Western world

Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome are generally considered to be the birthplaces of Western civilization—Greece having heavily influenced Rome—the former due to its impact on philosophy, democracy, science, aesthetics and art, building designs and proportions, architecture; the latter due to its influence on law, warfare, governance, republicanism, engineering and religion.

Western philosophy refers to the philosophical thought and work of the Western world.

The Western world is also known as the Occident (from the Latin word occidens, "sunset, West"), in contrast to the Orient (from the Latin word oriens, "rise, East"), or Eastern world.

The Orient is a historical term for the East, traditionally comprising anything that belongs to the Eastern world, in relation to Europe, the Occident.

Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome are generally considered to be the birthplaces of Western civilization—Greece having heavily influenced Rome—the former due to its impact on philosophy, democracy, science, aesthetics and art, building designs and proportions, architecture; the latter due to its influence on law, warfare, governance, republicanism, engineering and religion.

Western democracy, as distinct from that which existed in pre-modern societies, is generally considered to have originated in city-states such as Classical Athens and the Roman Republic, where various schemes and degrees of enfranchisement of the free male population were observed before the form disappeared in the West at the beginning of late antiquity.

The Western world is also known as the Occident (from the Latin word occidens, "sunset, West"), in contrast to the Orient (from the Latin word oriens, "rise, East"), or Eastern world.

It is often seen as a counterpart to the Western world, and correlates strongly to the southern half of the North–South divide.

Through extensive imperialism, colonialism and Christianization by Western powers in the 15th to 20th centuries, and later exportation of mass culture, much of the rest of the world has been extensively influenced by Western culture, in a phenomenon often called Westernization.

The term can be applied to the colonization of the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries, as opposed to New Imperialism, which describes the expansion of Western Powers and Japan during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Through extensive imperialism, colonialism and Christianization by Western powers in the 15th to 20th centuries, and later exportation of mass culture, much of the rest of the world has been extensively influenced by Western culture, in a phenomenon often called Westernization.

Westernization (US) or Westernisation (UK), also Europeanization/Europeanisation or occidentalization/occidentalisation (from the Occident), is a process whereby societies come under or adopt Western culture in areas such as industry, technology, politics, economics, lifestyle, law, norms, mores, customs, traditions, values, mentality, perceptions, diet, clothing, language, alphabet, religion, and philosophy.

Western civilization is also strongly associated with Christianity, which is in turn shaped by Hellenistic philosophy, Judaism and Roman culture.

Many aspects of Judaism have also directly or indirectly influenced secular Western ethics and civil law.

West was originally literal, opposing Catholic Europe with the cultures and civilizations of Orthodox Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the remote Far East, which early-modern Europeans saw as the East.

Likewise, in Qing Dynasty of the 19th and early 20th centuries the term "Tàixī " – i.e. anything further west than the Arab world – was used to refer to the Western countries.

By the mid-20th century, Western culture was exported worldwide through the emergent mass media: film, radio, television and recorded music; and the development and growth of international transport and telecommunication (such as transatlantic cable and the radiotelephone) played a decisive role in modern globalization. Some tendencies that define modern Western societies are the existence of political pluralism, laicism, generalization of middle class, prominent subcultures or countercultures (such as New Age movements), increasing cultural syncretism resulting from globalization and human migration.

The first is the idea of Eastern Origins, which shows how Western states have adapted and implemented learned principles from the East.

Some tendencies that define modern Western societies are the existence of political pluralism, laicism, generalization of middle class, prominent subcultures or countercultures (such as New Age movements), increasing cultural syncretism resulting from globalization and human migration.

Prominent examples of Late Modern countercultures in the Western world include Romanticism (1790–1840), Bohemianism (1850–1910), the more fragmentary counterculture of the Beat Generation (1944–1964), followed by the globalized counterculture of the 1960s (1964–1974), usually associated with the hippie subculture and the diversified punk subculture of the 1970s and 1980s.

Traditionally in the West, the study of the Greek and Roman classics is considered one of the cornerstones of the humanities and a fundamental element of a rounded education.

The Bible has been a massive influence on literature and history, especially in the Western world, where the Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed using movable type.

The Eastern Mediterranean was home to the highly urbanized cultures that had Greek as their common language (owing to the older empire of Alexander the Great and of the Hellenistic successors.), whereas the West was much more rural in its character and more readily adopted Latin as its common language. The then Hellenic division between the barbarians (term used by Ancient Greeks for all non-Greek-speaking people) and the Greeks contrasted in many societies the Greek-speaking culture of the Greek settlements around the Mediterranean to the surrounding non-Greek cultures.

The Greek language holds an important place in the history of the Western world and Christianity; the canon of ancient Greek literature includes works in the Western canon such as the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey.

Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome are generally considered to be the birthplaces of Western civilization—Greece having heavily influenced Rome—the former due to its impact on philosophy, democracy, science, aesthetics and art, building designs and proportions, architecture; the latter due to its influence on law, warfare, governance, republicanism, engineering and religion.

The Catholic Church has the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the western world, predating the evolution of modern European civil law and common law systems.

Later, they expanded to the north of the Mediterranean Sea to include Western, Central, and Southeastern Europe.

Christianization of Ireland (5th century), Christianization of Bulgaria (9th century), Christianization of Kievan Rus' (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus; 10th century), Christianization of Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Sweden; 12th century) and Christianization of Lithuania (14th century) brought the rest of present-day European territory into Western civilization.

Joseph Stalin implemented a policy of Sovietization to isolate the Byelorussian SSR from Western influences.

Greek culture is said to have influenced Roman civilization in all aspects of society, from architecture to philosophy, art and war.

Western philosophy is the philosophical tradition of the Western world and dates to Pre-Socratic thinkers who were active in Ancient Greece in the 6th century BCE such as Thales (c.

By the turn of the 16th century European or Western Civilization would be engaging in the Age of Discovery.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Medieval times (or Middle Ages), Western and Central Europe were substantially cut off from the East where Byzantine Greek culture and Eastern Christianity became founding influences in the Eastern European world such as the Eastern and Southern Slavic peoples.

Eastern Christianity comprises church families that developed outside the Occident, with major bodies including the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox churches, the Eastern Catholic churches (that are in communion with Rome but still maintain Eastern liturgies), and the denominations descended from the Church of the East.

The crowning of the Emperor by the Pope led to the assumption that the highest power was the papal hierarchy, quintessential Roman Empire's spiritual heritage authority, establishing then, until the Protestant Reformation, the civilization of Western Christendom.

From the 11th to 13th centuries, Latin Christendom rose to the central role of the Western world.

It sells approximately 100 million copies annually, and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West, where the Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed using movable type.

The then Hellenic division between the barbarians (term used by Ancient Greeks for all non-Greek-speaking people) and the Greeks contrasted in many societies the Greek-speaking culture of the Greek settlements around the Mediterranean to the surrounding non-Greek cultures.

Following the Fall of Constantinople on 29 May 1453, many Greeks sought better employment and education opportunities by leaving for the West, particularly Italy, Central Europe, Germany and Russia.

Numerous times, this expansion was accompanied by Catholic missionaries, who attempted to proselytize Christianity.

The history of the missions of the Society of Jesus or Jesuits in Ming and Qing China stands as one of the notable events in the early history of relations between China and the Western world, as well as a prominent example of relations between two cultures and belief systems in the pre-modern age.

Some tendencies that define modern Western societies are the existence of political pluralism, laicism, generalization of middle class, prominent subcultures or countercultures (such as New Age movements), increasing cultural syncretism resulting from globalization and human migration.

He also noted that they were highly ethnocentric in placing Western civilization at the centre of historical development.

Much of this set of traditions and knowledge is collected in the Western canon.

Plato was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world.