by Rodney Stark
“Americans are in danger of being badly misled by a flood of absurd, politically correct fabrications, all of them popular on college campuses: That the Greeks copied their whole culture from black Egyptians. That European science originated in Islam. That Western affluence was stolen from non-Western societies. That Western modernity was really produced in China, and not so very long ago. The truth is that, although the West wisely adopted bits and pieces of technology from Asia, modernity is entirely the product of Western civilization.
I use the term modernity to identify that fundamental store of scientific knowledge and procedures, powerful technologies, artistic achievements, political freedoms, economic arrangements, moral sensibilities, and improved standards of living that characterize Western nations and are now revolutionizing life in the rest of the world. For there is another truth: to the extent that other cultures have failed to adopt at least major aspects of Western ways, they remain backward and impoverished.”
| Introduction I. Classical Beginnings (500 BCE-500) 1. Stagnant Empires and the Greek ‘Miracle’ 2. Jerusalem’s Rational God 3. The Roman Interlude II. Early Medieval Progress (500-1200) 4. Blessings of ‘European’ Disunity 5. Northern Lights Over Christendom 6. Freedom and Capitalism III. Medieval Transformations (1200-1500) 7. Climate, Plague and Social Change 8. Universities and Natural Philosophy 9. Industry, Trade, and Technology 10. Discovering the World |
IV. The Dawn of Modernity (1500-1750) 11. New World Conquests and Colonies 12. The Rise and Fall of the Golden Empire 13. Luther’s Reformation: Myths and Realities 14. Exposing Muslim Illusions 15. Science Comes of Age V. Modernity (1750- ) 16. The Industrial ‘Revolution’ 17. Why Britain? Liberty, Merit and the ‘Bourgeois’ 18. Globalization and Colonialism Bibliography |