Civilization
Civilization is an advanced state of a society possessing historical and cultural unity. Specific societies, because of their distinctive achievements, are regarded by historians as separate civilizations. The historical perspective is used in viewing a civilization, rather than a country. Since the Middle Ages, most European historians have adopted either a religious or national perspective. The religious viewpoint dominated among European historians until the 18th century. Regarding the Christian revelation as the most momentous event in history, they viewed all history as either the prelude to or the aftermath of that event. The national viewpoint developed in the early 16th century, largely on the basis of the political philosophy of the Italian statesman and historian Niccola Machiavelli, for whom the proper object of historical study was the state. After that period the historians rarely dealt with societies beyond the realm of European culture. Historians became interested in other cultures during the Enlightenment. The development in the 18th century of a secular point of view and principles of rational criticism enabled the French writer and philosopher Voltaire and his compatriot the jurist and philosopher Montesquieu to transcend the provincialism of earlier historical thinking. Their attempts at universal history suffered from their biases. They tended to ignore irrational customs and to imagine that all people were inherently rational beings and therefore very much alike. Early in the 19th century, philosophers and historians identified with Romantic movement criticized the 18th century assumption that people were the same everywhere at all times. The German philosophers Johann von Herder and G. W. F. Hegel emphasized the profound differences in the minds and works of humans in different cultures, thereby laying the foundation for the comparative study of civilizations. According to modern historians of civilization, it is impossible to write a comprehensible history of any nation without taking into consideration the type of culture to which it belongs. They maintain that much of the life of a nation is affected by its participation in a larger social entity, often composed of a number of nations or states sharing many distinctive characteristics that can be traced to a common origin. It is this larger social entity, cultural rather than political, that such historians consider the truly meaningful object of historical study. In modern times, the existing civilizations have impinged upon one another to the point that no one civilization pursues a separate destiny any more and all may be considered participants in a common world civilization. Some historians see striking uniformities in the histories of civilizations. The German philosopher Oswald Spengler, in The Decline of the West (1918 – 1922) described civilizations as living organisms, each of which passes through identical stages at fixed periods. The British historian Arnold Toynbee, although not so rigid a determinist as Spengler, in A Study of History (1934 – 1961) also discerned a uniform pattern in the histories of civilizations. According to Toynbee, a civilization may prolong its life indefinitely by successful responses to the various internal and external challenges that constantly arise to confront it. Many historians, however, are sceptical of philosophies of history derived from an alleged pattern of the past. Historians have found difficulties in delimiting a particular society and correctly labelling it a civilization; they use the term “civilization” to refer to a number of past and present societies that manifest distinctive cultural and historical patterns. Some of these civilizations are the Andeanone, which originated about 800 ВС; the Mexican (c. 3rd century ВС); the Far Eastern, which originated in China about 2200 ВС and spread to Japan about AD 600; the Indian (c. 1500 ВС); the Egyptian (c. 3000 ВС); the Minoan (c. 2000 ВС); the Semitic (c. 1500 ВС); the Greco-Roman (c. 1100 ВС); the Byzantine, which originated in the 4th century AD; the Islamic (8th century AD); and the Western, which arose in Western Europe in the early Middle Ages (641).
2. Answer the following questions to check how well you have read the text: a) What does the term “civilization” imply? b) What perspective has been adopted by most European historians since the Middle Ages? What was history for them? c) What historical thinking dominated in the 18th century? d) What historical movement prevailed early in the 19th century? How did the historians of this trend treat previous historical assumptions? e) What do modern historians of civilization maintain? f) Can you agree with the doctrine put out by Oswald Spengler? How may a civilization prolong its life according to A. Toynbee? g) Is it difficult for historians to define a particular society? What world civilizations are mentioned in this text?
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