An Introduction to Modern Western Civilization

An Introduction to Modern Western Civilization
Author: Edmund Clingan
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2011-10-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1462054390

Over the past 250 years, Europe and the United States have changed from simple societies into complex, densely-populated, industrial powerhouses. Th s book explains how it happened in clear language intended for the general reader. Each chapter includes a timeline, key terms and persons, and web-based sources of writings from the time. "We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us."

Zombies in Western Culture

Zombies in Western Culture
Author: John Vervaeke
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 96
Release: 2017-06-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 178374331X

Why has the zombie become such a pervasive figure in twenty-first-century popular culture? John Vervaeke, Christopher Mastropietro and Filip Miscevic seek to answer this question by arguing that particular aspects of the zombie, common to a variety of media forms, reflect a crisis in modern Western culture. The authors examine the essential features of the zombie, including mindlessness, ugliness and homelessness, and argue that these reflect the outlook of the contemporary West and its attendant zeitgeists of anxiety, alienation, disconnection and disenfranchisement. They trace the relationship between zombies and the theme of secular apocalypse, demonstrating that the zombie draws its power from being a perversion of the Christian mythos of death and resurrection. Symbolic of a lost Christian worldview, the zombie represents a world that can no longer explain itself, nor provide us with instructions for how to live within it. The concept of 'domicide' or the destruction of home is developed to describe the modern crisis of meaning that the zombie both represents and reflects. This is illustrated using case studies including the relocation of the Anishinaabe of the Grassy Narrows First Nation, and the upheaval of population displacement in the Hellenistic period. Finally, the authors invoke and reformulate symbols of the four horseman of the apocalypse as rhetorical analogues to frame those aspects of contemporary collapse that elucidate the horror of the zombie. Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis is required reading for anyone interested in the phenomenon of zombies in contemporary culture. It will also be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience including students and scholars of culture studies, semiotics, philosophy, religious studies, eschatology, anthropology, Jungian studies, and sociology.

Mathematics in Western Culture

Mathematics in Western Culture
Author: Morris Kline
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 513
Release: 1964-12-31
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0195345452

This book gives a remarkably fine account of the influences mathematics has exerted on the development of philosophy, the physical sciences, religion, and the arts in Western life.

Civilization

Civilization
Author: Niall Ferguson
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2011-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1101548029

From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the Tower “A dazzling history of Western ideas.” —The Economist “Mr. Ferguson tells his story with characteristic verve and an eye for the felicitous phrase.” —Wall Street Journal “[W]ritten with vitality and verve . . . a tour de force.” —Boston Globe Western civilization’s rise to global dominance is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five centuries. How did the West overtake its Eastern rivals? And has the zenith of Western power now passed? Acclaimed historian Niall Ferguson argues that beginning in the fifteenth century, the West developed six powerful new concepts, or “killer applications”—competition, science, the rule of law, modern medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic—that the Rest lacked, allowing it to surge past all other competitors. Yet now, Ferguson shows how the Rest have downloaded the killer apps the West once monopolized, while the West has literally lost faith in itself. Chronicling the rise and fall of empires alongside clashes (and fusions) of civilizations, Civilization: The West and the Rest recasts world history with force and wit. Boldly argued and teeming with memorable characters, this is Ferguson at his very best.

The Decline of the West

The Decline of the West
Author: Oswald Spengler
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 500
Release: 1991
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780195066340

Spengler's work describes how we have entered into a centuries-long "world-historical" phase comparable to late antiquity, and his controversial ideas spark debate over the meaning of historiography.

The Collapse of Western Civilization

The Collapse of Western Civilization
Author: Naomi Oreskes
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 105
Release: 2014-07-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0231537956

The year is 2393, and the world is almost unrecognizable. Clear warnings of climate catastrophe went ignored for decades, leading to soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, widespread drought and—finally—the disaster now known as the Great Collapse of 2093, when the disintegration of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet led to mass migration and a complete reshuffling of the global order. Writing from the Second People's Republic of China on the 300th anniversary of the Great Collapse, a senior scholar presents a gripping and deeply disturbing account of how the children of the Enlightenment—the political and economic elites of the so-called advanced industrial societies—failed to act, and so brought about the collapse of Western civilization. In this haunting, provocative work of science-based fiction, Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway imagine a world devastated by climate change. Dramatizing the science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, the book reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do and reveals the self-serving interests of the so called "carbon combustion complex" that have turned the practice of science into political fodder. Based on sound scholarship and yet unafraid to speak boldly, this book provides a welcome moment of clarity amid the cacophony of climate change literature.

Western Civilizations

Western Civilizations
Author: Joshua Cole
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: Civilization, Western
ISBN: 9780393614305

The most pedagogically innovative text and media for the western civilizations course ̄now more current, more global, and more interactive. The balanced narrative in Western Civilizations has been bolstered with new and current scholarship--highlighting new environmental history, more coverage of Central and Eastern Europe, and increased coverage of European and Muslim relations--making it the most up-to-date and relevant text for students. In addition, Cole and Symes have enhanced their pedagogically innovative text with new History Skills Tutorials, Interactive Instructor's Guide, and Norton InQuizitive for History, making the Nineteenth Edition a more interactive and effective teaching and learning tool.

Western Self-Contempt

Western Self-Contempt
Author: Benedict Beckeld
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2022-05-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1501763202

Western Self-Contempt travels through civilizations since antiquity, examining major political events and the literature of ancient Greece, Rome, France, Britain, and the United States, to study evidence of cultural self-hatred and its cyclical recurrence. Benedict Beckeld explores oikophobia, described by its coiner Sir Roger Scruton as "the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours,'" in its political and philosophical applications. Beckeld analyzes the theories behind oikophobia along with their historical sources, revealing why oikophobia is best described as a cultural malaise that befalls civilizations during their declining days. Beckeld gives a framework for why today's society is so fragmented and self-critical. He demonstrates that oikophobia is the antithesis of xenophobia. By this definition, the riots and civil unrest in the summer of 2020 were an expression of oikophobia. Excessive political correctness that attacks tradition and history is an expression of oikophobia. Beckeld argues that if we are to understand these behaviors and attitudes, we must understand oikophobia as a sociohistorical phenomenon. Western Self-Contempt is a systematic analysis of oikophobia, combining political philosophy and history to examine how Western civilizations and cultures evolve from naïve and self-promoting beginnings to states of self-loathing and decline. Concluding with a philosophical portrait of an increasingly interconnected Western civilization, Beckeld reveals how past events and ideologies, both in the US and in Europe, have led to a modern culture of self-questioning and self-rejection.