Talk:History of Western civilization

Older comments
Alfred the Great didn't drive the Vikings out of England in 954. He wasn't alive then. Justindlong (talk) 20:16, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

This is quite an undertaking. One could write thousands of pages on this topic. Good luck summarizing it! --Xyzzyplugh 16:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC) Thanks! (Wiki988 05:47, 11 March 2006 (UTC)) Someone appears to have dreamed some of this stuff up: "This slavery [in the Americas] was unique in world history for several reasons. Firstly, because slavery had not traditionally been part of Western Civilization, Europeans never became slaves" No, much of central Europe and Britain was overtaken and enslaved by the Roman Empire for centuries. "So, since only black Africans were enslaved, a racial component entered into Western slavery which had not existed in any other society to the extent it did in the West." No, enslaved peoples in Europe were not predominately black. The Irish enslaved Romans they captured, for example, one of them being St. Patrick. "Another important difference between slavery in the West and slavery elsewhere was the treatment of slaves. Unlike in other cultures, slaves in the West were used almost exclusively as field workers, and were practically never given an opportunity to become educated or gain their freedom." No, not true in any respect at all. Black slaves often earned their freedom in the Americas, they were given indoor jobs as freqently as the Romans, for one, gave their European slaves. "Western slavery was more brutal than any other form of slavery in history." If we are still talking about slavery in the Americas this is not even remotely true. More brutal than the Greeks, who often mutilated their slaves, chopping feet off to keep them from running away? More brutal than the Romans, who turned slaves into gladiators and otherwise amused themselves by torturing and killing them? So many cultures leave no written records that it's impossible to know what their practices were. But in one period the kings of Numibia buried hundreds of slaves alive in honor of dead kings, and many were killed for the same purpose in other cultures. "Slaves were treated as sub-human and endured harsh treatment from their masters." Again, hardly unique to the Americas This article appears to be a charicature of historical revisionism. This section in particular should be mostly deleted or completely re-written. RFabian 20:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC) I actually wrote pretty much the entire section you are refering to. Most of the information I recieved for it came from a textbook called The Earth and Its Peoples. I have read over the section again and I do plan on revising it and deleting any erroneous information. I would also like to apologize for the innacuracies in the section, and as I said I will correct them as quickly as possible. --Wiki988 04:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

You're missing a big part.
You're missing the Greeks and Romans. Western civ. didn't start with the Germanic tribes ;-)Rex 17:25, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It didn't start with the Greeks and Romans, they had their own civilization, Greco-Roman Civilization it is more commonly known as. Nor did Western Civ start with the Germanic tribes, but Celtic one's, the actual natives of Western Europe before the Germanic tribes pushed there way West from Scythia. Of course every civilization is influenced to some extent by other civilizations around it, just as Russia named their ruler, the czar, for Caesar. Language is shared heavily of course, but just because Western Civ uses the word democracy does not mean we have anything to do with the ancient Greeks. Jcchat66 (talk) 22:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Potential Copyvio
If much of the material in this article is taken from "The Earth and Its Peoples" ISBN:0618471146, it's probably a copyright violation. I've scanned this article's history and it seems to have a single primary author. This message will be crossposted to that editor's talk page and the appropriate noticeboard. (Wow, that's a big box!) Xaxafrad 08:23, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Do you have substantial reason to believe that it is? I've done a selective search for phrases from the article at the time of this note and have not found any duplication except at Wikipedia mirrors. Unfortunately, the book is not searchable: here. If this material duplicates text from that source or closely summarizes it, then it certainly could be a copyright infringement. In the absence of evidence, though, there's really no grounds to remove it. Please relist it at WP:CP if evidence is found and specify at least a couple of problematic passages. Needless to say, this is quite long. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:00, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Poland as a victim
Poland is mentioned in the article as a victim only. POV.Xx236 (talk) 12:22, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

The French philosopher Voltaire criticized the monarchy
The French one, yes. But he loved monarchies, when financed by them. Xx236 (talk) 07:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Napoleonic code
Napoleonic code should be mentioned in the article.Xx236 (talk) 09:24, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Hussite
Hussites aren't mentioned.Xx236 (talk) 14:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Reflecting old pedagogical bias
This article as written reflects what used to be a very pervasive pedagogical bias that "History of Western civilization" = History of France and England with other (Western European) countries making occasional cameo appearances (particularly if their fates intersected with that of France and England). This is evident in several ways. In regards to Poland, ss noted above by Xx236. In general Eastern and Southern Europe are forgotten. Bulgaria doesn't appear until WWI for example. Sweden, which was a Great Power for quite some time is mentioned only twice, once in a relation to New Sweden which was a short lived, fairly unimportant (in relative terms) colony. I'm not sure if the Ottomans should be considered part of Western civ (well, I think so) but they surely had a large impact on Europe. In the article they appear out of nowhere in the 16th century only to be quickly defeated by the Christians. Then they disappear again for several centuries again, only to be defeated again in WWI. The omission of the Hussites is a MAJOR oversight. The Hungarians show up in the 10th century and then are not heard from again until the German speaking Austrians condescend enough to form a union with them. Seriously, a good bit of the English/French stuff needs to be cut and made more general and information on other places needs to be extended.radek (talk) 22:22, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Europe Muslim in 2100 ???
That European Muslim thing has been debunked several times over. There are BBC articles on the subject. Justindlong (talk) 20:17, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

QUOTE

''Since the legalization of birth control and abortion in Europe, population growth has become either small or non-existent. As a result, Europe has been allowing large numbers of people to immigrate, mostly from the Middle East and North Africa. These new immigrants have helped to make Islam a fast-growing religion in Europe, and although their numbers are still relatively small, it is speculated much of Western Europe could have an Islamic majority by the end of the 21st century. This presents difficulties for the West, since it seems most Muslim immigrants in Europe prefer their Islamic culture to Western culture, and some are violently hostile to the West''

UNQUOTE

There is absolutely no evidence that the majority of European population will be Muslim by the end of this century. This is pure speculation. History being based on facts there is no room for speculation in this article.

From "Islam in Europe" article:

QUOTE

''Other analysts are skeptical about the given forecast and the accuracy of the claimed Muslim population growth, since sharp decrease in Muslim fertility rates[20] and the limiting of immigrants coming in to Europe, which will lead to Muslim population increasing slowly in the coming years to eventually stagnation and decline. Others point to overestimated number and exaggeration of the Muslim growth rate''

UNQUOTE

This shows there are different views on this subject.

I suggest this paragraph is removed from History of Western Civilisation: it is pure fantasy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.150.116.253 (talk) 13:57, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Who wrote this nonsense
"In 1588 the staunchly Catholic Spanish attempted to conquer Protestant England with a large fleet of ships called the Spanish Armada, however a storm destroyed the fleet, saving England."

lol —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.170.158.139 (talk) 07:41, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Current dates given don't make sense
This article currently says, "In 1095, Pope Urban II called for a Crusade to conquer the Holy Land from Muslim rule, when the Seljuk Turks prevented Christians from visiting the holy sites there. The crusade was a success and the crusaders established rule over the Holy Land. However, Muslim forces reconquered the land by the eleventh century, and subsequent crusades were not very successful."

It doesn't make sense to have the Crusaders establish rule over the Holy Land in the years leading up to 1100 and then have the Muslim forces reconquer it by the eleventh century. The dates don't work. I believe it should say that Muslim forces reconquered the land by the thirteenth century, but I'm not sure. Unless I'm really missing something though the way it's currently written cannot be right so I'm making the change. Should anyone with more knowledge on the subject see this, please check my info and change it if I'm mistaken. Thanks. Ckrp (talk) 03:47, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

misleading
However, as the numbers of Palestinian Jews increased, conflicts with Arab Palestinians occurred. The UN proposed Palestine be divided into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Arabs objected, however. Feeling it could do nothing to resolve the conflict, Britain withdrew and Jewish Palestinians declared the state of Israel. The Israelis immediately found themselves at war with their Arab neighbors. Israel survived the war and won two subsequent wars with neighboring Arab nations. Unfortunately, as a result of these wars, Israel found itself occupying the lands of the Arab Palestinians, called simply Palestinians today. This would lead to ongoing problems in the region.

"The UN proposed Palestine be divided into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Arabs objected,": not entirely true either, the Zionists did not totally agree with the idea, as is explained the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.

"Jews, mostly from Europe, began immigrating to Palestine, since it was the land of their ancestors." - there are tons of people and resources that would disagree

Palestinian Jews is a misleading word there was a different between Palestinian Jewish population and the immigrant Jewish Population

Israel did not find itself occupying lands of the Arab Palestinians: this gives the impression that the Israeli are the victims who don't like occupying lands. I am not discussing whether that's true or not but that's not an objective statement.

I am rewriting this paragraph to include facts not emotions!

--Michael1408 04:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Who wrote this crap! Source?
From its dawn until modern times, the West had suffered invasions from Africa, Asia, and non-Western parts of Europe. It had had a small population and was technologically backward. By 1500, however, Europe had caught up to the rest of the world technologically and was beginning to surpass it. I will remove this if it's no source added! 81.229.151.53 (talk) 08:42, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

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bullshit article written by american
the article ignore eastern europe and russia completely, seems the autor doesnt want to debate what really is the Occident world --Alibaba445 (talk) 12:08, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * does it strike you in any way that "eastern europe" may not be included because it says "western" right there in the title? This is not about Christendom in general, which has an eastern and a western part. This is explicitly about the western part.


 * The most significant dividing line in Europe, as William Wallace has suggested, may well be the eastern boundary of Western Christianity in the year 1500. This line runs along what are now the boundaries between Finland and Russia and between the Baltic states and Russia, cuts through Belarus and Ukraine separating the more Catholic western Ukraine from Orthodox eastern Ukraine, swings westward separating Transylvania from the rest of Romania, and then goes through Yugoslavia almost exactly along the line now separating Croatia and Slovenia from the rest of Yugoslavia. In the Balkans this line, of course, coincides with the historic boundary between the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires. The peoples to the north and west of this line are Protestant or Catholic; they shared the common experiences of European history—feudalism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution; they are generally economically better off than the peoples to the east; and they may now look forward to increasing involvement in a common European economy and to the consolidation of democratic political systems. The peoples to the east and south of this line are Orthodox or Muslim; they historically belonged to the Ottoman or Tsarist empires and were only lightly touched by the shaping events in the rest of Europe; they are generally less advanced economically; they seem much less likely to develop stable democratic political systems. FOREIGN AFFAIRS Vol. 72 No. 3 (1993), p.30

This article is shit. It is nonesense. It takes an American view point. If Russia isn't part of "Western Civilisation", well... much less the United States can take part in it. The United States has changed Europe in such a way that Americanisation is now the opposite, in a certain way, to Western Civilisation proper, as European Civilisation. In fact, nowadays, Americans are mostly a bunch of Africans and Native Americans with a Middle East upper class. And I think we shouldn't leave out the history of non-English speaking somewhat successful European settled colonies: Siberia, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. At least, in these regions Traditional Western Civilisation is still the norm instead of that puke that is Americanisation, with all its anti-Western inuendo.

--dab (𒁳) 08:21, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

That is because important countries in Eastern Europe are not part of Western Civilization they have there own history and they really did not affect its progression nor participated in any major colonization, a landmark of Western Civilization, and the norm for any country with the Western mindset against that of other cultures — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.72.124.53 (talk) 01:41, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Size Split?
I found it immensely helpful to read the article at one go. I would strongly suggest it not be split into other pages. I find this article among the most valuable i have ever read on wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.202.232.179 (talk) 07:13, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Split by time period, as article is well above 100 kB.--Jax 0677 (talk) 03:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)


 * The chainsaw approach would not be appropriate here. You have correctly tagged this article as being very long and hard to read etc. Just cutting out a chunk doesn't make it any easier to read. Instead, what you will need to do is leave a reasonable summary. If you aim to have a final article heare of say 50k then you would probably have a well written overview with a set of detailed articles for those who need it. This will be a lot of work, but remember that WP:SPINOUT says there is no need for haste. Personally, I would prefer to see the summary for the part that has already split written before the other sections are split out. Op47 (talk) 22:35, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

the process of "splitting" doesn't involve "chainsaw" type "cutting out of chunks". It involves the skilled task of summarizing content into WP:SS format. Now it is far easier to just dump copy-pasted content on this page than to keep summarizing this content in an intelligent way. Much content that was simply dumped here from sub-articles can and should be removed as excessive detail already treated elsewhere. What should remain is a coherent summary of the major topics. The guiding question should be, in what way is this article supposed to be helpful to the reader given that the individual sub-articles are readily available by a single click. Many editors mindlessly, based on some kind of poorly reflected and implicit rationale that more content makes for a better article. The opposite is of course the case here, less material makes for a better article, provided that this content is phrased lucid and coherent way. Achieving this is not trivial, only skilled editors will be able to help, and these only if they are willing to invest considerable effort. --dab (𒁳) 08:16, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that there is a place for an article like this in Wikipedia. It's under 35,000 words, as it stands now. It may perhaps be written better, but shortened? I don't think so. For grammar school or high school students--actually, even for college students--a summary article like this is a desirable thing. Perhaps it could not be read in one sitting for some people, but it serves a desirable purpose: a reasonably concise overview of the development of western civ without having to check out numerous articles, which together would be much longer than what we have here. Allen Roth 207.237.89.3 (talk) 11:37, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

The Origins of Western Civilization do NOT lie in Greece & Rome!
The origins of Western Civilization lie in the Bronze Age Middle-East. Almost every economic institution & practice was pioneered in the temples & palaces (public sector) of Mesopotamia Vilhelmo (talk) 17:26, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * More exactly, in the civilization of Ancient Israel. The origins of the Judaeo-Christian tradition which, together with Hellenic Civilization are the foundations of Western Civilization, as we know it today. Allen Roth 207.237.89.3 (talk) 11:24, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

No. Almost every modern economic institution & practice was pioneered in the temples & palaces of Sumer thousands of years before Ancient Israel (who adopted & developed, but did not invent, these further)  24.36.14.161 (talk) 10:30, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Hawaii
How does a passing mention Hawaii contribute constructively to this article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drno31 (talk • contribs) 02:53, 6 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, I removed it on the grounds that it lacked a source. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 07:40, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

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"Ancient Israel" vs. "Second Temple Judaism"
The reason I removed the reference to "Ancient Israel" (and its citation), and specified Hellenistic Judaism and Jewish Christians is because the statement that simply "Ancient Israel" directly influenced nascent Western civilization is spurious at absolute best. Calling it "Ancient Israel" (and moreover: placing it alongside Greece and Rome) is highly misleading, given that what scholars generally refer to as "Ancient Israel" is the period of the Hebrew monarchies, which ended in the early 6th Century BCE; Hebrew civilization at that time had not even begun to interact with the cultures considered "Western", let alone be lumped in with them as if it were considered akin. To gloss the very specific historical context of Greco-Roman influence on Second Temple Jews as simply "Ancient Israel" erroneously implies that the Israelite Kingdom (c. 1200-600BCE) had a direct influence on Western culture prior to the period in which the early West actually began to interact with Jewish culture (c.300). Yes, a source is given which credits ancient Jews as having impacted the West and/or Christianity, but the source itself does not adequately justify the misleading and inexact attribution to "Ancient Israel", rather than specifically the Hellenized Judaism and Jewish Christians of the Second Temple period. The specific historical context in which Judaism influenced the formation of the nascent West was during the period of Hellenization; during which, the territory once known as "Israel-Judah" was called Galilee and Judea (and Samaria), not Israel. I feel that this specificity is needed to accurately represent the historical development of Western culture; because as it stands, implying that Ancient Israel (the early Iron Age Semitic kingdom) had a direct or "seminal" impact on the West is in conflict with the several other (correct) references in the article to historical Western and/or Christian antagonism towards Jews and Judaism, and could easily be confusing. Yes, some of the literature and mythology produced by Ancient Israel would eventually trickle down through the subsequent Jewish polities and into Christian/Western civilization, but this is, again, an indirect contribution (the interpretation of which was also substantially influenced later by Hellenism, Christianity, etc.). "Judaism" is often taken to refer to Jewish religious traditions as a whole, both ancient and modern, and particularly Rabbinical Judaism; but Christianity/the West was not directly, seminally, or otherwise strongly impacted by post-Temple Jewish culture or religion, they were specifically impacted by a specific form of Judaism and Judaic proto-Christianity which existed only during the period of the Second Temple, during which Hellenization was a prominent and influential factor. Batanat (talk) 01:43, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Opening paragraph
I changed the opening paragraph because the first sentence had been edited last year to say, "Western civilization traces its roots back to Western Europe and the Western Mediterranean." The problem is that such a description would have Western civilization start in, say, Spain or Morocco, rather than, say, Greece. I'm not particularly committed to how the rest of the opening paragraph should read, but I do know that the Eastern Mediterranean is much more closely associated with the roots of Western civilization than the Western Mediterranean is. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:08, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Suspect typo
from Correct typos in one click oupost->outpost? context: ed by the Norse. A period of warm temperatures from around 1000–1200 enabled the establishment of a Norse outpost in Greenland in 985, which survived for some 400 years as the most westerly oupost oupost of Christendom. From here, Norseman attempted their short-lived European colony in North America, five centuries before Columbus.&lt;r

Structural bias
While the lead (somewhat condescendingly?) actually acknowledges them, the treatment in the body of the article of the non English-speaking Americas after independence is absolutely mindblowing (one single mention compartmentalized within "Rise of the English-speaking world: 1815–1870#United States: 1815–1870" together with the mention of a peripheral vision accounting for attempts to influence in the area from the outside in "New Imperialism", c'mon...).--Asqueladd (talk) 07:11, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Kitchen sink grammar
Can you parse this faster than I could?

Other than in Russia, the European Empires disintegrated after World War II and civil rights movements and widescale multi-ethnic, multi-faith migrations to Europe, the Americas and Oceania lowered the earlier predominance of ethnic Europeans in Western culture.

Here's a crib sheet:

Other than in Russia, the European Empires disintegrated after World War II and kitchen-sink factors lowered the earlier predominance of ethnic Europeans in Western culture.

Concern for the reader is nowhere in evidence in this grammatical rucksack. &mdash; MaxEnt 23:17, 30 April 2023 (UTC)