Western culture

2026-05-08T13:31:16Z

159.221.32.10: updated details per standard format

{{Short description|Norms, values, customs and political systems of the Western world}}
{{for|the music album|Western Culture (album)}}
{{Use American English|date=July 2020}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2026}}
[[Image:Da Vinci Vitruve Luc Viatour.jpg|thumb|[[Leonardo da Vinci]]'s ''[[Vitruvian Man]]'', based on the correlations of ideal [[Body proportions|human proportions]] with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect [[Vitruvius]] in Book III of his treatise {{lang|la|[[De architectura]]}}.]]
[[File:Gethsemane_Carl_Bloch.jpg|thumb|Kristus i Getsemane (1873), an [[angel]] comforting [[Jesus Christ]] before his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, by [[Carl Heinrich Bloch]].]]

'''Western culture''', also known as '''Western civilization''', '''European civilization''', '''Occidental culture''', '''Western society''', or simply '''the West''', is the [[Cultural heritage|internally diverse culture]] of the [[Western world]]. The term "Western" encompasses the [[social norms]], [[ethical value]]s, [[Tradition|traditional customs]], [[belief systems]], [[political system]]s, [[Cultural artifact|artifacts]] and [[technology|technologies]] primarily rooted in [[History of Europe|European]] and [[History of the Mediterranean region|Mediterranean]] histories. A broad concept, "Western culture" does not relate to a region with fixed members or geographical confines. It generally refers to the classical era cultures of [[ancient Greece]], [[ancient Rome]], and [[Christianity in Europe|their Christian successors]] that expanded across the [[Mediterranean basin]] and [[Europe]], and later circulated around the world predominantly through [[colonization]] and [[globalization]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Lewis |first1=Martin W. |last2=Wigen |first2=Kären |date=1997 |title=The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C2as0sWxFBAC |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-20743-1 |language=en|page=226}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hanson |first=Victor Davis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XGr16-CxpH8C |title=Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power |year=2007 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday |isbn=978-0-307-42518-8 |quote=the term "Western" — refer to the culture of classical antiquity that arose in Greece and Rome; survived the collapse of the Roman Empire; spread to western and northern Europe; then during the great periods of exploration and colonization of the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries expanded to the Americas, Australia and areas of Asia and Africa; and now exercises global political, economic, cultural, and military power far greater than the size of its territory or population might otherwise suggest.}}</ref>

Historically, scholars have closely associated the idea of Western culture with the [[Classical antiquity|classical era]] of [[Greco-Roman world|Greco-Roman antiquity]].<ref name="grecoroman1">{{multiref2|{{Cite book |last=Freeman |first=Charles |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sPcNAQAAMAAJ |title=The Greek Achievement: The Foundation of the Western World |date=September 2000 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-0-14-029323-4 |quote=The Greeks provided the chromosomes of Western civilization. One does not have to idealize the Greeks to sustain that point. Greek ways of exploring the cosmos, defining the problems of knowledge (and what is meant by knowledge itself), creating the language in which such problems are explored, representing the physical world and human society in the arts, defining the nature of value, describing the past, still underlie the Western cultural tradition}}|{{Cite book |last=Cartledge |first=Paul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r-I4gcBlTqcC |title=The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others |year=2002 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-157783-3 |quote=Greekness was identified with freedom-spiritual and social as well as political-and slavery was equated with being barbarian, [...] 'democracy' was a Greek invention (celebrating its 2,500th anniversary in 1993/4) [...] an ancient culture, that of the Greeks — is both a foundation stone of our own (Western) civilization and at the same time in key respects a deeply alien phenomenon.}}|{{Cite book |last=Pagden |first=Anthony |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m80kwkt8YW4C |title=Worlds at War: The 2,500 – Year Struggle Between East and West |year=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-923743-2 |quote=Had the Persians overrun all of mainland Greece, had they then transformed the Greek city-states into satrapies of the Persian Empire, had Greek democracy been snuffed out, there would have been no Greek theater, no Greek science, no Plato, no Aristotle, no Sophocles, no Aeschylus. The incredible burst of creative energy that took place during the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. and that laid the foundation for all of later Western civilization would never have happened. [...] in the years between 490 and 479 B.C.E., the entire future of the Western world hung precariously in the balance |language=en}}
}}</ref><ref name="grecoroman2">{{multiref2|{{Cite book |last=Richard |first=Carl J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dlMr4UhqQlQC |title=Why We're All Romans: The Roman Contribution to the Western World |date=16 April 2010 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-7425-6780-1 |quote=In 1,200 years the tiny village of Rome established a republic, conquered all of the Mediterranean basin and western Europe, lost its republic, and finally, surrendered its empire. In the process the Romans laid the foundation of Western civilization. [...] The pragmatic Romans brought Greek and Hebrew ideas down to earth, modified them, and transmitted them throughout western Europe. [...] Roman law remains the basis for the legal codes of most western European and Latin American countries — Even in English-speaking countries, where common law prevails, Roman law has exerted substantial influence}}|{{Cite book |last=Sharon |first=Moshe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XMX4xSQtkEAC |title=Studies in Modern Religions, Religious Movements and the Båabåi-Bahåa'åi Faiths |year=2004 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-13904-6 |quote=Side by side with Christianity, the classical Greco-Roman world forms the sound foundation of Western civilization. Greek philosophy is also the origin for the methods and contents of the philosophical thought and theological investigation in Islam and Judaism}}|{{Cite book |last=Grant |first=Michael |url=http://archive.org/details/foundersofwester0000gran |title=The Founders of the Western World: A History of Greece and Rome |year=1991 |publisher=Scribner |via=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-684-19303-8}}|{{Cite book |last1=Perry |first1=Marvin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N6jytVCocwMC |title=Western Civilization: Since 1400 |last2=Chase |first2=Myrna |last3=Jacob |first3=James |last4=Jacob |first4=Margaret |last5=Laue |first5=Theodore H. Von |year=2012 |publisher=Cengage |isbn=978-1-111-83169-1}}
}}</ref> However, scholars also acknowledge that other cultures, like [[ancient Egypt]], the [[Phoenicia|Phoenician city-states]], and several [[Near East|Near-Eastern cultures]] stimulated and influenced it.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nightingale |first=Andrea |title=The Cambridge Companion to Archaic Greece |year=2007 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-52929-7 |editor-last=Shapiro |editor-first=H. A. |series=Cambridge companions to the ancient world |pages=171 |chapter=The Philosophers in Archaic Greek Culture |quote="We have ample evidence that the Greek thinkers encountered and responded to many different cultures and ideologies. Consider, for example, the city of Miletus, which was the center of intellectual activity in sixth-century Ionia. Miletus bordered on the Lydian and, later, the Persian empires and had extensive dealings with these cultures.In addition, it had trading relations all over the Mediterranean and sent out numerous colonies to Egypt and Thrace. The Milesian thinkers thus encountered ideas and practices from all over the “known” world. In the Archaic period, the interaction of different peoples from Greece, Italy, Egypt, and the Near East created a cultural ferment that had a profound impact on Greek life and thought." |editor-last2=Antonaccio |editor-first2=Carla M.}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Boardman |first=John |title=The Cambridge Ancient History |chapter=The material culture of Archaic Greece |date=1982 |volume=3 |pages=450 |editor-last=Boardman |editor-first=John |chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-ancient-history/material-culture-of-archaic-greece/5A560E907896C32DF55E224DB6C8EFC4 |access-date=20 October 2024 |edition=2nd |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/chol9780521234474.018 |isbn=978-0-521-23447-4 |quote=Knowledge of Egyptian art after the mid century led to Greek exploitation of the harder stone, their white island marble, for the first time, and the creation of figures at life size or more. We know these best—the kouroi and korai—as dedications and grave markers, but a prime use for monumental statuary must have been as cult images and it is at about this time that the temple-houses, oikoi, for these images begin to receive a monumental form and, again probably through inspiration from Egypt are decorated with architectural orders: first the Doric in homeland Greece, then the orientalizing Ionic in the East Greek world. |editor2-last=Hammond |editor2-first=N. G. L.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Scott |first=John C |year=2018 |title=The Phoenicians and the Formation of the Western World |url=https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2047&context=ccr |journal=Comparative Civilizations Review |publisher=[[Brigham Young University]] |volume=78 |issue=78 |issn=0733-4540}}</ref> The [[Hellenistic period]] also promoted [[syncretism]], blending Greek, Roman, and Near-Eastern cultures. Major advances in literature, engineering, and science shaped the [[Hellenistic Judaism|Hellenistic Jewish]] culture, from which the [[Jewish Christianity|earliest Christians]] and the Greek [[New Testament]] emerged.<ref name="Alexander">{{cite book |last=Green |first=P. |title=Alexander The Great and the Hellenistic Age |publisher=Phoenix |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-7538-2413-9 |page=xiii}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Porter |first=Stanley E. |title=Early Christianity in its Hellenistic context. Volume 2, Christian origins and Hellenistic Judaism: social and literary contexts for the New Testament |date=2013 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-9004234765 |location=Leiden}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hengel |first=Martin |title=Judaism and Hellenism: studies in their encounter in Palestine during the early Hellenistic period |date=2003 |publisher=Wipf & Stock |isbn=978-1-59244-186-0 |location=Eugene, OR}}</ref> The eventual [[Christianization]] of Europe in [[late antiquity]] would ensure that [[Christianity]], particularly the [[Catholic Church]], remained a dominant force in Western culture for many centuries to follow.<ref>{{cite book |last=Spielvogel |first=Jackson J. |title=Western Civilization: A Brief History, Volume I: To 1715 |publisher=Cengage Learning |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-305-63347-6 |edition=Cengage Learning |page=156}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Neill |first=Thomas Patrick |title=Readings in the History of Western Civilization, Volume 2 |year=1957 |edition=Newman Press |page=224}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=O'Collins |first1=Gerald |author-link=Gerald O'Collins |title=Catholicism: The Story of Catholic Christianity |last2=Farrugia |first2=Maria |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-19-925995-3 |page=v}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Rousseau |first=Philip |chapter=Inheriting the fifth century: Who bequeathed what? |editor1-last=Allen |editor1-first=Pauline |editor2-last=Jeffreys |editor2-first=Elizabeth |title=The Sixth Century: End or Beginning? |publisher=Brill |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-86420-074-4|pages= 2–3, 5}}</ref>

The [[Early Middle Ages]], after the [[fall of the Western Roman Empire]], were characterized by depopulation, deurbanization, and the collapse of long-distance trade, as Europe suffered hundreds of years of raids and invasions from [[Viking expansion|Vikings]], [[Early Muslim conquests|Muslims]], and [[Hungarian invasions of Europe|Magyars]] from the north, south and east. Following that long period of war and instability, however, medieval Europe experienced gradual improvements, including several [[medieval renaissances]]. [[Latin translations of the 12th century|12th-century Latin translations]] brought ancient Greek and Roman texts back to central and western Europe from the [[Islamic world contributions to Medieval Europe|Islamic world]] and helped [[Scholasticism|medieval scholasticism]] to grow and thrive.<ref name="Haskins" /><ref name="Sarton" /><ref name="Burnett" /><ref name="Geanakoplos 1989">{{Cite book |last=Geanakoplos |first=Deno John |title=Constantinople and the West : essays on the late Byzantine (Palaeologan) and Italian Renaissances and the Byzantine and Roman churches |date=1989 |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |isbn=0-299-11880-0 |location=Madison, Wis. |oclc=19353503}}</ref> [[Medieval Christianity]] is credited with creating the modern [[university]],<ref name="Rüegg, Walter 1992">Rüegg, Walter: "Foreword. The University as a European Institution", in: ''A History of the University in Europe. Vol. 1: Universities in the Middle Ages'', Cambridge University Press, 1992, {{ISBN|0-521-36105-2}}, pp. xix–xx</ref><ref name="harnvb|Verger|1999">{{harnvb|Verger|1999}}</ref> the modern hospital system,<ref name="Risse 59">{{cite book |last=Risse |first=Guenter B. |url=https://archive.org/details/mendingbodiessav00riss |title=Mending Bodies, Saving Souls: A History of Hospitals |date=April 1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-505523-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/mendingbodiessav00riss/page/n79 59] |url-access=limited}}</ref> scientific economics,<ref name="Schumpeter 1954">{{cite book |last=Schumpeter |first=Joseph |title=History of Economic Analysis |publisher=Allen & Unwin |year=1954 |location=London}}</ref><ref name="National Review Book Service">{{cite web |title=Review of ''How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization'' by Thomas Woods, Jr. |url=http://www.nrbookservice.com/products/bookpage.asp?prod_cd=c6664 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060822150152/http://www.nrbookservice.com/products/BookPage.asp?prod_cd=c6664 |archive-date=22 August 2006 |access-date=16 September 2006 |website=National Review Book Service}}</ref> and [[natural law]] (which would later influence the creation of [[international law]]).<ref>Cf. [[Jeremy Waldron]] (2002), ''God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke's Political Thought'', Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (UK), {{ISBN|978-0-521-89057-1}}, pp. 189, 208</ref> During the [[Renaissance]], the rise of [[Renaissance humanism|humanism]], the spread of the [[movable type]] [[printing press]], the encounter with the [[Americas]] and the advance of the [[Reformation]] each transformed European culture.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Protestant-Heritage-1354359/Protestantisms-influence-in-the-modern-world The Protestant Heritage] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180223053548/https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Protestant-Heritage-1354359/Protestantisms-influence-in-the-modern-world|date=23 February 2018}}, Britannica</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=McNeill |first=William H. |title=History of Western Civilization: A Handbook |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-226-56162-2 |edition=University of Chicago Press |page=204}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Faltin |first=Lucia |url=https://archive.org/details/religiousrootsco00falt |title=The Religious Roots of Contemporary European Identity |author2=Melanie J. Wright |publisher=A&C Black |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-8264-9482-5 |edition=A&C Black |page=[https://archive.org/details/religiousrootsco00falt/page/n99 83] |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref>Karl Heussi, ''Kompendium der Kirchengeschichte'', 11. Auflage (1956), Tübingen (Germany), pp. 317–319, 325–326</ref>

The [[Scientific Revolution]] and the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] of the 17th and 18th centuries advanced ideals of [[Empiricism|empirical inquiry]], [[Pluralism (political philosophy)|political pluralism]] and [[individual rights]]. These ideas influenced [[Age of Revolution|revolutions]] across Europe and the Americas, spurred the development of modern democratic institutions and, together with the [[Industrial Revolution]], transformed Western society. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the influence of Enlightenment [[rationalism]] continued with the rise of [[secularism]] and [[liberal democracy]], while the Industrial Revolution fueled economic and technological growth. The expansion of [[Civil rights movements|civil rights]] and the [[Secularization|decline of religious authority]] marked significant cultural shifts. Tendencies that have come to define modern Western societies include the concept of [[Pluralism (political philosophy)|political pluralism]], [[individualism]], prominent [[subcultures]] or [[counterculture]]s, and increasing cultural [[syncretism]] resulting from [[globalization]] and [[Immigration to the Western world|immigration]].

== Terminology ==
{{More citations needed section|date=April 2026}}
{{further|Western world}}

The West as a geographical area is unclear and undefined. There is some disagreement about which nations should or should not be included in the category, when, and why. Certainly related conceptual terminology has changed over time in scope, meaning, and use. The term "western" draws on an affiliation with, or a perception of, a shared [[Western philosophy|philosophy]], [[worldview]], political, and religious heritage grounded in the [[Greco-Roman world]], the [[legacy of the Roman Empire]], and medieval concepts of [[Christendom]]. For example, whether the [[Byzantine Empire|Eastern Roman Empire]] (anachronistically/controversially referred to as the [[Byzantine Empire#Nomenclature|Byzantine Empire)]], or those countries heavily influenced by its legacy, should be counted as "Western" is an example of the possible ambiguity of the term. These questions{{which|date=August 2023}} can be traced back to the affiliation between the [[culture of ancient Rome]] and that of [[Classical Greece]], a persistent [[Greek East and Latin West]] language-split within the [[Roman Empire]], and an eventual permanent splitting of the Roman Empire in 395 into [[Western Roman Empire|Western]] and [[Byzantine Empire#Christianisation and partition of the empire|Eastern]] halves. And perhaps, at its worst,{{citation needed|date=February 2023}} culminating in Pope Leo III's [[Succession of the Roman Empire|transfer of the Roman Empire]] from the Eastern Roman Empire to the [[Carolingian Empire|Frankish]] King [[Charlemagne]] in the form of the [[Holy Roman Empire#Name and general perception|Holy Roman Empire]] in 800, the [[East–West Schism|Great Schism]] of 1054, and the devastating [[Fourth Crusade]] of 1204.

Conversely, traditions of scholarship around [[Plato]], [[Aristotle]], and [[Euclid]] had been forgotten in the Catholic west and were rediscovered by Italians from scholars fleeing the 1453 fall of the [[Fall of Constantinople|Eastern Roman Empire]].<ref name="Geanakoplos 1989" /> The subsequent [[Renaissance]], a conscious effort by Europeans to revive and surpass the ideas and achievements of the Greco-Roman world, eventually encouraged the [[Age of Discovery]], the [[Scientific Revolution]], [[Age of Enlightenment]], and the subsequent [[Industrial Revolution]]. Similarly, complicated relationships between virtually all the countries and regions within a broadly defined "West" can be discussed in the light of a persistently fragmented political landscape resulting in a lack of uniformity and significant diversity between the various cultures affiliating with this shared socio-cultural heritage. Thus, those cultures identifying with the West and with what it means to be "western" change over time as the geopolitical circumstances of a place changes and what is meant by the terminology changes.

It is difficult to determine which individuals or places or trends fit into which category, and the East–West contrast is sometimes criticized as [[relativism|relativistic]] and arbitrary.<ref>Yin Cheong Cheng, ''New Paradigm for Re-engineering Education''. p. 369</ref><ref>[[Ainslie Thomas Embree]], [[Carol Gluck]], ''Asia in Western and World History: A Guide for Teaching''. p. xvi</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Kwang-Sae|last=Lee|title=East and West: Fusion of Horizons|publisher=Homa & Sekey|isbn=1-931907-26-9}}{{page needed|date= February 2015}}</ref>{{page needed|date= February 2015}} Globalization has spread Western ideas so widely that almost all modern cultures are, to some extent, influenced by aspects of Western culture. Stereotypical views of "the West" have been labeled "[[Occidentalism]]", paralleling "[[Orientalism]]"—the term for the 19th-century stereotyped views of "the East".

Some [[philosophers]] have questioned whether Western culture can be considered a historically sound, unified body of thought.<ref name="Appiah2016">{{cite news|author= Kwame Anthony Appiah|title= There Is No Such Thing As Western Civilization|url= https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/09/western-civilisation-appiah-reith-lecture | date = 9 November 2016 }}</ref> For example, [[Kwame Anthony Appiah]] pointed out in 2016 that many of the fundamental influences on Western culture – such as those of [[Ancient Greek philosophy|Greek philosophy]] – are also shared by the [[Muslim world|Islamic world]] to a certain extent.<ref name="Appiah2016" />{{request quotation|date=February 2023}} Appiah argues that the origin of the Western and European [[Identity (social science)|identity]] can be traced back to the 8th-century Muslim invasion of Europe via [[Iberia]], when Christians would start to form a common Christian or European identity.<ref name="Appiah2016" />{{request quotation|date=February 2023}} Contemporary Latin chronicles from Spain referred to the victors in the [[Kingdom of the Franks|Frankish]] victory over the [[Umayyad Caliphate|Umayyads]] at the 732 [[Battle of Tours]] as "Europeans" according to Appiah, denoting a shared sense of identity.<ref>{{cite news|author= Kwame Anthony Appiah|title= There Is No Such Thing As Western Civilization|url= https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/09/western-civilisation-appiah-reith-lecture | date = 9 November 2016 | quote = [...] the first recorded use of a word for Europeans as a kind of person, so far as I know, comes out of this history of conflict. In a Latin chronicle, written in 754 in Spain, the author refers to the victors of the Battle of Tours as '''Europenses''', Europeans. So, simply put, the very idea of a 'European' was first used to contrast Christians and Muslims.}}</ref>

As Europeans discovered the extra-European world, old concepts adapted. The area that had formerly been considered the [[Orient]] ("the East") became the [[Near East]] as the interests of the European countries interfered with [[Meiji Period|Meiji Japan]] and [[Qing China]] for the first time in the 19th century.<ref name="davison">{{Cite journal |author= Davidson, Roderic H. |title= Where is the Middle East? |journal= Foreign Affairs |volume= 38 |issue=4 |pages=665–75 |year=1960 |doi=10.2307/20029452 |jstor=20029452 |s2cid=157454140 }}</ref> Thus the [[First Sino-Japanese War|Sino-Japanese War]] in 1894–1895 occurred in the "[[Far East]]" while troubles surrounding the [[decline of the Ottoman Empire]] occurred simultaneously in the Near East.{{efn|British archaeologist [[David George Hogarth|D. G. Hogarth]] published ''The Nearer East'' in 1902, which helped to define the term and its extent, including [[Albania]], [[Montenegro]], southern [[Serbia]] and [[Bulgaria]], [[Greece]], [[Egypt]], all [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] lands, the entire [[Arabian Peninsula]], and Western parts of [[Iran]].}} The term "Middle East" in the mid-19th century included the territory east of the [[Ottoman Empire]] but west of China—[[Greater Persia]] and [[Greater India]]—but is now used synonymously with "Near East" in most languages.

== History ==
{{further|History of Western civilization}}
{{History of Western philosophy}}
The earliest [[civilization]]s which influenced the development of Western culture were those of [[Mesopotamia]]; the area of the [[Tigris–Euphrates river system]], largely corresponding to modern-day [[Iraq]], northeastern [[Syria]], southeastern [[Turkey]] and southwestern [[Iran]]: the [[cradle of civilization]].<ref name="Bronowski">Jacobus Bronowski; ''The Ascent of Man''; Angus & Robertson, 1973 {{ISBN|0-563-17064-6}}</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">Geoffrey Blainey; ''A Very Short History of the World''; Penguin Books, 2004</ref> [[Ancient Egypt]] similarly had a strong influence on Western culture.

[[Phoenicia]]n mercantilism and the introduction of the alphabetical script boosted state formation in the Aegean and current-day Italy and current-day Spain, spawning civilizations in the Mediterranean such as [[ancient Carthage]], [[ancient Greece]], [[Etruscan civilization|Etruria]], and [[ancient Rome]].{{Sfn|Scott|2018|pp=38–39}}

The [[Greeks]] contrasted themselves with both their [[History of Anatolia|Eastern neighbors]] (such as the [[Troy|Trojans]] in ''[[Iliad]]'') as well as their Northern neighbors (who they considered [[barbarians]]).{{Citation needed|date=May 2019}} Concepts of what is ''the West'' arose out of legacies of the [[Western Roman Empire|Western]] and the Eastern Roman Empire. Later, ideas of the West were formed by the concepts of [[Greek East and Latin West|Latin Christendom]] and the [[Holy Roman Empire]]. What is thought of as Western thought today originates primarily from [[Greco-Roman]] and Christian traditions, with varying degrees of influence from the [[Germanic peoples|Germanic]], [[Celts|Celtic]] and [[Slavs|Slavic]] peoples, and includes the ideals of the [[Middle Ages]], [[Renaissance]], [[Reformation]], [[Scientific Revolution]] and the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stearns |first1=Peter N. |title=Western civilization in world history |date=2003 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=9781134374755}}</ref>

=== The West of the Mediterranean Region during Antiquity ===
{{See also|Hellenization|Romanization (cultural)|Greco-Roman world}}
[[File:Plato_Pio-Clemetino_Inv305.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Plato]], arguably the most influential figure in early [[Western philosophy]].]]

During the [[Greco-Roman world]], North Africa and the Western regions of the Middle East were integral parts of the Western civilization, due to [[Hellenization]] and the direct cultural impact of the conquests of the Roman Empire. After the Roman conquests, the whole Mediterranean became essentially a Roman inland sea.<ref>{{cite book|author=[[Polybius]]|title=The Rise of the Roman Empire|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|page=177|isbn=9780140443622|year=1980}}</ref><br><br>While the concept of a "West" did not exist until the emergence of the [[Roman Republic]], the roots of the concept can be traced back to [[ancient Greece]]. Since [[Homer]]ic literature (the [[Trojan Wars]]), through the accounts of the [[Persian Wars]] of [[Greeks]] against [[Persia]]ns by [[Herodotus]], and right up until the time of [[Alexander the Great]], there was a [[paradigm]] of a contrast between Greeks and other civilizations.<ref name="google">{{Cite book|last=Hanson|first=Victor Davis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XGr16-CxpH8C|title=Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power|date=18 December 2007|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-307-42518-8|language=en}}</ref> Greeks felt they were the most civilized and saw themselves (in the formulation of [[Aristotle]]) as something between the advanced civilizations of the [[Near East]] (who they viewed as soft and slavish) and the wild [[barbarians]] of most of Europe to the north. During this period writers like Herodotus and [[Xenophon]] would highlight the importance of freedom in the Ancient Greek world, as opposed to the perceived slavery of the so-called barbaric world.<ref name="google" />[[File:Alejandro Magno, Alexander The Great Bust Alexander BM 1857 (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Alexander the Great]]]]Alexander's conquests led to the emergence of a [[Hellenistic civilization]], representing a synthesis of Greek and [[Near-East]]ern cultures in the [[Eastern Mediterranean]] region.<ref name="Green">Green, Peter. ''Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.</ref> The Near-Eastern civilizations of [[ancient Egypt]] and the [[Levant]], which came under Greek rule, became part of the Hellenistic world. The most important Hellenistic centre of learning was [[Ptolemaic Egypt]], which attracted Greek, [[Egyptians|Egyptian]], Jewish, [[Persian people|Persian]], [[Phoenicia]]n and even [[History of India|Indian]] scholars.<ref>George G. Joseph (2000). ''The Crest of the Peacock'', pp. 7–8. [[Princeton University Press]]. {{ISBN|0-691-00659-8}}</ref> Hellenistic science, philosophy, [[classical architecture|architecture]], [[classical literature|literature]] and art later provided a foundation embraced and built upon by the [[Roman Empire]] as it swept up Europe and the [[History of the Mediterranean region|Mediterranean world]], including the Hellenistic world in its conquests in the 1st century BCE.

Following the Roman conquest of the Hellenistic world, the concept of a "West" arose, as there was a cultural divide between the [[Greek East and Latin West]]. The Latin-speaking Western Roman Empire consisted of Western Europe and Northwest Africa, while the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire consisted of the [[Balkans]], [[Asia Minor]], [[Roman Egypt|Egypt]] and [[Levant]]. The "Greek" East was generally wealthier and more advanced than the "Latin" West.{{Citation needed|date=October 2019}} With the exception of [[Roman Italy|Italia]], the wealthiest provinces of the Roman Empire were in the East, particularly Roman Egypt which was the wealthiest Roman province outside of Italia.<ref>[[Angus Maddison|Maddison, Angus]] (2007), ''Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History'', p. 55, table 1.14, [[Oxford University Press]], {{ISBN|978-0-19-922721-1}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Herons von Alexandria Druckwerke und Automatentheater |author-last=Hero |author-link=Hero of Alexandria |translator=Wilhelm Schmidt |place=Leipzig |publisher=B.G. Teubner |date=1899 |language=el, de |chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/heronsvonalexandhero#page/228/mode/2up |pages=228–232 |chapter=Pneumatika, Book ΙΙ, Chapter XI}}</ref> Nevertheless, the Celts in the West created some significant literature in the ancient world whenever they were given the opportunity (an example being the poet [[Caecilius Statius]]), and they developed a large amount of scientific knowledge themselves (as seen in their [[Coligny Calendar]]).

[[File:Maison Carree in Nimes (16).jpg|thumb|left|The [[Maison Carrée]] in [[Nîmes]], one of the best-preserved [[Roman temple]]s]]
[[File:Roman Empire Trajan 117AD.png|thumb|upright=1.25|The [[Roman Empire]] (red) and its [[client state]]s (pink) at its greatest extent in 117 AD under emperor [[Trajan]]]]
For about five hundred years, the Roman Empire maintained the [[Greek East]] and consolidated a [[Latin West]], but an east–west division remained, reflected in many cultural norms of the two areas, including language. Eventually, the empire became increasingly split into a Western and Eastern part, reviving old ideas of a contrast between an advanced East, and a rugged West.{{cn|date=April 2026}}

From the time of Alexander the Great (the [[Hellenistic period]]), Greek civilization came in contact with Jewish civilization. Christianity would eventually emerge from the [[syncretism]] of [[Hellenism (Greek culture)|Hellenic culture]], [[Roman culture]], and [[Second Temple Judaism]], gradually spreading across the Roman Empire and eclipsing its antecedents and influences.<ref>Gordon, Cyrus H., The Common Background of the Greek and Hebrew Civilizations, W. W. Norton and Company, New York 1965</ref>[[File:Roman Empire 330 CE.png|thumb|The Roman Empire in 330. The area in red shows the zone of influence of the Latin West, while the area in blue shows the eastern Greek part.]]The Greek and Roman [[Religion in ancient Rome|paganism]] was gradually replaced by Christianity, first with its legalisation with the [[Edict of Milan]] and then the [[Edict of Thessalonica]] which made it the [[State church of the Roman Empire]]. [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] Christianity, served as a unifying force in Christian parts of Europe, and in some respects replaced or competed with the secular authorities. The [[Jewish Christian]] tradition out of which it had emerged was all but extinguished, and [[antisemitism]] became increasingly entrenched or even integral to Christendom.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate |publisher=Jason Aronson |first=William |last=Nicholls |isbn=978-1-56821-519-8 |edition=1st Jason Aronson softcover |location=Northvale, New Jersey |oclc=34892303|year = 1995}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=The origins of anti-semitism : attitudes toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian antiquity |last=Gager |first=John G.|date=1983 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-503607-7 |location=New York |oclc=9112202}}</ref>

=== The birth of the European West during the Early Middle Ages ===
[[File:Sanvitale03.jpg|thumb|Mosaic of [[Justinian I]] with his court, circa 547–549, [[Basilica of San Vitale]] ([[Ravenna]], Italy)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fortenberry|first1=Diane|title=THE ART MUSEUM |date=2017|publisher=Phaidon|isbn=978-0-7148-7502-6|page=108|language=en}}</ref>]]
[[File:Francia 714.png|thumb|upright=0.75|alt=Colour-coded map|{{centre|Francia in 714}}]]

After the [[fall of Rome]], much of [[Greco-Roman]] art, literature, science and technology was all but lost in the western part of the old empire. Europe fell into a period of [[Barbarian kingdoms|warring kingdoms and principalities]]<ref>{{Cite book|last=Croke|first=Brian|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w-t5DwAAQBAJ|title=Greek and Roman Historiography in Late Antiquity: Fourth to Sixth Century A.D.|publisher=Brill|year=2003|isbn=90-04-11275-8|location=Leiden|chapter=Latin Historiography and the Barbarian Kingdoms}}</ref><ref>{{Cite thesis|last=Ghosh|first=Shami|title=The Barbarian Past in Early Medieval Historical Narrative|date=2009|degree=Doctoral|publisher=University of Toronto|url=https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/19189/3/ghosh_shami_200911_PhD_thesis.pdf}}</ref> now known as the [[Early Middle Ages]] (500–1000), marked by a continuation, or even intensification, of the destructive trends of [[late antiquity]]: [[Medieval_demography#Late_Antiquity|depopulation]], [[Counterurbanization|deurbanization]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Cameron |first=Averil |title=The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, AD 395–600 |year=1993 |publisher=Routledge |chapter=Urban changes and the end of Antiquity: The changing city |pages=159ff |isbn=978-0415014212}}</ref> and [[barbarian]] invasions.<ref name="clark">Gilian Clark, ''Late Antiquity: A Very Short Introduction'' (Oxford 2011), pp. 1–2.</ref>. From the 7th until the 11th centuries, [[Viking expansion|Vikings]], [[Early Muslim conquests|Muslims]], and [[Hungarian invasions of Europe|Magyars]] all raided and invaded the [[Europe|European peninsula]] from the north, south and east.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Berger |first1=Eugene |last2=Israel |first2=George |last3=Miller |first3=Charlotte |last4=Parkinson |first4=Brian |last5=Reeves |first5=Andrew |last6=Williams |first6=Nadejda |year=2016 |title=World History: Cultures, States and Societies to 1500 |publisher=[[University of North Georgia Press]] |location=Dahlonega |isbn=978-1-940771-10-6 |oclc=961216293 |url=https://archive.org/details/worldhistorycult0000unse_o3i7 |page=291}}</ref>

As the remnants of Roman imperial governance contracted and the supply of Egyptian [[Papyrus#History|papyrus]] diminished, [[parchment]] became the dominant writing material.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=History of publishing → Medieval, Manuscripts, Scriptoria |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/publishing/The-medieval-book |access-date=2023-12-22}}</ref> Its vastly higher cost reinforced an already advanced clerical monopoly on literacy, the lay decline of which had begun earlier with the collapse of Roman municipal schools and the civic structures that had economically rewarded literate administrators. The [[Catholic Church]] accordingly became the primary source of institutional continuity, legal memory, and administrative expertise for the [[Barbarian kingdoms|turbulent post-Roman kingdoms]] of Western Europe, which were contending with internecine warfare, barbarian raids and invasions, and prolonged economic contraction.<ref name="Koch 1994">{{cite book |last=Koch |first=Carl |title=The Catholic Church: Journey, Wisdom, and Mission |year=1994 |publisher=St. Mary's Press |location=Early Middle Ages |isbn=978-0-88489-298-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/catholicchurchjo00koch }}</ref> The [[Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England|Anglo-Saxons]], [[Willibrord#Frisia|Frisians]], [[Thuringi#Ecclesiastical_history|Thuringians]], and [[Bavaria#Middle_Ages|Bavarians]] all converted to Catholicism between 600 and 750 AD but the [[Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula|Umayyad conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom in Iberia]] — the most organized and [[Visigothic Code|legally sophisticated]] Germanic-Catholic kingdom of the era — left the [[Francia|Kingdom of the Franks]] ("Francia"), [[Kingdom of the Lombards]] (on the [[Italian Peninsula]]) and [[Heptarchy|petty Anglo-Saxon kingdoms]] as the only remaining Catholic realms of any significance in the Latin West. Among the other long-term effects of this era of Church cultural dominance was the [[Great_Divergence#The_Catholic_Church's_Prohibition_of_Cousin_Marriage|dissolution of traditional European kinship networks]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Henrich |first=Joseph Patrick |title=[[The WEIRDest People in the World]]: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous |date=2020|pages=57|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=978-0-374-17322-7 |edition=First |location=New York |quote=...{{nbsp}}the medieval Catholic Church inadvertently altered people's psychology by promoting a peculiar set of prohibitions and prescriptions about marriage and the family that dissolved the densely interconnected clans and kindreds in western Europe into small, weak and disparate nuclear families. The social and psychological shifts induced by this transformation fueled the proliferation of voluntary associations, including guilds, charter towns, and universities, drove the expansion of impersonal markets, and spurred the rapid growth of cities. By the High Middle Ages, catalyzed by these ongoing changes, WEIRDer ways of thinking, reasoning, and feeling propelled the emergence of novel forms of law, government, and religion while accelerating innovation and the emergence of Western science.}}</ref>

In 800, the [[Franks|Frankish]] king [[Charlemagne]] was crowned Emperor by [[Pope Leo III]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Berger |first1=Eugene |last2=Israel |first2=George |last3=Miller |first3=Charlotte |last4=Parkinson |first4=Brian |last5=Reeves |first5=Andrew |last6=Williams |first6=Nadejda |year=2016 |title=World History: Cultures, States and Societies to 1500 |publisher=[[University of North Georgia Press]] |location=Dahlonega |isbn=978-1-940771-10-6 |oclc=961216293 |url=https://archive.org/details/worldhistorycult0000unse_o3i7 |page=282-283}}</ref> the [[Western_Roman_Empire#Later_claims_to_the_Imperial_title_in_the_West|first western Roman emperor since Romulus Augustus was captured and deposed more than 300 years earlier]]. The [[Church and state in medieval Europe|conflict-filled relationship between the Church and temporal (mostly Germanic) monarchs]] would become the single most important political fact of European history for the next 500 years. The stability of Charlemagne's reign, however, stimulated a brief revival of cultural activity known as the [[Carolingian Renaissance]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Berger |first1=Eugene |last2=Israel |first2=George |last3=Miller |first3=Charlotte |last4=Parkinson |first4=Brian |last5=Reeves |first5=Andrew |last6=Williams |first6=Nadejda |year=2016 |title=World History: Cultures, States and Societies to 1500 |publisher=[[University of North Georgia Press]] |location=Dahlonega |isbn=978-1-940771-10-6 |oclc=961216293 |url=https://archive.org/details/worldhistorycult0000unse_o3i7 |page=282-283}}</ref> The earliest recorded concept of Europe as a cultural sphere (instead of simply a geographic term) comprising the territories that practised [[Western Christianity]] was formed by [[Alcuin of York]] in the late 8th century during the reign of Charlemagne.<ref>{{cite book |author=Sanjay Kumar |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iGc9EAAAQBAJ |title=A Handbook of Political Geography |publisher=K.K. Publications |year=2021 |pages=125–127 | quote=A cultural definition of Europe as the lands of Latin Christendom coalesced in the 8th century, signifying the new cultural condominium created through the confluence of Germanic traditions and Christian-Latin culture, defined partly in contrast with Byzantium and Islam, and limited to northern Iberia, the British Isles, France, Christianised western Germany, the Alpine regions and northern and central Italy. The concept is one of the lasting legacies of the Carolingian Renaissance: "Europa" figures in the letters of Charlemagne's court scholar, Alcuin.}}</ref>

The Church established a hospital system in medieval Europe that vastly improved upon the Roman ''valetudinaria''<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/techniques/valetudinaria |title=Valetudinaria |website=broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk |access-date=22 February 2018 |archive-date=5 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005164628/http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/techniques/valetudinaria |url-status=dead }}</ref> and Greek healing temples.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=htLTvdz5HDEC&q=History+of+Hospital+Asclepieion&pg=PA56 |title=Mending Bodies, Saving Souls: A History of Hospitals |last=Risse |first=Guenter B. |date=15 April 1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-974869-3}}</ref> These hospitals were established to cater to "particular social groups marginalized by poverty, sickness, and age," according to the historian of hospitals, Guenter Risse.<ref name="Risse 59" /> Christianity played a role in ending practices common among pagan societies, such as human sacrifice, slavery,<ref name="Chadwick, Owen p. 242">Chadwick, Owen p. 242.{{incomplete citation|date=April 2026}}</ref>{{full|date=April 2026}} infanticide and polygamy.<ref name="Hastings, p. 309">Hastings, p. 309.{{incomplete citation|date=April 2026}}</ref>{{full|date=April 2026}} [[Francisco de Vitoria]], a disciple of [[Thomas Aquinas]] and a Catholic thinker who studied the issue regarding the human rights of colonized natives, is recognized by the United Nations as a father of international law, and now also by historians of economics and democracy as a leading light for the West's democracy and rapid economic development.<ref>{{cite web |title=A Philosophical and Historical Analysis of Modern Democracy, Equality, and Freedom Under the Influence of Christianity |url=http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/politics/pg0010.html |last=de Torre |first=Fr. Joseph M. |year=1997 |publisher=Catholic Education Resource Center |access-date=6 June 2017 |archive-date=20 April 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170420234530/http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/politics/pg0010.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The rediscovery of the [[Roman law|Justinian Code]] in Western Europe early in the 10th century rekindled a passion for the discipline of law, which crossed many of the re-forming boundaries between East and West. In the [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] or [[Franks|Frankish]] west, [[Roman law]] became the foundation on which all legal concepts and systems were based. Its influence is found in all Western legal systems, although in different manners and to different extents. The study of [[canon law]], the legal system of the Catholic Church, fused with that of Roman law to form the basis of the refounding of Western legal scholarship.

In 1054 came the [[East–West Schism|Great Schism]] that, following the [[Greek East and Latin West]] divide, separated Europe into religious and cultural regions present to this day.

=== High Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation ===
[[File:Slovakia region Spis 33.jpg|thumb|Two main symbols of the medieval Western civilization on one picture: the gothic [[Spišská Kapitula and St. Martin's Cathedral|St. Martin's cathedral]] in [[Spišské Podhradie]] ([[Slovakia]]) and the [[Spiš Castle]] behind the cathedral]]
[[File:Vezelay WLM2016 La basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine (3).jpg|thumb|upright|Stone bas-relief of Jesus, from the [[Vézelay Abbey]] ([[Burgundy]], France)]]
[[File:Notre Dame de Paris 2013-07-24.jpg|thumb|upright|''[[Notre-Dame de Paris|Notre-Dame]]'', the most iconic [[Gothic architecture|Gothic]] cathedral,<ref name="CarlebachSchacter2011">{{cite book|author1=Elisheva Carlebach|author2=Jacob J. Schacter|title=New Perspectives on Jewish-Christian Relations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E90FkMEurOYC&pg=PA38|date=25 November 2011|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-22117-8|page=38}}</ref> built between 1163 and 1345]]
[[History of Christianity during the Middle Ages|Medieval Christianity]] is credited with creating the first modern universities.<ref name="Rüegg, Walter 1992" /> The [[List of oldest universities in continuous operation|oldest university currently in continuous operation in the world]]<ref name="Verger Bologna">{{cite book|title=[[A History of the University in Europe]]|volume=1, Universities in the Middle Ages|page=35|chapter=Patterns|author=Jacques Verger|editor1=Hilde de Ridder-Symoens|editor2=Walter Rüegg|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|date=16 October 2003|isbn=9780521541138|quote=It is no doubt true that other civilizations, prior to, or wholly alien to, the medieval West, such as the Roman Empire, Byzantium, Islam, or China, were familiar with forms of higher education which a number of historians, for the sake of convenience, have sometimes described as universities. Yet a closer look makes it plain that the institutional reality was altogether different and, no matter what has been said on the subject, there is no real link such as would justify us in associating them with medieval universities in the West. Until there is definite proof to the contrary, these latter must be regarded as the sole source of the model which gradually spread through the whole of Europe and then to the whole world.
|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5Z1VBEbF0HAC&pg=PA48}}</ref> appeared in the 11th century in Italy (the [[University of Bologna]]<ref>{{cite book | title=The Challenge of Bologna |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wyjnHZ1IIlgC&q=the+oldest+university+in+the+world+Bologna&pg=PA18| author=Paul L. Gaston | year=2010 | pages=18 | publisher=Stylus | isbn=978-1-57922-366-3}}</ref>) and two more were established in the 12th century in France (the [[University of Paris]]) and England (the [[University of Oxford]]). With [[Christian culture]] as the predominant force in Western civilization, the [[Scholasticism|Scholastic]] movement of the [[High Middle Ages]] sought to connect [[Catholicism]] with Greek thought.<ref>{{cite book |last=Koch |first=Carl |title=The Catholic Church: Journey, Wisdom, and Mission |year=1994 |publisher=St. Mary's Press |chapter=High Middle Ages |isbn=978-0-88489-298-4 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/catholicchurchjo00koch |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/catholicchurchjo00koch }}</ref> The economist [[Joseph Schumpeter]] asserts - referring to the medieval Scholastics - that "it is they who come nearer than does any other group to having been the 'founders' of scientific economics."<ref name="Schumpeter 1954" /> Though lost in the West, many of the classical Greek texts were translated into Arabic and preserved in the [[medieval Islamic world]]. The [[Transmission of the Greek Classics|Greek classics]] along with [[Science in the medieval Islamic world|Arabic science]], [[Early Islamic philosophy|philosophy]] and technology were [[Islamic world contributions to Medieval Europe|transmitted to Western Europe]] and [[Latin translations of the 12th century|translated into Latin]], sparking the [[Renaissance of the 12th century]] and 13th century.<ref name="Haskins">{{Cite book|last=Haskins|first=Charles Homer|title=The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century|location=Cambridge|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=1927|url=https://archive.org/details/renaissanceoftw00char}} {{isbn|978-0-6747-6075-2}}.</ref><ref name="Sarton">[https://archive.org/details/guidetohistoryof00sart George Sarton: ''A Guide to the History of Science''] Waltham Mass. U.S.A. 1952</ref><ref name="Burnett">Burnett, Charles. "The Coherence of the Arabic-Latin Translation Program in Toledo in the Twelfth Century", ''Science in Context'', 14 (2001): 249–288.</ref>
[[File:Carlo Crivelli 007.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Thomas Aquinas]], a [[Catholic philosopher]] of the [[Middle Ages]], revived and developed natural law from [[ancient Greek philosophy]].]]

In the 14th century the [[Renaissance]], starting from Italy and then spreading throughout Europe,<ref>Burke, P., ''The European Renaissance: Centre and Peripheries'' (1998)</ref> was associated with a massive artistic, architectural and philosophical revival. [[Renaissance humanism]] advanced a [[worldview]] centered on nature and the importance of humanity that emerged from the study of [[classical antiquity]] and guided the course of philosophy and art for many years.<ref>{{cite book |last=Koch |first=Carl |title=The Catholic Church: Journey, Wisdom, and Mission |year=1994 |publisher=St. Mary's Press |chapter=Renaissance |isbn=978-0-88489-298-4 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/catholicchurchjo00koch |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/catholicchurchjo00koch }}</ref><ref name="dawson">{{cite book |last=Dawson |first=Christopher |title=Crisis in Western Education |date=1961 |author2=Glenn Olsen |page=25|publisher=CUA Press }} {{isbn|978-0-8132-1683-6}}.</ref> In the following century, this process was further enhanced by an exodus of Greek Christian priests and [[Greek scholars in the Renaissance|scholars]] to Italian cities such as [[Florence]] and [[Venice]] after the end of the Byzantine Empire with the fall of Constantinople.

[[File:Landing of Columbus (2) (cropped).jpg|thumb|left| [[Christopher Columbus]] [[Age of Discovery|arrives at the New World]].]]

From a single print shop in [[Mainz]], Germany around 1440, [[Printing_press#Mass_production_and_spread_of_printed_books|printing had spread]] to no less than around 270 cities in Central, Western and Eastern Europe and had already produced more than 20 million volumes by the end of the 15th century.<ref name="Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean 1976 by Anderson, Benedict 1993, 58f.">Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean (1976). ''The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450–1800''. London: New Left Books. Quoted in: Anderson, Benedict. ''Comunidades Imaginadas. Reflexiones sobre el origen y la difusión del nacionalismo''. Fondo de cultura económica, Mexico, 1993. {{ISBN|978-968-16-3867-2}}. pp. 58f.</ref> At the same time, the number of universities had grown to more than 60.<ref>{{cite book | last= Grant | first = Edward | author-link=Edward Grant | year = 2007 | chapter = Conclusion | title= A History of Natural Philosophy | pages = 324 |quote=With the establishment of the universities of Paris, Oxford and Bologna by 1200, [[Scientific_Revolution#Medieval_Translations|the institutional foundation was laid within which the essential attributes for the development of modern science could take root]]...By 1500, there were approximately sixty-four active universities spread across Europe from Cracow in the East to Lisbon in the West; from Uppsala in the North to Catania in the South...For the first time in history, a large number of scholars with similar training in natural philosophy, and therefore with a reasonable level of contemporary scientific knowledge, were absorbed into the broader reaches of European society.| location = New York | publisher = Cambridge University Press | isbn= 978-052-1-68957-1}}</ref>

Due to division in [[Western Christianity]] caused by the [[Protestant Reformation]] and the Enlightenment, religious influence—especially the temporal power of the Pope—began to wane.<ref>{{cite book |last=Koch |first=Carl |title=The Catholic Church: Journey, Wisdom, and Mission |year=1994 |publisher=St. Mary's Press |chapter=Reformation |isbn=978-0-88489-298-4 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/catholicchurchjo00koch |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/catholicchurchjo00koch }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Koch |first=Carl |title=The Catholic Church: Journey, Wisdom, and Mission |year=1994 |publisher=St. Mary's Press |chapter=Enlightenment |isbn=978-0-88489-298-4 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/catholicchurchjo00koch |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/catholicchurchjo00koch }}</ref> During the Reformation and Enlightenment, the ideas of [[civil rights]], [[social equality|equality]] before the law, [[procedural justice]], and democracy as the ideal form of society began to be institutionalized as principles forming the basis of modern Western culture, particularly in Protestant regions.

=== Expansion of the West: the Era of Colonialism (16th–20th centuries) ===
[[File:Constitution of the United States, page 1.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[United States Constitution]]]]

====Early modern era====

According to medieval historian [[C. Warren Hollister]] by 1500 - two centuries before the Industrial Revolution and a century before the Scientific Revolution - Europe's technology and advanced political and economic organization had already "given it a decisive edge over all other civilizations on earth."<ref>{{cite book|first=C. Warren|last=Hollister|title=Medieval Europe: A Short History|edition=10th|publisher=McGraw-Hill Higher Education|year=2005|isbn=0-07-295515-5|url=http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072346574/ |quote=Europe's technology and political and economic organization had given it a decisive edge over all other civilizations on earth. Columbus had discovered America; the Portuguese had sailed around Africa to India; Europe had developed the cannon, the printing press, the mechanical clock, eyeglasses, distilled liquor, and numerous other ingredients of modern civilization.}}</ref> At the beginning of the 16th century European navigators achieved the [[Magellan expedition|first circumnavigation of Earth in history]],<ref>{{Cite web |year=2010 |title=Ferdinand Magellan |url=https://library.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/pacific/magellan/magellan.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240315154103/https://library.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/pacific/magellan/magellan.html |archive-date=15 March 2024 |access-date=2024-05-09 |website=library.princeton.edu |publisher=[[Princeton University Library]] |quote=}}</ref> including the first crossing of the Pacific by a European expedition, revealing the vast scale of that ocean.<ref>Redondo, J.M.G., & Martín, J.M.M. (2021). [https://www.torrossa.com/gs/resourceProxy?an=5141676&publisher=FZ1670#page=11 Making a Global Image of the World: Science, Cosmography and Navigation in Times of the First Circumnavigation of Earth, 1492–1522]. [[Spanish National Research Council]]''. Culture & History Digital Journal''. 10(2). {{ISSN|2253-797X}}</ref> During the [[Age of Discovery]], every continent was visited and mostly mapped by Europeans, except the south polar continent now known as [[Antarctica]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Woodward |first1=David |title=The History of Cartography, Volume Three: Cartography in the European Renaissance |date=2007 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago and London |isbn=978-0226907338}}</ref>

[[Galileo Galilei]]’s [[Galileo_Galilei#Phases_of_Venus|early 17th-century telescopic observations]] began the transformation of what had been a narrowly technical revision of [[Geocentrism#Ptolemaic_model|classical astronomy]] by [[Nicolaus Copernicus]] into an increasingly aggressive challenge to [[Celestial spheres|traditional cosmology]] and the long-standing synthesis of [[Aristotelian physics]] and Christian theology. The upheaval of the [[Scientific Revolution]] ended the medieval view of [[natural philosophy]] as the servant (or "handmaiden") of theology.<ref>{{cite book | last= Grant | first = Edward | author-link=Edward Grant | year = 2007 | chapter = The Relations between Natural Philosophy and Theology | title= A History of Natural Philosophy | pages = 241 | quote=...Christians developed the concept that philosophy and science are 'handmaids to theology'... [[Augustine]] strongly urged Christians not to seek secular knowledge for its own sake but to take only what is useful for a better understanding of scripture...The handmaiden theory of secular knowledge also tended to emphasize the role of authorities, from the divine Scriptures themselves to the church fathers who had interpreted Scripture. The handmaiden tradition remained strong in Western Europe up to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, during the period when natural philosophy was relatively weak. | location = New York | publisher = Cambridge University Press | isbn= 978-052-1-68957-1}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Applebaum |first=Wilbur |title=The Scientific Revolution and the Foundations of Modern Science | pages = 7, 113-114 | quote=Natural philosophy had long been perceived as a handmaiden to theology, which was called the "queen of the sciences." It was now coming to be thought as independent of theological constraints, with its own methods, functions, and purposes different from those of religion...Traditional conceptions of natural philosophy as a handmaid to religion were transformed in the course of the seventeenth century. Some challenged the new scientific outlooks for...denying the truth of Scripture. The new natural philosophers answered by denying the validity of [[Sola scriptura|literal interpretations]] of certain passages in the Bible, which were written to appeal to the common understanding of ordinary people...Centuries earlier St. Augustine had said the function of the Bible was not to teach us about nature. Galileo, Kepler, and others held that the Book of Nature was not designed to prepare us for salvation. They urged that natural philosophy and theology should be seen as distinct areas with their own methods and criteria, and that their practitioners should not intervene in one another's provinces. |publisher=Greenwood Press |year=2005 |series=Greenwood Guides to Historic Events, 1500–1900 |location=Westport, CT |isbn=978-0-313-32314-0}}</ref> As natural philosophy continued to grow in power, self-confidence and independence during the 17th century, European society around it began to undergo a tectonic shift in intellectual attitude — from ''[[fides quaerens intellectum]]'' to a new mode of understanding that was, increasingly, completely uncoupled from religion.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wootton |first=David |title=The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution |date=2015 |pages=6-11|publisher=HarperCollins Publishers |isbn=978-0-06-175952-9 |location=New York |quote=...let us take for a moment a typical well-educated European in 1600...He believes in witchcraft...He believes [[Circe]] really did turn [[Odysseus]]'s crew into pigs. He believes [[Spontaneous_generation#Aristotle|mice are spontaneously generated in piles of straw]]...He believes that [[Horror_vacui_(philosophy)|nature abhors a vacuum]]. He believes the rainbow is a sign from God and that comets portend evil...He believes, of course, that the earth stands still and the sun and stars turn around the earth once every twenty-four hours...But now let us jump far ahead [to 1733]...He does not know anyone (or at least not anyone educated and reasonably sophisticated) who believes in witches, magic, alchemy or astrology; he thinks the ''Odyssey'' is fiction, not fact....He knows that the rainbow is produced by refracted light and that comets have no significance for our lives on earth. He believes that the future cannot be predicted. He knows that the heart is a pump...He believes that science is going to transform the world and that the moderns have outstripped the ancients in every possible respect. He has trouble believing in miracles, even the ones in the Bible...Between 1600 and 1733...the intellectual world of the educated elite changed more rapidly than at any time in previous history...The only name we have for this great transformation is 'the Scientific Revolution'.}}</ref> The "New Science" that ultimately emerged by the end of the century broke sharply with the natural philosophy that had preceded it,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Küskü |first=Elif Aslan |date=2022 |title=Examination of Scientific Revolution Medicine on the Human Body / Bilimsel Devrim Tıbbını İnsan Bedeni Üzerinden İncelemek |url=https://www.academia.edu/87500649 |journal=The Legends: Journal of European History Studies |access-date=28 September 2022 |archive-date=12 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230112202215/https://www.academia.edu/87500649 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Hendrix |first=Scott E. |title=Natural Philosophy or Science in Premodern Epistemic Regimes? The Case of the Astrology of Albert the Great and Galileo Galilei |journal=Teorie Vědy / Theory of Science |year=2011 |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=111–132 |doi=10.46938/tv.2011.72 |s2cid=258069710 |url=http://teorievedy.flu.cas.cz/index.php/tv/issue/view/10 |access-date=20 February 2012 |archive-date=18 November 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121118024030/http://teorievedy.flu.cas.cz/index.php/tv/issue/view/10 |url-status=live |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name= "Principe2011">{{cite book | last= Principe | first= Lawrence M. | year = 2011 | chapter = Introduction | title = Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction | pages = 1–3 | location = New York| publisher = Oxford University Press | isbn= 978-0-199-56741-6}}</ref> departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions,<ref name= "Lindberg1990">{{cite book | last= Lindberg | first= David C. | year = 1990 | chapter = Conceptions of the Scientific Revolution from Baker to Butterfield: A preliminary sketch | title=Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution | editor-first1 = David C. | editor-last1 = Lindberg | editor-first2 = Robert S. | editor-last2 = Westman | pages = 1–26 | edition = First | location = Chicago | publisher = Cambridge University Press | isbn= 978-0-521-34262-9}}</ref><ref name= "lindberg2007n">{{cite book | last= Lindberg | first= David C. | year = 2007 | chapter = The legacy of ancient and medieval science | title= The Beginnings of Western Science| pages= 357–368| edition = 2nd | location = Chicago | publisher = University of Chicago Press | isbn= 978-0-226-48205-7}}</ref><ref name= "Stanford Encyclopedia">{{Cite book|url= https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/natphil-ren/|title= The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|last= Del Soldato|first= Eva|date= 2016|publisher= Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|editor-last= Zalta|editor-first= Edward N.|edition= Fall 2016|access-date= 1 June 2018|archive-date= 11 December 2019|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20191211205744/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/natphil-ren/|url-status= live}}</ref><ref name= Grant2007c>{{cite book | last= Grant | first = Edward | year = 2007 | chapter = Transformation of medieval natural philosophy from the early period modern period to the end of the nineteenth century | title= A History of Natural Philosophy | url= https://archive.org/details/historynaturalph00gran | url-access= limited | pages = [https://archive.org/details/historynaturalph00gran/page/n289 274]–322 | location = New York | publisher = Cambridge University Press | isbn= 978-052-1-68957-1}}</ref> was more mechanistic in its worldview and more integrated with mathematics,<ref name= "lindberg2007n"/><ref name= "gal2021i">{{cite book | last= Gal | first = Ofer | year = 2021 | chapter = The New Science | title = The Origins of Modern Science | pages = 308–349 | location = New York | publisher = Cambridge University Press | isbn= 978-1316649701}}</ref><ref name= "bowlermorus2020b">{{cite book | last1 = Bowler | first1 = Peter J. | last2 = Morus | first2 = Iwan Rhys | year = 2020 | chapter = The scientific revolution | title = Making Modern Science | pages = 25–57 | edition = 2nd | location = Chicago | publisher = University of Chicago Press | isbn= 978-0226365763}}</ref> and was obsessed with the acquisition and interpretation of new evidence.<ref> Wootton, David. ''The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution'' (Penguin, 2015). p.136. {{ISBN|0-06-175952-X}}</ref>

During the [[Age of Enlightenment]] of the 18th century, cultural and intellectual forces in European society emphasized reason, analysis, and individualism rather than traditional lines of authority. It challenged the authority of institutions that were deeply rooted in society, such as the Catholic Church; there was much talk of ways to reform society with toleration, science and [[skepticism]]. Philosophers of the Enlightenment included [[John Locke]], [[Baruch Spinoza]], [[Voltaire]] (1694–1778), [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]], [[David Hume]], and [[Immanuel Kant]],<ref>Sootin, Harry. "Isaac Newton." New York, Messner (1955)</ref> who influenced society by publishing widely read works. Upon learning about enlightened views, some rulers met with intellectuals and tried to apply their reforms, such as allowing for toleration, or accepting multiple religions, in what became known as [[enlightened absolutism]]. New ideas and beliefs spread around Europe and were fostered by an increase in literacy due to a departure from solely religious texts. Publications include ''[[Encyclopédie]]'' (1751–72) that was edited by [[Denis Diderot]] and [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert]]. The ''[[Dictionnaire philosophique]]'' (Philosophical Dictionary, 1764) and ''[[Letters on the English]]'' (1733) written by [[Voltaire]] spread the ideals of the Enlightenment.

====Industrial Revolution====

[[File:Maquina vapor Watt ETSIIM.jpg|thumb|A [[Watt steam engine]]. The [[steam engine]], made of iron and fueled primarily by coal, propelled the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain and the world.<ref name="industrial">[[Watt steam engine]] File: located in the lobby of into the Superior Technical School of Industrial Engineers of the UPM (Madrid)</ref>]]

During the [[Great Divergence]], a term coined by [[Samuel P. Huntington|Samuel Huntington]]{{sfn|Frank|2001|p=180}} the Western world overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world [[civilization]] of the time, eclipsing [[Qing dynasty|Qing China]], [[Mughal Empire|Mughal India]], [[Tokugawa shogunate|Tokugawa Japan]], and the [[Ottoman Empire]]. European states colonized most of the planet; only thirteen present-day independent countries escaped formal colonization by European powers.<ref>Marcin Solarz, ''The Language of Global Developmen. A Misleading Geography.'' (2014), p. 18</ref> Scholars have proposed a [[Great_Divergence#Possible_factors|wide variety of theories to explain why the Great Divergence happened]], including lack of government intervention, high bridging social capital, geography, colonialism, and customary traditions.

The [[Industrial Revolution]] was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, improved efficiency of [[water wheel|water power]], the increasing use of [[steam power]], and the development of [[machine tool]]s.<ref>{{Harvnb|Landes|1969|p=40}}</ref> These transitions began in Great Britain and spread to Western Europe and North America within a few decades.<ref name="Harvnb|Landes|1969">{{Harvnb|Landes|1969}}</ref>

The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. In particular, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. Some economists say that the major impact of the Industrial Revolution was that the [[standard of living]] for the general population began to increase consistently for the first time in history, although others have said that it did not begin to meaningfully improve until the late 19th and 20th centuries.<ref name="Lectures on Economic Growth">{{cite book |last=Lucas | first=Robert E. Jr. |title=Lectures on Economic Growth |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2002 |location=Cambridge |pages=[https://archive.org/details/lecturesoneconom00luca/page/109 109–10] |url=https://archive.org/details/lecturesoneconom00luca|url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-674-01601-9}}</ref><ref name="Feinstein2014">{{cite journal |last=Feinstein |first=Charles |title=Pessimism Perpetuated: Real Wages and the Standard of Living in Britain during and after the Industrial Revolution |journal=Journal of Economic History |date=September 1998 |volume=58 |issue=3 |pages=625–58 |doi=10.1017/s0022050700021100|s2cid=54816980 }}</ref><ref name="SzreterMooney2014">{{cite journal|first1=Simon|last1=Szreter|first2=Graham|last2=Mooney|title=Urbanization, Mortality, and the Standard of Living Debate: New Estimates of the Expectation of Life at Birth in Nineteenth-Century British Cities |journal=The Economic History Review |date=February 1998 |volume=51 |issue=1 |page=104 |doi=10.1111/1468-0289.00084|hdl=10.1111/1468-0289.00084 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> The precise start and end of the Industrial Revolution is still debated among historians, as is the pace of economic and social changes.<ref name="revolution">Eric Hobsbawm, ''The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd., p. 27 {{ISBN|0-349-10484-0}}</ref><ref name="google1">{{cite book|author=Joseph E Inikori|title=Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-01079-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y7rhKYWhCyIC&pg=PA102}}{{Dead link|date=October 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref name="Rehabilitating the Industrial Revolution">{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/2598327 |title=Rehabilitating the Industrial Revolution |year=1992 |author=Berg, Maxine |journal=The Economic History Review |volume=45 |author2=Hudson, Pat |issue=1 |jstor=2598327 |pages=24–50 |author-link2=Pat Hudson|url=https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/1989-1994/twerp351.pdf }}</ref><ref name="lorenzen">{{cite web|url=http://www.julielorenzen.net/berg.html|title=Rehabilitating the Industrial Revolution|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061109022755/http://www.julielorenzen.net/berg.html|archive-date=9 November 2006|author=Julie Lorenzen|work=Julie Lorenzen Blog |access-date=9 November 2006}}</ref> GDP per capita was broadly stable before the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern [[capitalism|capitalist]] economy,<ref name="The Industrial Revolution">{{cite web |publisher=Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis |url=https://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/04-05/essay.cfm |title=The Industrial Revolution |access-date=14 November 2007 |author=Robert Lucas Jr. | year=2003 |quote=it is fairly clear that up to 1800 or maybe 1750, no society had experienced sustained growth in per capita income. (Eighteenth century population growth also averaged one-third of 1 percent, the same as production growth.) That is, up to about two centuries ago, per capita [[real income|incomes]] in all societies were stagnated at around $400 to $800 per year. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071127032512/http://minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/04-05/essay.cfm |archive-date=27 November 2007 |url-status=dead|author-link=Robert Lucas Jr. }}</ref> while the Industrial Revolution began an era of per-capita economic growth in capitalist economies.<ref name="The Industrial Revolution ''Past and Future''">{{cite web |url=https://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/04-05/essay.cfm |title=The Industrial Revolution ''Past and Future'' |first=Robert |last=Lucas |year=2003 |quote=[consider] annual growth rates of 2.4 percent for the first 60 years of the 20th century, of 1 percent for the entire 19th century, of one-third of 1 percent for the 18th century |access-date=10 July 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071127032512/http://minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/04-05/essay.cfm |archive-date=27 November 2007 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Economic historians are in agreement that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in the history of humanity since the domestication of animals, plants<ref name="ReviewOfCambridge">{{cite web |url=http://deirdremccloskey.org/articles/floud.php |title=Review of The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain (edited by Roderick Floud and Paul Johnson), Times Higher Education Supplement, 15 January 2004 |first=Deidre |last=McCloskey |year=2004 }}</ref> and fire.

The First Industrial Revolution evolved into the [[Second Industrial Revolution]] in the transition years between 1840 and 1870, when technological and economic progress continued with the increasing adoption of steam transport (steam-powered railways, boats, and ships), the large-scale manufacture of machine tools and the increasing use of machinery in steam-powered factories.<ref name="Taylor 1951">{{cite book |last=Taylor |first=George Rogers |title=The Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860 |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |year=1951}} {{isbn|978-0-87332-101-3}}. No name is given to the transition years. The "[[Transportation Revolution]]" began with improved roads in the late 18th century.</ref><ref name="Roe1916">{{citation |last=Roe |first=Joseph Wickham |title=English and American Tool Builders |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1916 |location=New Haven, Connecticut |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X-EJAAAAIAAJ |lccn=16011753}}. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 ({{LCCN|27024075}}); and by Lindsay Publications, Inc., Bradley, Illinois, ({{ISBN|978-0-917914-73-7}}).</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Hunter|1985|pp=}}</ref>

===Post-Industrial era===

Tendencies that have come to define modern Western societies include the concept of [[Pluralism (political philosophy)|political pluralism]], [[individualism]], prominent [[subcultures]] or [[counterculture]]s (such as [[New Age]] movements) and increasing cultural [[syncretism]] resulting from [[globalization]] and immigration. Western culture has been heavily influenced by the Renaissance, the Ages of [[Age of Exploration|Discovery]] and Enlightenment and the [[Industrial Revolution|Industrial]] and [[Scientific Revolution]]s.<ref name="ScienceDaily">{{cite web | title=Western culture | publisher=[[Science Daily]] | url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/western_culture.htm}}</ref><ref name="Khana">{{cite web | title=A brief history of Western culture | publisher=[[Khan Academy]] | url=https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/cultures-religions-ap-arthistory/a/a-brief-history-of-western-culture}}</ref>

In the 20th century, [[Postchristianity|Christianity declined]] in influence in many Western countries, mostly in the European Union where some member states have experienced falling church attendance and membership in recent years,<ref name="About SecE">{{cite news |last=Ford |first=Peter |date=22 February 2005 |title=What place for God in Europe |url=https://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-02-21-god-europe_x.htm |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20230210032840/https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-02-21-god-europe_x.htm |archive-date=10 February 2023 |access-date=24 July 2009 |work=USA Today}}</ref> and also elsewhere. [[Secularism]] (separating religion from politics and science) increased. Christianity remains the dominant religion in the Western world, where 70% are Christians.<ref name="Global Christianity">{{cite web |author=ANALYSIS |url=http://www.pewforum.org/Christian/Global-Christianity-exec.aspx |title=Global Christianity |publisher=Pewforum.org |date=19 December 2011 |access-date=17 August 2012 |archive-date=26 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181226061838/http://www.pewforum.org/christian/global-christianity-exec.aspx |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The West went through a series of great cultural and social changes between 1945 and 1980. The emergent mass media (film, radio, television and recorded music) created a global culture that could ignore national frontiers. Literacy became almost universal, encouraging the growth of books, magazines and newspapers. The influence of cinema and radio remained, while televisions became near essentials in every home.

By the mid-20th century, Western culture was exported worldwide, and the development and growth of international transport and telecommunication (such as [[Transatlantic telegraph cable|transatlantic cable]] and the [[radiotelephone]]) played a decisive role in modern globalization. The West has contributed to [[Catholicism]], [[Protestantism]], democracy, industrialisation, and is the first major civilisation to seek to [[Abolitionism|abolish slavery]] during the 19th century.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the definition of the Western Culture solidified around institutional membership in the [[European Union]] and [[NATO]], which serve as the primary geopolitical and security anchors of Western identity. For example for [[Central Europe|Central European]] nations, the transition following the fall of the [[Iron Curtain]] in 1989 represented a "return to Europe," reclaiming a historical identity rooted in [[Latin Church|Latin Christendom]] and [[Enlightenment philosophy|Enlightenment]] values that had been suppressed during 42 years of [[Cold War]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Judt |first=Tony |title=Postwar: a history of Europe since 1945 |date=2005 |publisher=Penguin Press |isbn=978-1-59420-065-6 |location=New York}}</ref> Historians like [[Samuel P. Huntington|Samuel Huntington]] classify [[Russia]] as the "core state" of a distinct [[Eastern Orthodox|Orthodox]] civilization, separated from the West by a centuries-old cultural "fault line". Some scholars trace Russia's autocratic tradition to the [[Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus'|Mongol conquest]], which isolated [[Grand Principality of Moscow|Muscovy]] from Europe for centuries and ingrained a model of absolute, centralized power and collective submission that never existed in the West. <ref>{{Cite book |last1=Appel |first1=Hilary |title=From triumph to crisis: neoliberal economic reform in postcommunist countries |last2=Orenstein |first2=Mitchell A. |date=2018 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-42229-1 |location=Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY}}</ref>

Contemporary consensus defines Western culture not just by geography, but by a commitment to [[Liberal democracy|liberal democratic governance]], the [[rule of law]], and collective security. Today, participation in these international organizations is widely viewed as the definitive marker of a state's alignment with Western values, emphasizing a shared responsibility for stability and human rights.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Huntington |first=Samuel P. |title=The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order |date=2003 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=978-0-684-84441-1 |edition=1. Simon & Schuster paperback |series=The New York Times Bestseller |location=New York}}</ref> <ref>{{Cite book |last1=Longbottom |first1=David |title=Alternative Market Research Methods: Market Sensing |last2=Lawson |first2=Alison |date=2016 |publisher=Taylor and Francis |isbn=978-1-317-55038-9 |location=Florence}}</ref>

== Arts and humanities ==
:{{see also|Western canon}}
[[File:Bayeux Tapestry scene44 William Odo Robert.jpg|Detail of the [[Bayeux Tapestry]] showing [[William the Conqueror]] (centre), his half-brothers [[Robert, Count of Mortain]] (right) and [[Odo, Earl of Kent|Odo]], Bishop of [[Bayeux]] in the [[Duchy of Normandy]] (left). The Bayeux tapestry is one of the supreme achievements of the Norman [[Romanesque art|Romanesque]].|thumb]]
=== Music ===
In music, Catholic monks developed the first forms of modern Western musical notation to standardize liturgy throughout the worldwide Church,<ref name="Hall100">Hall, p. 100.{{fcn|date=April 2026}}</ref>{{full short|date=April 2026}} and an enormous body of religious music has been composed for it through the ages. This led directly to the emergence and development of European classical music and its many derivatives. The [[Baroque]] style, which encompassed music, art, and architecture, was particularly encouraged by the post-Reformation Catholic Church as such forms offered a means of religious expression that was stirring and emotional, intended to stimulate religious fervor.<ref name="Murray45">Murray, p. 45.</ref>{{fcn|date=April 2026}}

The [[symphony]], concerto, [[sonata]], opera, and [[oratorio]] have their origins in Italy. Many [[musical instrument]]s developed in the West have come to see widespread use all over the world; among them are the guitar, violin, piano, [[pipe organ]], saxophone, trombone, clarinet, [[accordion]], and the [[theremin]]. In turn, it has been claimed that some European instruments have roots in earlier Eastern instruments that were [[Islamic world contributions to Medieval Europe|adopted from the medieval Islamic world]].<ref name=Sachs260>{{citation |last=Sachs |first=Curt |title=The History of Musical Instruments |publisher=Dover Publications |year=1940|page=260}} {{isbn|978-0-486-45265-4}}.</ref> The solo piano, [[symphony orchestra]], and the [[string quartet]] are also significant musical innovations of the West.

<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px">
File:Bernardo Strozzi - Claudio Monteverdi (c.1630).jpg|[[Claudio Monteverdi]], 1567–1643
File:Vivaldi.jpg|[[Antonio Lucio Vivaldi]], 1678–1741
File:Georg Friedrich Händel.jpg|[[George Frideric Handel]], 1685–1759
File:Bach.jpg|[[Johann Sebastian Bach]], 1685–1750
File:Joseph Haydn.jpg|[[Franz Joseph Haydn]], 1732–1809
File:Wolfgang-amadeus-mozart 1.jpg|[[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]], 1756–1791
File:Joseph Karl Stieler's Beethoven mit dem Manuskript der Missa solemnis.jpg|[[Ludwig van Beethoven]], 1770–1827
File:Chopin, by Wodzinska.JPG|[[Frédéric François Chopin]], 1810–1849
File:Liszt-kaulbach.jpg|[[Franz Liszt]], 1811–1886
</gallery>

=== Painting and photography ===
[[Jan van Eyck]], among other renaissance painters, made great advances in [[oil painting]], and [[perspective (graphical)|perspective]] drawings and paintings had their earliest practitioners in [[Florence]].{{sfn|Barzun|2000|p=73}} In art, the [[Celtic knot]] is a very distinctive Western repeated motif. Depictions of the nude human male and female in photography, painting, and sculpture are frequently considered to have special artistic merit. Realistic [[portrait]]ure is especially valued.

<gallery widths="170" heights="170">
File:Cubiculum (bedroom) from the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale MET DP170950.jpg|Restoration of a fresco from an Ancient Roman villa bedroom, circa 50–40 BC, dimensions of the room: 265.4 × 334 × 583.9 cm, in the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] (New York City)
File:Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci, from C2RMF retouched.jpg|''[[Mona Lisa]]'', by [[Leonardo da Vinci]], c. 1503–1506, perhaps continuing until circa 1517, oil on poplar panel, 77 cm × 53 cm, [[Louvre]] (Paris)
File:Las Meninas, by Diego Velázquez, from Prado in Google Earth.jpg|''[[Las Meninas]]'', by [[Diego Velázquez]], 1656, oil on canvas, 318 cm × 276 cm, [[Museo del Prado|El Prado]] (Madrid)
File:Renoir, Pierre-Auguste - Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876.jpg|''[[Bal du moulin de la Galette|Dance at Le moulin de la Galette]]'', by [[Pierre-Auguste Renoir]], 1876, oil on canvas, height: 131 cm, [[Musée d'Orsay]] (Paris)
File:Atget Intérieur d'un ouvrier rue de Romainville (cropped).jpg|Photo of the interior of the apartment of [[Eugène Atget]], taken in 1910 in Paris
File:F. Champenois imprimeur-éditeur.jpg|''Rêverie'', by [[Alphonse Mucha]], poster for the publishing house Champenois (1897)
</gallery>

=== Dance and performing arts ===
[[File:Swanlake001.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Classical music, opera and ballet: ''[[Swan Lake]]'' pictured]]
The ballet is a distinctively Western form of performance dance.{{sfn|Barzun|2000|p=329}} The [[ballroom dance]] is an important Western variety of dance for the elite. The [[polka]], the [[square dance]], the [[flamenco]],{{citation needed|date=February 2026}} (flamenco has been long been framed in [[Orientalism|Orientalist]] frameworks)<ref>{{Cite book|location=Granada|year=2017|title=Flamenco: orientalismo, exotismo y la identidad nacional española|isbn=978-84-338-5944-0|url=https://editorial.ugr.es/media/ugr/files/sample-133724.pdf|publisher=[[University of Granada|Editorial Universidad de Granada]]|page=20-22|first=Trinidad|last=Pardo Ballester}}</ref> and the Irish [[step dance]] are very well known Western forms of [[folk dance]].

[[Greek theater|Greek]] and [[Theatre of ancient Rome|Roman theatre]] are considered the antecedents of modern theatre, and forms such as [[medieval theatre]], [[Passion Play]]s, [[morality play]]s, and [[commedia dell'arte]] are considered highly influential. [[Elizabethan theater|Elizabethan theatre]], with playwrights including [[William Shakespeare]], [[Christopher Marlowe]], and [[Ben Jonson]], is considered one of the most formative and important eras for modern drama.

The soap opera, a popular culture dramatic form, originated in the United States first on radio in the 1930s, then a couple of decades later on television. The music video was also developed in the West in the middle of the 20th century. Musical theatre was developed in the West in the 19th and 20th Centuries, from [[music hall]], [[comic opera]], and [[Vaudeville]]; with significant contributions from the [[Jewish diaspora]], [[African-American culture|African-Americans]], and other marginalized peoples.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Jews on Broadway : an historical survey of performers, playwrights, composers, lyricists and producers |last=Lane |first=Stewart F.|date=2011 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-5917-9 |location=Jefferson, N.C. |oclc=668182929}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Making Americans : Jews and the Broadway musical |first=Andrea |last=Most |date=2004 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-01165-6 |location=Cambridge, Mass. |oclc=52520631 |url=https://archive.org/details/makingamericansj00most }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Our musicals, ourselves : a social history of the American musical theater |last=Jones |first=John Bush|date=2003 |publisher=Brandeis University Press, published by University Press of New England |isbn=978-1-61168-223-6 |location=Hanover |oclc=654535012}}</ref>

=== Literature ===
[[File:Gustave Doré - Dante Alighieri - Inferno - Plate 9 (Canto III - Charon).jpg|thumb|upright|The ''[[Divine Comedy]]'' is an [[epic poem]] by [[Dante Alighieri]]. Engraving by [[Gustave Doré]].]]

Western literature encompasses the literary traditions of Europe, as well as North America, Oceania and Latin America.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/art/Western-literature |title=Western literature |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |date=9 May 2023 }}</ref>

While epic literary works in verse such as the [[Mahabharata]] and Homer's ''[[Iliad]]'' are ancient and occurred worldwide, the prose novel as a distinct form of storytelling, with developed, consistent human characters and, typically, some connected overall plot (although both of these characteristics have sometimes been modified and played with in later times), was popularized by the West{{sfn|Barzun|2000|p=380}} in the 17th and 18th centuries. Of course, extended prose fiction had existed much earlier; both novels of adventure and romance in the [[Hellenistic period|Hellenistic]] world and in [[Heian period|Heian]] Japan. Both [[Petronius]]' ''[[Satyricon]]'' (c. 60 CE) and the ''[[Tale of Genji]]'' by [[Murasaki Shikibu]] (c. 1000 CE) have been cited as the world's first major novel but they had a very limited long-term impact on literary writing beyond their own day until much more recent times.

[[Tragedy]], from its ritually and mythologically inspired Greek origins to modern forms where struggle and downfall are often rooted in psychological or social, rather than mythical, motives, is also widely considered a specifically European creation and can be seen as a forerunner of some aspects of both the novel and of classical opera.

=== Architecture ===
{{More citations needed section|date=June 2022}}
Important Western architectural motifs include the [[Doric order|Doric]], [[Corinthian order|Corinthian]], and [[Ionic order|Ionic]] orders of [[Ancient Greek architecture|Greek architecture]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/art/Western-architecture |title=Western architecture |author=|date=22 March 2022 |website=britannica.com |publisher=Britannica |access-date=30 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220501012247/https://www.britannica.com/art/Western-architecture |archive-date=1 May 2022}}</ref> and the [[Romanesque architecture|Romanesque]], [[Gothic architecture|Gothic]], [[Renaissance architecture|Renaissance]], [[Baroque architecture|Baroque]], and [[Victorian architecture|Victorian]] styles, which are still widely recognized and used in contemporary Western architecture. Much of Western architecture emphasizes repetition of simple motifs, straight lines and expansive, undecorated planes. A modern ubiquitous architectural form that emphasizes this characteristic is the [[skyscraper]], their modern equivalent first developed in New York and Chicago. The predecessor of the skyscraper can be found in the [[Towers of Bologna|medieval towers erected in Bologna]].

<gallery widths="170" heights="170">
File:Parthenon-2008 entzerrt.jpg|The [[Parthenon]] under restoration in 2008, the most iconic [[Classical architecture|Classical]] building, built from 447 BC to 432 BC, located in [[Athens]], [[Greece]].
File:Angoulême 16 Façade cathédrale 2014.JPG|The facade of [[Angoulême Cathedral]] was built between 1110 and 1128 in the [[Romanesque architecture|Romanesque]] style.
File:Sainte Chapelle Interior Stained Glass.jpg|Stained glass windows of the ''[[Sainte-Chapelle]]'' in [[Paris]], [[France]], completed in 1248, mostly constructed between 1194 and 1220 in the [[Gothic architecture|Gothic]] style.
File:Palais Farnese.jpg|The [[Palazzo Farnese]], in [[Rome]], [[Italy]], built from 1534 to 1545, was designed by [[Antonio da Sangallo the Younger|Sangallo]] and [[Michelangelo]] and is an important example of [[Renaissance architecture]].
File:Paris Opera full frontal architecture, May 2009.jpg|The [[Palais Garnier]] in [[Paris]], [[France]], built between 1861 and 1875, a [[Beaux-Arts architecture|Beaux-Arts]] masterpiece.
File:Congreso_Nacional_Buenos_Aires.jpg|[[Palace of the Argentine National Congress]] in [[Buenos Aires]], [[Argentina]], built between 1897 and 1946 in a [[Neoclassical architecture|Neoclassical]] style.
File:Dresden-Hofkirche.04.jpg|[[Dresden Cathedral]] in [[Dresden]], [[Germany]], a [[Baroque architecture|Baroque]]-style building constructed between 1739 and 1755.
File:Mission_San_Xavier_del_Bac_AZ.jpg|[[Mission San Xavier del Bac]] in [[Tucson, Arizona|Tucson]], [[United States]], built between 1783 and 1797, it is an example of [[Spanish colonial architecture]].
</gallery>

== Cuisine ==
:{{see also|Western cuisine|Western food}}
[[File:2009-09-gulasch-pörkölt-paprikas-3.jpg|thumb|A [[goulash]] presentation]]

Western [[foodways]] were, until recently, considered to have their roots in the [[ancient Roman cuisine|cuisines of Classical Rome]] and Greece, but the influence of Arab and [[Near Eastern cuisine]] on the West has become a topic of research in recent decades. The [[Crusaders]], known mostly for fighting over holy land, settled in the Levant and acclimated to the local culture and cuisine. [[Fulcher of Chartres]] said "For we who were occidentals have now become orientals." These cultural experiences, carried back to France by notables like [[Eleanor of Aquitaine]] influenced Western European foodways. Many Oriental ingredients were relatively new to the Western lands. Sugar, almonds, pistachios, rosewater, and dried citrus fruits were all novelties to the Crusaders who encountered them in Saracen lands. Pepper, ginger and cinnamon were the most widely used spices of the European courts and noble households. By the end of the Middle Ages, [[cloves]], [[nutmeg]], [[mastic (plant resin)|mastic]], [[galangal|galingale]], and other imported spices had become part of the Western cuisine.<ref name=Saracens>{{cite book |last=Wilson |first=Anne |title=The Saracen Connection: Arab Cuisine and the Medieval West |date=2002}}</ref>

Saracen influence can be seen in medieval cookbooks. Some recipes retain their Arabic names in Italian translations of the ''[[Liber de Coquina]]''. Known as ''bruet Sarassinois'' in the cuisine of North France, the concept of sweet and sour sauce is attested to in Greek tradition when [[Anthimus (physician)|Anthimus]] finishes his stew with vinegar and honey. Saracens combined sweet ingredients like date-juice and honey with pomegranate, lemons and citrus juices, or other sour ingredients. The technique of browning pieces of meat and simmering in liquid with vegetables is used in many recipes from the [[Muhammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi|Baghdad cookery book]]. The same technique appears in the late-13th century ''[[Viandier]]''. Fried pieces of beef simmered in wine with sugar and cloves was called ''bruet of Sarcynesse'' in English.<ref name=Saracens/>

== Scientific and technological inventions and discoveries ==
[[File:Woman teaching geometry.jpg|thumb|left|Medieval Christians believed that to seek the geometric, physical and mathematical principles that govern the world was to seek and worship God. Detail of a scene in the bowl of the letter 'P' with a woman with a set-square and dividers; using a compass to measure distances on a diagram. In her left hand she holds a square, an implement for testing or drawing right angles. She is watched by a group of students. In the Middle Ages, it is unusual to see women represented as teachers, in particular when the students appear to be monks. She is most likely the personification of Geometry, based on Martianus Capella's famous book De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii [5th c.], a standard source for allegorical imagery of the seven liberal arts. Illustration at the beginning of Euclid's Elementa, in the translation attributed to Adelard of Bath.]]
[[File:Dphil gown.jpg|thumb|upright|A doctor of philosophy of the [[University of Oxford]], in full academic dress. The typical dress for graduation are gowns and hoods or hats adapted from the daily dress of university staff in the Middle Ages, which was in turn based on the attire worn by medieval clergy.<ref>Graduation through the ages http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/graduation/grad-history.shtml {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171025211350/http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/graduation/grad-history.shtml |date=25 October 2017 }}</ref>]]
[[File:Antikythera model front panel Mogi Vicentini 2007.JPG|thumb|upright|The Greek [[Antikythera mechanism]] is generally referred to as the first known [[analogue computer]].]]
[[File:Buzz salutes the U.S. Flag.jpg|thumb|[[Apollo 11]] astronaut [[Buzz Aldrin]], [[Apollo Lunar Module]] pilot of the first crewed mission to land on the Moon, poses for a photograph beside the deployed [[Flag of the United States|United States flag]] during his Extravehicular Activity (EVA) on the lunar surface.]]
Historians of science generally note that from the early modern period onward, scientific research in Europe became increasingly institutionalized, contributing to the development of modern scientific methods and technologies. The [[scientific method]] as "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses" was significantly shaped by the work of the 17th-century Italian scientist [[Galileo Galilei]],<ref>{{Citation |date=2016 |title=Oxford Dictionaries: British and World English |chapter=scientific method |chapter-url=http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/scientific-method |access-date=28 May 2016 |archive-date=20 June 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160620062539/http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/scientific-method |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>[[Morris Kline]] (1985) [https://books.google.com/books?id=f-e0bro-0FUC&pg=PA284 ''Mathematics for the nonmathematician'']. [[Courier Dover Publications]]. p. 284. {{ISBN|0-486-24823-2}}</ref> with roots in the work of medieval scholars such as the 11th-century [[Physics in the medieval Islamic world|Iraqi physicist]] [[Ibn al-Haytham]]<ref name=news.bbc.co.uk>{{cite news|title=The 'first true scientist'|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7810846.stm|work=BBC News|author=Jim Al-Khalili|date=4 January 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Mind, Brain, and Education Science: A Comprehensive Guide to the New Brain-Based Teaching|year=2010|publisher=W.W. Norton & Company|isbn=978-0-393-70607-9|author=Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa|page=39|quote=Alhazen (or Al-Haytham; 965–1039 CE) was perhaps one of the greatest physicists of all times and a product of the Islamic Golden Age or Islamic Renaissance (7th–13th centuries). He made significant contributions to anatomy, astronomy, engineering, mathematics, medicine, ophthalmology, philosophy, physics, psychology, and visual perception and is primarily attributed as the inventor of the scientific method, for which author Bradley Steffens (2006) describes him as the "first scientist".}}</ref> and the 13th-century English friar [[Roger Bacon]].<ref>{{cite journal|first=James S. |last=Ackerman |title=Leonardo's Eye |journal=Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes |volume=41 |year=1978 |page=119|doi=10.2307/750865 |jstor=750865 |s2cid=195048595 }}</ref>

The [[United Kingdom]] is credited with the invention of the [[steam engine]] and adapting its use into factories, and for the generation of [[electric power]].<ref name="Wiser">{{cite book |title=Energy resources: occurrence, production, conversion, use |last=Wiser |first=Wendell H. |year=2000 |publisher=Birkhäuser |isbn=978-0-387-98744-6 |page=190 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UmMx9ixu90kC&dq=steam&pg=PA190}}</ref> The electrical [[Electric motor|motor]], [[Electrical generator|dynamo]], [[transformer]], [[electric light]], and most of the familiar electrical appliances, were developed primarily in the United States and United Kingdom.<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Nature |title=Anianus Jedlik |author=Augustus Heller |date=2 April 1896 |volume=53 |issue=1379 |page=516 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nWojdmTmch0C&q=jedlik+dynamo+1827&pg=PA516 |bibcode=1896Natur..53..516H |doi=10.1038/053516a0|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Gordon">Tom McInally, The Sixth Scottish University. The Scots Colleges Abroad: 1575 to 1799 (Brill, Leiden, 2012) p. 115</ref><ref name="Bedell (1942)">{{cite journal |last1=Bedell |first1=Frederick |title=History of A-C Wave Form, Its Determination and Standardization |journal=Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers |volume=61 |issue=12 |page=864 |doi=10.1109/T-AIEE.1942.5058456|year=1942 |bibcode=1942TAIEE..61..864B |s2cid=51658522 }}</ref><ref name=Freebert>{{cite book |last1=Freebert |first1=Ernest |title=The age of Edison : electric light and the invention of modern America |date=2014 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-14-312444-3}}</ref> The [[Four-stroke cycle|Otto]] and the [[Diesel engine|Diesel]] [[internal combustion engine]]s are products whose genesis and early development were in [[Europe]].<ref>Ralph Stein (1967). The Automobile Book. Paul Hamlyn Ltd</ref><ref>[https://archive.org/details/dieselsrational00diesgoog  Diesel's Rational Heat Motor] by Rudolph Diesel</ref> [[Nuclear power]] stations are derived from the first [[atomic pile]] constructed in Chicago in 1942.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fermi |first1=Enrico |title=The First Reactor |date=December 1982 |publisher=United States Atomic Energy Commission, Division of Technical Information |location=Oak Ridge, Tennessee |pages=22–26}}</ref>

Several communication devices and systems such as the [[Telegraphy|telegraph]] and telephone were developed or commercialized in Europe and North America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.<ref>{{cite book |last=Coe |first=Lewis |title=The Telephone and Its Several Inventors: A History |year=1995 |publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc. |location=Jefferson, NC |isbn=978-0-7864-2609-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/telephoneitsseve0000coel_y7q3/page/5 5] |url=https://archive.org/details/telephoneitsseve0000coel_y7q3/page/5 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=320&invol=1 |title=U.S. Supreme Court |access-date=23 April 2012}}</ref><ref name="John F. Mitchell Biography">{{cite web|url=http://www.brophy.net/PivotX/?p=john-francis-mitchell-biography|website=brophy.net|title=Contents|access-date=15 November 2022|archive-date=23 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170223150703/http://www.brophy.net/PivotX/?p=john-francis-mitchell-biography|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Who invented the cell phone">{{cite web|url=http://www.brophy.net/PivotX/?p=john-francis-mitchell-biography#CELLPHONEINVENTOR|website=brophy.net|title=Who invented the cell phone?|access-date=15 November 2022|archive-date=23 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170223150703/http://www.brophy.net/PivotX/?p=john-francis-mitchell-biography#CELLPHONEINVENTOR|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>[http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_ipto.htm "IPTO – Information Processing Techniques Office"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140702210822/http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_ipto.htm |date=2 July 2014 }}, ''The Living Internet'', Bill Stewart (ed), January 2000.</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The global positioning system: a shared national asset: recommendations for technical improvements and enhancements |last1=National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on the Future of the Global Positioning System |last2=National Academy of Public Administration |publisher=National Academies Press |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-309-05283-2 |page=16 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Za8RBP5iTYoC&q=The+global+positioning+system:+a+shared+national+asset:+recommendations+for+technical+improvements+and+enhancements |access-date=16 August 2013}}, {{google books|plainurl=y|id=FAHk65slfY4C|page=16|title= Chapter 1, p. 16}}</ref><ref name="archive">{{cite web|url=http://www.lsi.usp.br/~rbianchi/clarke/ACC.ETRelaysFull.html|title=Arthur C. Clarke Extra Terrestrial Relays |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071225093216/http://www.lsi.usp.br/~rbianchi/clarke/ACC.ETRelaysFull.html |access-date=15 November 2022|archive-date=25 December 2007 }}</ref><ref name="sfmuseum">[http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist10/philo.html "Philo Taylor Farnsworth (1906–1971)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110622033654/http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist10/philo.html |date=22 June 2011 }}, ''The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco'', retrieved 15 July 2009.</ref>

Ubiquitous materials were primarily discovered and developed in Europe and the United States. Iron and steel ships first appeared in the [[United Kingdom]], and bridges and skyscrapers first appeared in the United States. [[Nitrogen fixation]] and [[petrochemicals]] were invented in [[Germany]].

The [[transistor]], [[integrated circuit]], memory chip, first [[programming language]], computer, and the first airplane was created in the United States.

In mathematics, many modern formal frameworks—such as [[calculus]], statistics, [[mathematical logic|logic]], [[Vector (geometric)|vectors]], [[tensor]]s, [[complex analysis]], [[group theory]], [[abstract algebra]], and [[topology]]—were developed and systematized primarily in Europe during the early modern and modern periods, building on earlier contributions from ancient Greek, Indian, Islamic, and other mathematical traditions.<ref>*Elwes, Richard, "[http://plus.maths.org/issue41/features/elwes/index.html An enormous theorem: the classification of finite simple groups]", ''Plus Magazine'', Issue 41, December 2006 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090202092008/http://plus.maths.org/issue41/features/elwes/index.html
|date=2 February 2009 }}.</ref><ref>[[Richard Swineshead]] (1498), ''Calculationes Suiseth Anglici'', Papie: Per Franciscum Gyrardengum.</ref><ref name="Dodge">Dodge, Y. (2006) ''The Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms'', OUP. {{ISBN|0-19-920613-9}}</ref><ref>Archimedes, ''Method'', in ''The Works of Archimedes'' {{ISBN|978-0-521-66160-7}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Oxford English Dictionary |year=2001 |publisher=Clarendon Press |location=London |isbn=978-0-19-521942-5 |edition=2nd}}</ref><ref name="Kline">{{cite book |title=Mathematical thought from ancient to modern times, Vol. 3 |first=Morris |last=Kline |pages=[https://archive.org/details/mathematicalthou00morr/page/1122 1122–1127] |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1972 |isbn=978-0-19-506137-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/mathematicalthou00morr/page/1122}}
</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Principles of Topology |url=https://archive.org/details/principlesoftopo0000croo
|url-access=registration |first=Fred H |last=Croom |publisher=Saunders College Publishing |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-03-029804-2}}</ref> In biology, several foundational theories of modern biology—including [[evolution]], [[genetics]], [[chromosomes]], the structure of [[DNA]], and the methods of [[molecular biology]]—were developed primarily in Europe and North America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, drawing on earlier global traditions in natural history and medicine. In physics, major modern theories such as [[mechanics]], [[thermodynamics]], [[statistical mechanics]], [[theory of relativity|relativity]], and [[quantum mechanics]] were formulated chiefly within European scientific institutions, while incorporating insights from earlier scientific traditions worldwide. Key discoveries made by European scientists in [[electromagnetism]] include [[Coulomb's law]] (1785), the first [[Battery (electricity)|battery]] (1800), the unity of [[Electromagnetism|electricity and magnetism]] (1820), [[Biot–Savart law]] (1820), [[Ohm's law]] (1827), and [[Maxwell's equations]] (1871).

The most widely adopted system of measurement, the [[International System of Units]], derived from the [[metric system]], was first developed in France and evolved through contributions from various Western countries.<ref>{{cite web |title=Metrication in other countries |url=https://usma.org/metrication-in-other-countries |website=USMA |publisher=US Metric Association |access-date=24 June 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The International System of Units |date=2019 |publisher=BIPM |isbn=978-92-822-2272-0 |edition=9 |url=https://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si-brochure/SI-Brochure-9.pdf |access-date=24 June 2020}}</ref>

In business, economics, and finance, [[double-entry bookkeeping]] was first used in [[Italy]]. Credit cards and the [[charge card]] were first used in the United States.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lauwers |first1=Luc |last2=Willekens |first2=Marleen |title=Five Hundred Years of Bookkeeping: A Portrait of Luca Pacioli |journal=Tijdschrift voor Economie en Management |year=1994 |volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=289–304 [p. 300] |url=https://lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/119065/1/TEM1994-3_289-304p.pdf |issn=0772-7674 |access-date=27 April 2017 |archive-date=20 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110820033441/https://lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/119065/1/TEM1994-3_289-304p.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Western countries played a major role in explorations of the globe and [[outer space]]. The first expedition to [[Magellan's circumnavigation|circumnavigate the Earth]] (1522) was led by [[Ferdinand Magellan]], as well as the first journey to the South Pole (1911) by [[Roald Amundsen]], and the first Moon landing (1969) by [[NASA]].<ref>{{cite book |title=The Seafarers – The Explorers |first=Richard |last=Humble |publisher=Time-Life Books |location=Alexandria, Virginia |year=1978}}</ref><ref name="Orloff">{{cite book |last=Orloff |first=Richard W. |title=Apollo by the Numbers: A Statistical Reference |url=https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/SP-4029.htm |access-date=12 June 2013 |series=NASA History Series |orig-year=First published 2000 |date=September 2004 |publisher=[[NASA]] History Division, Office of Policy and Plans |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=978-0-16-050631-4 |lccn=00061677 |id=NASA SP-2000-4029 |chapter=Table of Contents |chapter-url=https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_00g_Table_of_Contents.htm}}</ref> The [[Mars Exploration Rovers|landing of robots on Mars]] (2004 and 2012) and on an [[NEAR Shoemaker|asteroid]] (2001), the ''[[Voyager 2]]'' explorations of the outer planets ([[Uranus]] in 1986 and [[Neptune]] in 1989), ''[[Voyager 1]]''{{'}}s passage into interstellar space (2013), and ''[[New Horizons]]''{{'}} flyby of [[Pluto]] (2015) were significant recent achievements of the [[United States]].<ref name="NASA-Spirit">{{cite web |last=Nelson |first=Jon |title=Mars Exploration Rover – Spirit |url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/details.php?id=5917 |work=[[NASA]] |access-date=2 February 2014 |archive-date=28 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180128115920/https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/details.php?id=5917 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="NASA-Opportunity">{{cite web |last=Nelson |first=Jon |title=Mars Exploration Rover -Opportunity |url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mars-exploration-rover-opportunity-mer/ |work=[[NASA]] | access-date=2 February 2014}}</ref><ref name=phone>{{Cite news |title=The End of an Asteroidal Adventure: NEAR Shoemaker Phones Home for the Last Time |last=Worth |first=Helen |date=28 February 2001 |publisher=[[Applied Physics Lab]] | url=http://near.jhuapl.edu/news/flash/01feb28.html}}</ref><ref name="NASA-20150714-kn">{{cite web |last1=Brown |first1=Dwayne |last2=Cantillo |first2=Laurie |last3=Buckley |first3=Mike |last4=Stotoff |first4=Maria |title=15-149 NASA's Three-Billion-Mile Journey to Pluto Reaches Historic Encounter |url=http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasas-three-billion-mile-journey-to-pluto-reaches-historic-encounter |date=14 July 2015 |work=[[NASA]] | access-date=14 July 2015}}</ref><ref name=ESBS>{{cite book |last1=Butrica |first1=Andrew |title=From Engineering Science to Big Science |page=267 |url=https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4219/Chapter11.html |access-date=4 September 2015}}</ref>

== Media ==
{{Main|Western media}}

The roots of modern-day Western mass media can be traced back to the late 15th century, when [[printing press]]es began to operate throughout wealthy European cities. The emergence of news media in the 17th century has to be seen in close connection with the [[spread of the printing press]], from which the publishing [[Publishing|press]] derives its name.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Weber |first=Johannes |title=Strassburg, 1605: The Origins of the Newspaper in Europe |journal=German History |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=387–412 (387) |year=2006 |doi=10.1191/0266355406gh380oa}}: {{blockquote|At the same time, then as the printing press in the physical technological sense was invented, 'the press' in the extended sense of the word also entered the historical stage. The phenomenon of publishing was now born.}}</ref>

In the 16th century, a decrease in the preeminence of [[Neo-Latin|Latin]] in its literary use, along with the impact of economic change, the discoveries arising from trade and travel, navigation to the [[New World]], science and arts and the development of increasingly rapid communications through print led to a rising corpus of vernacular media content in European society.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eMaNAgAAQBAJ&q=western+media |title=Western Media Systems |last=Hardy |first=Jonathan |date=25 February 2010 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-25370-7 |pages=25 |language=en}}</ref>

After the launch of the satellite [[Sputnik 1]] by the Soviet Union in 1957, satellite transmission technology was dramatically realised, with the United States launching [[Telstar]] in 1962 linking live media broadcasts from the UK to the US. The first digital broadcast satellite (DBS) system began transmitting in US in 1975.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eMaNAgAAQBAJ&q=western+media |title=Western Media Systems |last=Hardy |first=Jonathan |date=25 February 2010 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-25370-7 |page=59 |language=en}}</ref>

Beginning in the 1990s, the Internet has contributed to a tremendous increase in the accessibility of Western media content. Departing from media offered in bundled content packages (magazines, CDs, [[News broadcasting|television and radio slots]]), the Internet has primarily offered unbundled content items ([[Digital journalism|articles]], audio and video files).<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JzilLEyul5YC&q=media+internet |title=The Internet and the Mass Media |last1=Küng |first1=Lucy |last2=Picard |first2=Robert G. |last3=Towse |first3=Ruth |date=14 May 2008 |publisher=SAGE |isbn=978-1-4462-4566-8 |page=65 |language=en}}</ref>

== Religion ==
{{main|Western religions}}

[[File:Saint Peter's Basilica facade, Rome, Italy.jpg|thumb|[[St. Peter's Basilica]] in the [[Vatican City|Vatican]], the epicenter of the [[Catholic Church]]]]
[[File:Semana Santa. Almeria 2023. 09.jpg|thumb|[[Holy Week in Spain|Holy Week]] in [[Almería]], [[Spain]]]]

The native religions of Europe were [[polytheism|polytheistic]] but not homogenous – however, they were similar insofar as they were predominantly [[Indo-European religion|Indo-European]] in origin. [[Religion in ancient Rome|Roman religion]] was similar to but not the same as [[Religion in ancient Greece|Hellenic religion]] – likewise for [[Germanic paganism|indigenous Germanic polytheism]], [[Celtic polytheism]] and [[Slavic paganism|Slavic polytheism]]. Before this time many Europeans from the north, especially Scandinavians, remained polytheistic, though southern Europe was predominantly Christian from the 5th century onwards.

Western culture at a fundamental level is influenced by the [[Judeo-Christian]] and [[Greco-Roman]] traditions.<ref name="PerryChase2012">{{cite book |last1=Perry |first1=Marvin |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_2901111831690/page/n27/mode/2up |title=Western Civilization: Since 1400 |last2=Chase |first2=Myrna |last3=Jacob |first3=James |last4=Jacob |first4=Margaret |last5=Von Laue |first5=Theodore H. |date=1 January 2012 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=978-1-111-83169-1 |page=XXIX}}</ref> These cultures had a number of similarities, such as a common emphasis on the individual, but they also embody fundamentally conflicting worldviews. For example, in Judaism and Christianity, God is the ultimate authority, while Greco-Roman tradition considers the ultimate authority to be [[reason]]. Christian attempts to reconcile these frameworks were responsible for the preservation of [[Greek philosophy]].<ref name="PerryChase2012"/> Historically, Europe has been the center and cradle of [[Christian civilization]].<ref>{{cite book|title= Fundamentalism in American Religion and Law: Obama's Challenge to Patriarchy's Threat to Democracy|first=David|last= A. J. Richards|year= 2010| isbn= 9781139484138| page =177 |publisher=University of Philadelphia Press|quote=..for the Jews in twentieth-century Europe, the cradle of Christian civilization.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Ukraine and Russia: From Civilied Divorce to Uncivil War|first=Paul |last=D'Anieri|year= 2019| isbn=9781108486095| page =94|publisher=Cambridge University Press|quote=..for the Jews in twentieth-century Europe, the cradle of Christian civilization.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Rise of Benedict XVI: The Inside story of How the Pope Was Elected and What it Means for the World|first=John |last=L. Allen|year= 2005| isbn=9780141954714|publisher=Penguin UK|quote=Europe is historically the cradle of Christian culture, it is still the primary center of institutional and pastoral energy in the Catholic Church...}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Europe: A Cultural History|first=Peter |last=Rietbergen|year= 2014| isbn= 9781317606307| page =170|publisher=Routledge|quote=Europe is historically the cradle of Christian culture, it is still the primary center of institutional and pastoral energy in the Catholic Church...}}</ref>

According to a survey by [[Pew Research Center]] from 2011, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the Western world where 70–84% are Christians,<ref name="Global Christianity" /> According to this survey, 76% of Europeans described themselves as Christians,<ref name="Global Christianity" /><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.pewforum.org/Christian/Global-Christianity-europe.aspx |title=Europe |publisher=Pewforum.org |date=19 December 2011 |access-date=31 January 2014 |archive-date=4 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120104153842/http://www.pewforum.org/Christian/Global-Christianity-europe.aspx |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="landscape-christians">{{cite web |url=http://www.pewforum.org/global-religious-landscape-christians.aspx |title=The Global Religious Landscape - Christians |publisher=Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life |date=18 December 2012 |access-date=31 January 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121221010337/http://www.pewforum.org/global-religious-landscape-christians.aspx |archive-date= 21 December 2012 }}</ref> and about 86% of the [[Americas]]' population identified themselves as Christians,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.pewforum.org/Christian/Global-Christianity-americas.aspx |title=Global Christianity - A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World' s Christian Population - Americas |publisher=Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life |date=19 December 2011 |access-date=17 August 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120910023547/http://www.pewforum.org/Christian/Global-Christianity-americas.aspx |archive-date= 10 September 2012 }}</ref> (90% in Latin America and 77% in North America).<ref name="landscape-christians"/> 73% in Oceania self-identify as Christian, and 76% in South Africa are Christian.<ref name="Global Christianity" />

[[Eurobarometer]] polls about religiosity in the European Union in 2012 found that Christianity was the largest religion in the [[European Union]], accounting for 72% of the population.<ref name="EU2012">{{citation |title=Discrimination in the EU in 2012 |work=[[Eurobarometer|Special Eurobarometer]] |page=233 |year=2012 |url=http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_393_en.pdf |access-date=14 August 2013 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20200302195539/https://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_393_en.pdf |archive-date=2 March 2020 |series=393 |location=[[European Union]] |publisher=[[European Commission]]}} The question asked was "Do you consider yourself to be...?" With a card showing: Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Other Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, Atheist, and Non-believer/Agnostic. Space was given for Other (SPONTANEOUS) and DK. Jewish, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu did not reach the 1% threshold.</ref> [[Catholics]] are the largest [[Christians|Christian]] group, accounting for 48%, while [[Protestant]]s make up 12%, [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox]] make up 8% and other Christians make up 4% of the population respectively.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Discrimination in the EU in 2012 |journal=[[Eurobarometer|Special Eurobarometer]] | year=2012 |series=383 |page=233 |url=http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_393_en.pdf |access-date=14 August 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121202023700/http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_393_en.pdf |archive-date=2 December 2012}}</ref> In addition, [[Agnostic|Non-believers/Agnostics]] account for 16%,<ref name="EU2012" /> [[atheist]]s account for 7%,<ref name="EU2012" /> and [[Muslim]]s account for 2% of the population respectively.<ref name="EU2012" /> According to Scholars, in 2017, Europe's population was 77.8% Christian (up from 74.9% 1970),<ref name="ReligiousDemography2017">{{cite book|title=Yearbook of International Religious Demography 2017| first1=Gina|last1=Zurlo| first2=Vegard |last2=Skirbekk| first3=Brian |last3=Grim|year=2019| isbn=9789004346307| page=85|publisher=BRILL}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=African Perspectives on Culture and World Christianity| first1=Joseph|last1=Ogbonnaya|year=2017| isbn=9781443891592| pages=2–4|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing}}</ref> these changes were largely largely ascribed to the [[collapse of Communism]] and [[convert to Christianity|switching to Christianity]] in the former Soviet Union and [[Eastern Bloc]] countries.<ref name="ReligiousDemography2017"/>

At the same time, there has been an increase in the share of agnostic or [[atheist]] residents in Europe that accounted for 18% of the European population in 2012.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.pewforum.org/global-religious-landscape-unaffiliated.aspx |title=Religiously Unaffiliated |publisher=Pewforum.org |date=18 December 2012 |access-date=31 January 2014 |archive-date=30 July 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130730043126/http://www.pewforum.org/global-religious-landscape-unaffiliated.aspx |url-status=dead }}</ref> In particular, over half of the population of the [[Czech Republic]] ([[Religion in the Czech Republic|79%]]) was agnostic, atheist or irreligious, compared to the [[United Kingdom]] ([[Religion in the United Kingdom|52%]]), [[Germany]] ([[Religion in Germany|25–33%]]),<ref name="2001-2009">{{cite web |url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2007/90177.htm |title=Germany |publisher=State.gov |access-date=31 January 2014|date=14 September 2007 }}</ref> [[France]] (30–35%)<ref name="IpsosMORI2011">''[http://www.fgi-tbff.org/sites/default/files/elfinder/FGIImages/Research/fromresearchtopolicy/ipsos_mori_briefing_pack.pdf Views on globalisation and faith] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117013643/http://www.fgi-tbff.org/sites/default/files/elfinder/FGIImages/Research/fromresearchtopolicy/ipsos_mori_briefing_pack.pdf |date=17 January 2013 }}''. [[Ipsos MORI]], 5 July 2011.</ref><ref name="CSA2001">{{in lang|fr}} [http://actualitechretienne.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/sondagecsalacroixcatholicismeetprotestantismefrance.pdf Catholicisme et protestantisme en France: Analyses sociologiques et données de l'Institut CSA pour La Croix] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110811032739/http://actualitechretienne.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/sondagecsalacroixcatholicismeetprotestantismefrance.pdf |date=11 August 2011 }} – Groupe CSA TMO for ''[[La Croix (newspaper)|La Croix]]'', 2001</ref><ref name=stategov>{{cite web |url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2007 |title=International Religious Freedom Report 2007 |access-date=8 February 2011|date=14 September 2007 }}</ref> and the [[Netherlands]] (39–44%).

As in other areas, the [[Jewish diaspora]] and Judaism exist in the Western world.

There are also small but increasing numbers of people across the Western world who seek to revive the indigenous religions of their European ancestors; such [[Reconstructionist Paganism|groups]] include [[Germanic Polytheistic Reconstructionism|Germanic]], [[Roman polytheistic reconstructionism|Roman]], [[Hellenic Polytheistic Reconstructionism|Hellenic]], [[Celtic reconstructionism|Celtic]], [[Slavic Neopaganism|Slavic]], and polytheistic reconstructionist movements. Likewise, [[Wicca]], New Age spirituality and other [[Neopagan|neo-pagan]] belief systems enjoy notable minority support in Western states.

== Sport ==
{{Main|Western sports}}

[[File:Bull-leaping.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Bull-Leaping Fresco]] from the Great Palace at [[Knossos]], [[Crete]]. Sport has been an important part of Western culture since [[Classical Antiquity]].]]
[[File:Baron Pierre de Coubertin.jpg|thumb|upright|right|Baron [[Pierre de Coubertin]], founder of the [[International Olympic Committee]], and considered father of the modern [[Olympic Games]]]]

Since [[classical antiquity]], sport has been an important facet of Western cultural expression.<ref>William Joseph Baker, ''Sports in the western world'' (University of Illinois Press, 1988).</ref><ref>David G. McComb, ''Sports in world history'' (Routledge, 2004).</ref>

A wide range of sports was already established by the time of [[Ancient Greece]] and the military culture and the development of sports in Greece influenced one another considerably. Sports became such a prominent part of their culture that the Greeks created the [[Olympic Games]], which in ancient times were held every four years in a small village in the [[Peloponnese|Peloponnesus]] called [[Olympia, Greece|Olympia]]. Baron [[Pierre de Coubertin]], a Frenchman, instigated the modern revival of the Olympic movement. The first modern Olympic games were held at [[1896 Summer Olympics|Athens in 1896]].

The Romans built immense structures such as the [[Roman amphitheatre|amphitheatres]] to house their festivals of sport. The Romans exhibited a passion for [[blood sports]], such as the infamous [[Gladiator]]ial battles that pitted contestants against one another in a fight to the death. The Olympic Games revived many of the sports of [[classical antiquity]]—such as [[Greco-Roman wrestling]], [[discus]] and [[javelin]].
The sport of [[bullfighting]] is a traditional spectacle of Spain, Portugal, southern France, and some Latin American countries. It traces its roots to prehistoric [[bull worship]] and [[animal sacrifice|sacrifice]] and is often linked to Rome, where many human-versus-animal events were held. Bullfighting spread from Spain to its American colonies, and in the 19th century to France, where it developed into a distinctive form in its own right.<ref>Barbara Schrodt, "Sports of the Byzantine empire." ''Journal of Sport History'' 8.3 (1981): 40–59.</ref>

[[Jousting]] and hunting were popular sports in the European Middle Ages, and the aristocratic classes developed passions for leisure activities. A great number of popular global sports were first developed or codified in Europe. The modern game of [[golf]] originated in Scotland, where the first written record of golf is [[James II of Scotland|James II]]'s banning of the game in 1457, as an unwelcome distraction to learning [[archery]].<ref>Sall E. D. Wilkins, ''Sports and games of medieval cultures'' (Greenwood, 2002).</ref>

The [[Industrial Revolution]] that began in Great Britain in the 18th century brought increased leisure time, leading to more opportunities for citizens to participate in athletic activities and also follow spectator sports. These trends continued with the advent of mass media and global communication. The bat and ball sport of [[cricket]] was first played in England during the 16th century and was exported around the globe via the [[British Empire]]. A number of popular modern sports were devised or codified in the United Kingdom during the 19th century and obtained global prominence; these include [[ping pong]], modern [[tennis]], association football, [[netball]] and [[Rugby football|rugby]].<ref>Tranter, N. L. "Popular sports and the industrial revolution in Scotland: the evidence of the statistical accounts." ''International Journal of the History of Sport'' 4.1 (1987): 21–38.</ref>

[[association football|Football]] (or soccer) remains hugely popular in Europe, but has grown from its origins to be known as the ''world game''. Similarly, sports such as cricket, rugby, and netball were exported around the world, particularly among countries in the [[Commonwealth of Nations]], thus India and Australia are among the strongest cricketing states, while victory in the [[Rugby World Cup]] has been shared among New Zealand, Australia, England, and South Africa.

[[Australian Rules Football]], an Australian variation of football with similarities to [[Gaelic football]] and [[Rugby football|rugby]], evolved in the British [[colony of Victoria]] in the mid-19th century. The United States also developed unique variations of English sports. English migrants took antecedents of [[baseball]] to America during the colonial period. The history of [[American football]] can be traced to early versions of rugby football and association football. Many games are known as "football" were being played at colleges and universities in the United States in the first half of the 19th century. American football resulted from several major divergences from rugby, most notably the rule changes instituted by [[Walter Camp]], the "Father of American football". [[Basketball]] was invented in 1891 by [[James Naismith]], a Canadian physical education instructor working in [[Springfield, Massachusetts]], in the United States. [[Volleyball]] was created in [[Holyoke, Massachusetts]], a city directly north of Springfield, in 1895.

== Themes and traditions ==
[[File:Anonymous Madonna with big breasts.jpg|thumb|upright|A [[Madonna and Child]] painting by an anonymous Italian from the first half of the 19th century, oil on canvas]]
{{Original research|section|date=October 2025}}
Western culture has developed many themes and traditions, the most significant of which are:{{citation needed|date=June 2017}}
* Greco-Roman classic letters, arts, architecture, philosophical and cultural tradition, which include the influence of preeminent authors and philosophers such as [[Socrates]], [[Plato]], [[Aristotle]], [[Homer]], [[Virgil]], and [[Marcus Tullius Cicero|Cicero]], as well as a long [[Greek mythology|mythologic tradition]].
* Christian ethical, philosophical, and [[Jewish mythology|mythological]] tradition, stemming largely from the [[Bible|Christian Bible]], particularly the [[New Testament]] Gospels.<ref>{{cite book|title= Religion and Spirituality in Psychiatry|first=Harold |last= G. Koenig|year= 2009| isbn=9780521889520| page =31 |publisher=Cambridge University Press|quote= The Bible is the most globally influential and widely read book ever written. ... it has been a major influence on the behavior, laws, customs, education, art, literature, and morality of Western civilization.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=God, Justice, and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible|first=Jonathan |last=Burnside|year= 2011| isbn=9780199759217| page = XXVI|publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title= Readings in Western Religious Thought: The ancient world|first=Patrick|last= V. Reid|year= 1987| isbn=9780809128501| page =43|publisher=Paulist Press}}</ref>
* Monasteries, schools, libraries, books, book making, universities, teaching, education, and lecture halls.
* A tradition of the importance of [[the rule of law]].
* [[Secular humanism]], [[rationalism]] and Enlightenment thought. This set the basis for a new critical attitude and open questioning of religion, favouring [[freethinking]] and questioning of the church as an authority, which resulted in open-minded and reformist ideals inside, such as [[liberation theology]], which partly adopted these currents, and secular and political tendencies such as [[separation of church and state]] (sometimes termed ''laicism''), agnosticism and [[atheism]].
* Generalized usage of some form of the [[Latin alphabet]], used by the majority of Europe, [[Greek alphabet]], used in Greece. Other variants of the Latin or Greek alphabets are found in the [[Gothic alphabet|Gothic]] and [[Coptic alphabet]]s, which historically superseded older scripts, such as [[Runic|runes]], and the Egyptian [[Demotic Egyptian script|Demotic]] and [[Hieroglyphic]] systems.
* [[Natural law]], human rights, [[constitutionalism]], [[parliamentarism]] (or [[presidentialism]]) and formal [[liberal democracy]] in recent times—prior to the 19th century, most Western governments were still monarchies.
* A large influence, in [[modern history|modern times]], of many of the ideals and values developed and inherited from [[Romanticism]].
* An emphasis on, and use of, science as a means of understanding the natural world and humanity's place in it.
* More pronounced use and application of innovation and scientific developments, as well as a more rational approach to scientific progress (what has been known as the [[scientific method]]).

== See also ==
{{Portal|Society|Europe}}
{{columns-list|colwidth=18em|
* [[Atlanticism]]
* [[Christendom]]
* [[Classical tradition]]
* [[Culture during the Cold War]]
* [[Eastern world]]
* [[Eastern world#Culture|Eastern culture]]
* [[European diaspora]]
* [[Greco-Roman world]]
* [[Western education]]
* [[Western religion]]
* [[Westernization]]
* [[Western values (West)|Western values]]
}}

== Notes ==
{{Notelist}}

== References ==
=== Citations ===
{{Reflist |colwidth = 30em }}

=== Sources ===
* {{cite book |last1=Barzun |first1=Jacques |title=From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present: 1500 to the present |date=2000 |publisher=HarperCollins |location=New York |isbn=0-06-017586-9 |edition=1st |title-link=From Dawn to Decadence}}
* Daly, Jonathan (2014). "[http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-rise-of-western-power-9781441161314/ ''The Rise of Western Power: A Comparative History of Western Civilization'']. London; New York: Bloomsbury. {{ISBN|978-1441161314}}. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170630100152/http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-rise-of-western-power-9781441161314/ |date=30 June 2017 }}
* Daly, Jonathan (2015). [http://www.tandfindia.com/books/details/9781138774810/ ''Historians Debate the Rise of the West'']. London; New York: Routledge. {{ISBN|978-1138774810}}.
* Derry, T. K. and Williams, Trevor I. (1960). ''A Short History of Technology: From the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900''. Dover. {{ISBN|0-486-27472-1}}.
* Duran, Eduardo; Dyran, Bonnie (1995). [https://books.google.com/books?id=qgVoY7mypa4C ''Native American Postcolonial Psychology'']. Albany, New York, US: State University of New York Press. {{ISBN|0-7914-2353-0}}.
* {{Citation |last=Frank |first=Andre |author-link=Andre Gunder Frank |title=Review of ''The Great Divergence'' |journal=Journal of Asian Studies |volume=60 |issue=1 |year=2001 |pages=180–182 |doi=10.2307/2659525 |url=http://www.rrojasdatabank.info/agfrank/pomeranz.html |jstor=2659525 |url-access=subscription }}
* [[Niall Ferguson|Ferguson, Niall]] (2011). ''Civilization. The West and the Rest''. Penguin Press. {{ISBN|978-1-101-54802-8}}.
* {{cite book |last1=Grant |first1=Edward |title=God and Reason in the Middle Ages |date=2001 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge; New York |isbn=0521003377}}
* [[Victor Davis Hanson|Hanson, Victor Davis]]; Heath, John (2001). ''Who Killed Homer: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom''. Encounter Books.
* Headley, John M. (2007). ''The Europeanization of the World: On the Origins of Human Rights and Democracy''. [[Princeton University Press]]. {{ISBN|9780691171487}}.
* [[Joseph Henrich|Henrich, Joseph]] (2020). ''[[The WEIRDest People in the World]]: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous''. [[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]]. {{ISBN|978-0374173227}}.
* {{cite book |title=A History of Industrial Power in the United States, 1730–1930 |volume= 2: ''Steam Power'' |last1=Hunter |first1=Louis C. |year=1985 |publisher=University Press of Virginia |location=Charlottesville, US}}
* Jones, Prudence and Pennick, Nigel (1995). ''A History of Pagan Europe'' Barnes & Noble. {{ISBN|0-7607-1210-7}}.
* {{cite book |title=The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present|last=Landes|first=David. S.|author-link=David Landes|year=1969|publisher=Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge|location=Cambridge, New York|isbn=0-521-09418-6|page=92}}
* Meaney, Thomas (March 11, 2022). "[https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/11/opinion/nato-russia-the-west-ukraine.html The Return of 'The West']" ''New York Times''.
* Merriman, John (1996). ''Modern Europe: From the Renaissance to the Present''. W. W. Norton. {{ISBN|0-393-96885-5}}.
* McClellan, James E. III and Dorn, Harold (1999). ''Science and Technology in World History'' Johns Hopkins University Press. {{ISBN|0-8018-5869-0}}.
* [[Ludwig von Pastor|Pastor, Ludwig von]], ''History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages; Drawn from the [[Vatican Secret Archives|Secret Archives of the Vatican]] and other original sources'', 40 vols. St. Louis, B. Herder (1898ff.)
* [[Steven Pinker|Pinker, Steven]] (2018). ''[[Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress]]''. Penguin Books. {{ISBN|978-0-525-42757-5}}.
* [[Rodney Stark|Stark, Rodney]] (2006). ''The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success'', [[Random House]]. {{ISBN|978-0812972337}}.
* [[Rodney Stark|Stark, Rodney]] (2014). ''How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity''. [[Intercollegiate Studies Institute]]. {{ISBN|978-1497603257}}
* Stearns, P. N. (2003). ''Western Civilization in World History''. New York: Routledge.
* Stein, Ralph (1976). ''The Great Inventions'' Playboy Press. {{ISBN|0-87223-444-4}}.
* [[Bruce Thornton (classicist)|Thornton, Bruce]] (2002). ''Greek Ways: How the Greeks Created Western Civilization'', Encounter Books.
* {{cite book |last=Verger |first=Jacques |date=1999 |author-link=:fr:Jacques Verger |title=Culture, enseignement et société en Occident aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles |edition=1st |language=fr |publisher=Presses universitaires de Rennes in Rennes |isbn=286847344X |url=https://openlibrary.org/works/OL822497W}}
* [[James Joseph Walsh|Walsh, James Joseph]] (2003). [Reprinted from 1908, Fordham University Press ed.]. ''The Popes and Science; the History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own Time''. Kessinger Publishing. {{ISBN|0-7661-3646-9}}. (Reviews: [https://books.google.com/books?id=G57Y1rlQVP0C&dq=%22the+popes+and+science%22&pg=PT2 p. 462].[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1407075/])

== Further reading ==
* {{Cite book |last=Ankerl |first=Guy |title=Global communication without universal civilization |series=INU societal research |volume=1: Coexisting contemporary civilizations: Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western |publisher=INU Press |location=Geneva |isbn=978-2-88155-004-1 |year=2000 |ref=none}}
* Ankerl, Guy (2000). ''Coexisting Civilizations: Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western''. Geneva: INU Press. pp. 119–244. {{ISBN|2-88155-004-5}}.
* Asimov, Isaac (1982). ''Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology: The Lives & Achievements of 1510 Great Scientists from Ancient Times to the Present''. Revised second ed. Doubleday. {{ISBN|0-385-17771-2}}.
* Barzun, Jacques (2001). [[iarchive:fromdawntodecade00barz 0|''From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life : 1500 to the Present'']]. New York: HarperCollins.
* Hesmyr, Atle (2013). ''Civilization, Oikos, and Progress''. {{ISBN|978-1468924190}}.
* Hesmyr, Atle Kultorp (2020). ''Civilization; Its Economic Basis, Historical Lessons and Future Prospects''. Telemark, Norway: Nisus Publications.

== External links ==
{{Commons category|Western culture}}
* [http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320Hist&Civ/PP/slides/00westciv.pdf An overview of the Western Civilization] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211024231522/http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320Hist%26Civ/PP/slides/00westciv.pdf |date=24 October 2021 }}

{{Cultural gens}}
{{Western culture}}
{{Culture}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Western culture| ]]
[[Category:Cultural anthropology]]
[[Category:Sociological terminology]]

Bharatpedia - User contributions [en]

Western culture