A Western History Timeline
The concept of Western Civilization is one that coalesced into college textbooks and curricula in the United States for the first time in the 1920s. It was an idea whose inventors were determined to rescue the legacy of Europe from the implosion of World War I and to assert that it was distinct and superior to all other civilizations.
The first step toward that was to draw lines that separated the true civilization from the barbarians. They emphasized a narrative that began with Greece and Rome, and that then continued through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance into the growth of European power that forged the nation-states of France, Spain and England.
A second key step in this process was the discovery of fossil fuels that provided enormous amounts of energy to power new technology, wealth and military strength. It was a profound change that reshaped the balance of power in Europe, and it also created a new form of colonization that swept up peoples from all over the globe into the new European empires of Africa, Asia and the Americas.
In many of these places, the Western settlers came to know the local inhabitants as “savages” because of their lack of knowledge and civilization. This led to a new form of racism, and it has taken centuries to heal from the deep wounds it left in societies of all sorts.
During this period, the European powers were building their overseas empires with fierce rivalry. This was a time when the Catholic Church split into the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic branches, and it also was a time of ferocious warfare that included battles on land and sea.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, European society entered a sort of plateau that lasted several hundred years. It was a time of feudalism, where large families held control over lands that were essentially fiefdoms. It was also a time of warring religions, including Christianity that emerged from Judaism and Islam.
The last major step in this western history timeline was the end of World War II, which ended with the dismantling of the worldwide empires that had sprung from European nations and the rise of the superpowers – the United States and Soviet Union. The tension between them was quickly given a sharper edge when nuclear weapons were introduced into the mix, creating an ever-present fear of sudden and possibly annihilating destruction.
During the post-World War II period, the Western idea of itself became even more entrenched in the idea that it was the only real civilization in the world. This created an odd situation, with all other cultures hemmed in by the global economic and political forces that flowed from Western countries. And, in addition to the lingering fear of sudden annihilation, there are now serious concerns about humankind’s sustainability on Earth because of irreparable damage to planetary systems. This has led to a new kind of thinking that has pushed back the notion of a global Western culture.