today, is shaped by ideas of the 1900s and 1800's, originating mainly in Europe. What we think of as "Western" thought today is defined as Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian culture, the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment and colonialism. As a consequence the term Western thought is at times unhelpful and vague, since it can define two separate (although related) sets of traditions and values: Firstly, the Christian (or Western Christian) moral tradition and religious values; Secondly, secular values, often with a rationalist anti-clerical tradition. Less acknowledged but equally as important was the influence of the Germanic peoples cultures whose people overran Western Europe beginning in the fifth century AD and effectively became the rulers of Western Europe into the modern age, first in the form of the Goths and the Vandals and later in the form of the Franks who unified the West. In addition, many individuals throughout history do not easily fit into a false dichotomy of East or West.

Hellenic |rightThe Ancient Greece division between the barbarians and the Greek people contrasted in many societies the Greek language culture of the Greek settlements around the Mediterranean to the surrounding non-Greek cultures. Herodotus considered the Persian Wars of the early 5th century BC a conflict of Europe versus Asia (which he considered to be all land West and East of the Sea of Marmara, respectively). The terms "West" and "East" were not used by any Greek author to describe that conflict. The anachronistic application of those terms to that division entails a stark logical contradiction, given that, when the term West appeared, it was used in opposition to'the Greeks and Greek-speaking culture.

Western society is sometimes claimed to trace its cultural origins to both Greek philosophy and Christianity, thus following an evolution that began in ancient Greece, continued through the Roman Empire and, with the coming of Christianity (which has its origins in the Middle East), spread throughout Europe.

However, the conquest of the western parts of the Roman Empire by Germanic peoples and the subsequent advent of despotism in the form of dominance by the Western Christian Papacy (which held combined political and spiritual authority, a state of affairs absent from Greek civilization in all its stages), resulted into a rupture of the previously existing ties between the Latin West and Greek thought,Charles Freeman. The Closing of the Western Mind. Knopf, 2003. ISBN 1-4000-4085-X including Christian Greek thought. The East-West Schism and the Fourth Crusade confirmed this deviation. Hence, the Medieval West is limited to Western Christendom only, as the Greeks and other European peoples not under the authority of the Papacy are not included in it. The clearly Greek-influenced form of Christianity, Orthodoxy, is more linked to Eastern than Western Europe. On the other hand, the Modern West, emerging after the Renaissance as a new civilization, has been influenced by (its own interpretation of) Greek thought, which was preserved in the Roman (Byzantine) Empire during the Medieval West's Dark Ages and transmitted therefrom by emigration of scholars and Theophanu. The Renaissance in the West emerged partly from currents within the Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Moreover, European peoples not included in Western Christendom such as the Greeks have redefined their relationship to this new, secular, variant of Western civilization, and have increasingly participated in it in since then.

Thus the idea of Western society being influenced from (but not being the single evolution of) ancient Greek thought makes sense only for the post-Renaissance period of Western history.

The Roman Empire ]Ancient Rome (510 BC-AD 476) was a civilization that grew from a city-state founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea. In its twelve-century existence, Roman civilization shifted from a monarchy, to a Roman Republic, to an autocracy Roman Empire. It came to dominate Western Europe, the Balkans and the entire area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea through conquest using the Roman legions and then through cultural assimilation by giving Roman privileges and eventually citizenship to the whole empire. Nonetheless, despite its great legacy, a number of factors led to the eventual decline of the Roman Empire.

The Western Roman Empire eventually broke into independent kingdoms in the 5th century due to civil wars, corruption, and devastating Germanic Invasions from such tribes as the Goths, the Franks and the Vandals; the Eastern Roman Empire, governed from Constantinople, is usually referred to as the Byzantine Empire after 476, the traditional date for the "fall of the Western Roman Empire" and for the subsequent onset of the Early Middle Ages. The Eastern Roman Empire survived the fall of the West, and protected Roman legal and cultural traditions combining them with Greece and Christian elements, for another thousand years.

The Roman Empire succeeded the about 500 year-old Roman Republic (510s BC - 1st century BC), which had been weakened by the conflict between Gaius Marius and Sulla and the civil war of Julius Caesar against Pompey and Marcus Brutus. During these struggles hundreds of senators were killed, and the Roman Senate had been refilled with loyalists of the First Triumvirate and later those of the Second Triumvirate.

Several dates are commonly proposed to mark the transition from Republic to Empire, including the date of Julius Caesar's appointment as perpetual roman dictator (44 BC), the victory of Caesar's heir Augustus at the Battle of Actium (September 2, 31 BC), and the Roman Senate's granting to Octavian the honorific Augustus (honorific). (January 16, 27 BC). Octavian/Augustus officially proclaimed that he had saved the Roman Republic and carefully disguised his power under republican forms; consuls continued to be elected, tribunes of the plebeians continued to offer legislation, and senators still debated in the curia. However, it was Octavian who influenced everything and controlled the final decisions, and in final analysis, had the legions to back him up, if it ever became necessary.

Roman expansion began long before the state was changed into an Empire and reached its zenith under emperor Trajan with the conquest of Dacia in AD 106. During this territorial peak the Roman Empire controlled approximately 5 900 000 km² (2,300,000 sq.mi.) of land surface. From the time of Caesar to the Fall of the Western Empire, Rome dominated History of West Eurasia and the Mediterranean, comprising the majority of its population. Ancient Rome has contributed greatly to the development of law, war, art, literature, architecture, technology and language in the Western world, and its history of Rome continues to have a major influence on the world today.

Christian schism

In the early 4th century, the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great established the city of Constantinople as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Eastern Empire included lands east of the Adriatic Sea and bordering on the Eastern Mediterranean and parts of the Black Sea. These two divisions of the Eastern and Western Empires were reflected in the administration of the Christianity, with Rome and Constantinople debating and arguing over whether either city was the capital of Christianity. As the eastern and western churches spread their influence, the line between "East" and "West" can be described as moving, but generally followed a cultural divide that was defined by the existence of the Byzantine empire and the fluctuating power and influence of the church in Rome. Some, including Huntington, theorized that this cultural division still existed during the Cold War as the approximate western boundary of those countries that were allied with the Soviet Union; others have criticized these views on the basis that they confuse the Eastern Roman Empire with Russia, especially considering the fact that the country that had the most historical roots in Byzantium, Greece, was allied with the West during the Cold War.

Under Charlemagne, the Franks established an empire that was recognized as the Holy Roman Empire by the Christian Pope, offending the Roman Empire Emperor in Constantinople. The crowning of the Emperor by the history of the Papacy led to the assumption that the highest power was the papal hierarchy, establishing, until the Protestant Reformation, the civilization of Christendom. The Latin Rite Christian Church of western Europe and central Europe headed by the Pope split with the eastern, Greek-speaking Patriarchates during the East-West Schism. Meanwhile, the extent of each expanded, as Scandinavia, Germany, Britain, and the other non-Christian lands of the northwest were converted by the Western Church, while Russia and much of Eastern Europe were converted by the Eastern Church.

In this context, the Protestant reformation may be viewed as a schism within the Latin Church. Martin Luther, in the wake of precursors, broke with the Pope and with the Emperor, backed by many of the German princes. These changes were adopted by the Scandinavian kings. Later, the commoner Jean Cauvin (John Calvin) assumed the religio-political leadership in Geneva, a former ecclesiastical city whose prior ruler had been the Bishop. The English King later improvised on the Lutheran model, but subsequently many Calvinist doctrines were adopted by popular dissenters, leading to the English Civil War. Both royalists and dissenters colonized North America, eventually resulting in an independent U.S.A.

The Colonial "West" The voyages of discovery, conquest, and exploitation of the Spanish people and Portuguese people and the rise of the Dutch East Indies, British Empire and French colonial empires saw the expansion of Western European institutions around the world. The dissolution of Western Christendom and the legal establishment in international law of the principle of national sovereignty, culminated in the French Revolution with the creation of the Nation State. Coupled with the Industrial revolution in Britain, these political and economic institutions have come to influence most nations of the world today. This however, was due to mandates that required post-colonial societies to form nation-states, creating boundaries and borders that did not necessarily represent a whole nation of people. In this way, through the colonial cultural impositions and post-colonial political processes, Western Civilization has become global in its influence.

During the European colonization of the Americas, western thought might be said to have been implanted in the Americas and in Australasia.

The Cold War During the Cold War, a new definition emerged. The Earth was divided into three "worlds". The First World, analogous in this context to the West, was composed of NATO members and other countries aligned with the United States. The Second World was the Eastern bloc in the Soviet Union sphere of influence, including the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. The Third World consisted of countries Non-Aligned Movement, and important members include India, Yugoslavia and for a time the People's Republic of China, though some find it expedient to group the latter group under Second World either because of their communism ideology, or geopolitical importance.

s as of the late 1980s. EEC member states are marked in blue, EFTA – green, and Comecon – red.

There were a number of countries which did not fit comfortably into this neat definition of partition, including Switzerland, Sweden, and the Republic of Ireland, which chose to be neutral. Finland was under the Soviet Union's sphere of influence but remained neutral, was not communist, nor was it a member of the Warsaw Pact or Comecon. In 1955 , when Austria again became a fully independent republic, it did so under the condition that it remained neutral, but as a country to the west of the Iron Curtain, it was in the United States sphere of influence. Turkey was a member of NATO but was not usually regarded as either part of the First or Western worlds. Spain did not join NATO until 1982, towards the end of the Cold War and after the death of the authoritarian Francisco Franco.

Modern definitions The exact scope of the Western World is somewhat subjective in nature, depending on whether cultural, economic or political criteria are used. In general however these definitions always include the following countries: the countries of Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These are Western European or Western European-settled nations which enjoy relatively strong economies and stable governments, have chosen democracy as a form of governance, favor capitalism and free international trade, and have some form of political and military alliance or cooperation.

Many anthropologists, sociologists and historians still make the mistake of opposing "the West and the Rest" in a categorical manner. The same has been done by Malthusian demographers with a sharp distinction between European and non-European family systems. Among anthropologists, this includes Durkheim, Louis Dumont (anthropologist) and Lévi-Strauss.

Western world - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term Western world, the West or the Occident (Latin: occidens-sunset, -west, as distinct from the Orient) can have multiple meanings dependent on its context (e.g., the time ...

Western society - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Western society may refer to: Western culture, a term used to refer to the cultures of people of European origin and their descendants. Western world, countries whose dominant ...

Western World

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