History Of Western Civilization Research Articles

The Teaching of World History: A Status Report

ry which transcends national and regional boundaries and comprehends the entire globe-is one of the marks of the present.i This awareness that Barraclough spoke of has grown today into a movement of significant strength within the historical profession, perhaps not yet earning the descriptive term, revolution. This paper will examine some dimensions of the movement towards world history, review the most cogent complaints and criticisms against the way it is taught, offer some tentative responses to the criticisms, and suggest a few practical approaches for stepping up the forward march of this movement. The last point is particularly crucial since, as with any other movement, unless it can grow and can attract supporters, the world history movement may well stagnate and wither away. Evidence of a movement to world history is fragmentary, but can be found at both the secondary and college levels. In Fall, 1981, the New York City public secondary schools adopted a world history requirement, replacing two separate courses, a history of Western Civilization and regional studies of Eastern Civilization, with a three semester world history course. 2 In Texas, all high school students are required to take one year of world history or world geography (90 per cent select the history option).3 A report released last June by the College Board, entitled Academic Preparation for College, outlined certain basic academic subjects that college-bound students

Loyola, Lenin, and the Road to Liberation

The daydream of a better life, here on earth or in heaven, in the near future or on a faraway island, runs like a golden thread through the history of Western civilization. Often that dream was the expression of an attempt to escape from unbearable reality, away from hunger, toil, and oppression. Next to the fantasies about a return to a golden age or some miraculous intervention, there were those utopias which were considered reachable through religious conversion or social and political action. For the latter category the term "utopia" (no place) could be more properly translated as "that which has not-yet taken place." Without this semantic shift we cannot understand the dynamic role of utopia in the moral, social, and political thought of the West.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Die afbuiging van Calvyn se denke in die 17e eeu

The period of the Reformation was in certain aspects a lonely beacon in the cultural history of Western civilization. I his fact is illuminated by comparing the anti scolastic stand of Luther and Calvin, and especially Calvin's trinitarian view o f revelation with its ensuing knowledge, of God with the views of Perkins and Ames, in whose works tendencies towards a natural knowledge of God become discernable. Though the language of the later theologians remains “calvinistic”, yet there is a dear shift of accent in the whole theological structure o f their works and a growing emphasis on subjectivity.

Perceptions of Reality: A Sourcebook for the Social History of Western Civilization

Perceptions of Reality: A Sourcebook for the Social History of Western Civilization

Toward a Definition of Women's Human Rights

The purpose of this issue of Human Rights Quarterly with a special symposium on Women and International Human Rights is to define women's human rights. It should not be necessary to do so. The very term human rights is inclusive with no discriminatory meaning implied. However, practice does not always comply with principle. Within recent history of Western civilization, leading male scholars, philosophers, and theologians seriously debated whether the female of the species was really human or some sort of lower form of life. The question of whether a female had a soul was debated by Muslim leaders. In our own day, experience shows that it is an error to assume that terms such as humanity, human rights, or mankind are inclusive. Mary Daly, in her book Gyn/Ecology, has conclusively demonstrated the real power and meaning of language as a tool to deny and exclude female values and indeed to make women invisible.1

THE INFANTICIDAL MOTHER

Discrimination against the unwed mother runs like a red thread through the history of Western civilization. It became blatant in eighteenth-century France (and Germany and, undoubtedly, in other European countries). It did not matter how the infant had been conceived, i.e., by way of rape, excessive pressure, prostitution as a means to stay alive; the father was only interesting as a source of money. Whatever punishable acts were committeed, such as abandonment or killing of a baby, the guilt was fastened exclusively on the mother, and the penalty was usually a cruel death ... the condemned woman was faced with a variety of death penalties, of which decapitation was considered the most merciful. Other means were burial alive, impalement, and "sacking" (drowning), which was frequently the penalty of choice.... The infanticidal mother was stuffed into a black sack together with a dog, a cat, a rooster, or a viper. The sack had to remain under water for six hours and the choir boys sang "Aus tiefer Noth schrei ich zu Dir." Then the deceased was interred.

The Evolution of Mathematics in Ancient China

A popular survey book on the development of mathematics has its text prefaced by the following remarks: Only a few ancient civilizations, Egypt, Babylonia, India and China, possessed what may be called the rudiments of mathematics. The history of mathematics and indeed the history of western civilization begins with what occurred in the first of these civilizations. The role of India will emerge later, whereas that of China may be ignored because it was not extensive and moreover has no influence on the subsequent development of mathematics [1]. Even most contemporary works on the history of mathematics reinforce this impression, either by neglecting or depreciating Chinese contributions to the development of mathematics [2]. Whether by ignorance or design, such omissions limit the perspective one might obtain concerning both the evolution of mathematical ideas and the place of mathematics in early societies. In remedying this situation, western historians of mathematics may well take heed of Whittier's admonition [3]: We lack but open eye and ear To find the Orient's marvels here. Language barriers may limit this quest for information; however, a search of English language sources will reveal that there are many “marvels” in Chinese mathematics to be considered. Legend and fact The origins of mathematical activity in early China are clouded by mysticism and legend. Mythological Emperor Yu is credited with receiving a divine gift from a Lo river tortoise.

The Ancient History of Western Civilization

The Ancient History of Western Civilization

Christianity through the Thirteenth Century. Edited by Marshall W. Baldwin. (The Documentary History of Western Civilization). Pp. 434. London: Macmillan, 1971. £5.

Christianity through the Thirteenth Century. Edited by Marshall W. Baldwin. (The Documentary History of Western Civilization). Pp. 434. London: Macmillan, 1971. £5.

Concepts of reproduction and its regulation in the history of western civilization

Concepts of reproduction and its limitation have varied considerably in western history. Ancient ideas and practices progressed from a magico-religious form to one of more rational and empirical nature, but they remained relatively crude and incomplete. The dominant attitudes of the medieval period discouraged progress in the understanding of reproduction and attempts at its control. As the secularization of western society and scientific inquiry gained momentum during the modern period, knowledge of reproduction increased, and by the end of the nineteenth century investigators had arrived at an understanding of the first processes of embryonic development. This knowledge was not, however, soon applied to the control of reproduction. The latter, expressed in contemporary attitudes and practices, required more adequate understanding of female reproductive physiology and the acceptance of the principle of conception control at the societal level.

Nicholas of Cusa and the End of the Conciliar Movement: A Humanist Crisis of Identity

The ignominious end of the conciliar movement in the mid-fifteenth century strikes many contemporary historians and theologians as one of the tragedies in the history of western civilization. Having shown great promise as an instrument of ecclesiastical reform and credited with ending the scandalous Great Western Schism in 1417, the movement for all practical purposes reached an inglorious end with the signing of the Concordat of Vienna in 1448. Though the tragic dimensions of the movement's demise are somewhat diminished by the truth of Tierney's conjecture that “the merely constitutional reforms emphasized in the conciliar programme could not have produced the much-needed regeneration in the whole life of the Church”, one is nevertheless inclined to view with sadness the neutralization of the nascent democratic aspirations which conciliarism represented.

A History of Western Civilization (review)

A History of Western Civilization (review)

Review Notices : Christianity through the Thirteenth Century. Selected documents edited by Marshall W. Baldwin. (The Documentary History of Western Civilization.) London: Macmillan. 1971. 431 pp. £5.00

Review Notices : Christianity through the Thirteenth Century. Selected documents edited by Marshall W. Baldwin. (The Documentary History of Western Civilization.) London: Macmillan. 1971. 431 pp. £5.00

Paradoxes in Western Creativity

Statistical data, showing percentages of creativity in the various arts and philosophy among different nations during the history of Western civilization, can now be presented. This covers the ground quantitatively which Kroeber's Configurations of Culture Growth covered qualitatively. The study not only reveals different patterns among nations, but indicates the nature of the problem to be overcome if mankind is to achieve a universal maximum release of creativity for all in the future.

Foundations of Christianity: From the Beginnings to 1650. By J. Bruce Burke and James B. Wiggins. New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1970. ix + 316 pp. $6.50. - Christianity Through the Thirteenth Century (A Volume in “The Documentary History of Western Civilization,” Eugene C. Black and Leonard W. Levy, General Editors). Edited by Marshall W. Baldwin. New York: Walker

Foundations of Christianity: From the Beginnings to 1650. By J. Bruce Burke and James B. Wiggins. New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1970. ix + 316 pp. $6.50. - Christianity Through the Thirteenth Century (A Volume in “The Documentary History of Western Civilization,” Eugene C. Black and Leonard W. Levy, General Editors). Edited by Marshall W. Baldwin. New York: Walker

BINDER, FREDERICK M., EDITOR. Education in the History of Western Civilization. Selected Readings. New York: Macmillan, 1970,390 pp. $4.95

BINDER, FREDERICK M., EDITOR. Education in the History of Western Civilization. Selected Readings. New York: Macmillan, 1970,390 pp. $4.95

A Short History of Western Civilization. John B. Harrison , Richard E. Sullivan

A Short History of Western Civilization. John B. Harrison , Richard E. Sullivan

Realpolitik in the Decline of the West

Decline can be defined as the disruption of an established order, and if so defined, does not exclude the possibility of the simultaneous rise of new order. The “Decline of the West,” Spengler's term, is substantiated in the history of Western civilization, though not according to Spengler's theory, in the successive disruption of the community of belief, Christendom, through the Protestant revolution of the sixteenth century, of the community of reason, or the Concert of Europe, as it was afterwards named, through the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, and of the community of fear, the balance of power, through the totalitarian revolutions of the twentieth century. A revolution, in every instance, is the overthrow of an established order. Whether the new order, if any, was better than the established order does not matter in deciding whether or not there has been a decline. Whether, for example, during the decline of the West there has been the rise of a scientific and technological community that has spread from the West to the world, giving substance to the slogan ”One World,” does not alter the fact that there has been a gradual disintegration of the established order in the West itself.

Cultural aspects of mental disease

This paper, read at the International Congress of Psychotherapy, Barcelona, September 1958, discusses a few among the many cultural aspects of mental disease: 1. Cultural relativism. Is the concept of mental illness universal, or is it (as Ruth Benedict and others contend) relative to the various cultures? In fact, certain mental conditions are recognized everywhere as abnormal (idiocy, senile dementia, agitated confusion with fury). Cultural relativism is restricted to the aspects of human behavior which present a normal and an abnormal facet. Cultural divergences in the appreciation of what is normal or abnormal are hardly more marked than are the conflicting diagnoses of psychiatric experts in a legal case. 2. Cultural specificity. Since Hippocrates’ “Scythian disease”, several mental conditions have been described which are supposed to be specific to certain countries or cultures; such as in present days, the running Amok in Malaya. Careful studies show that these allegedly specific conditions also occur in other parts of the world, although in less conspicuous forms. Thus they are in fact universal manifestations which, in certain settings, acquired a special coloring owing to a very high admixture of cultural elements (notably permissiveness and ceremonialization.). 3. Cultural coloring of mental disease. Clinical instances borrowed from a paper by Dr. Gustave Martin illustrate the differences in delusional ideas whether they occur in “bush negroes” or acculturated natives of Northwest Africa. Psychiatrists working in a different setting should pay the greatest attention to the patient's culture. Not infrequently it is only a precise anthropological knowledge which will enable a psychiatrist to recognize whether certain manifestations are normal or abnormal, and if abnormal, to evaluate their degree of severity. 4. Cultural stimulation or inhibition of mental disease. Much attention has been given to the cultural factors which produce or stimulate mental illness, but not enough to those factors which repress or inhibit its manifestations. Repression or inhibition of mental illness has been observed: in concentration camps, during wars, in certain religious sects, in individual clinical cases. A certain index of permissiveness or intolerance to mental illness is characteristic of every culture, and within each country of every cultural wave (as shown in the history of Western civilization). This index is internalized by every individual and acts as an unconscious permissive or repressive factor in the production of individual mental illness. 5. Biocultural interactions. The progress of civilization forwarded an un-precedented development of Science. Science produced inventions which transformed the structure of man, not only socially and psychologically, but also biologically, with far-reaching consequences upon the manifestation of mental illness. Three instances are given: (a) The prolongation of the average length of human life produced not only geriatric problems but also new problems of adolescence, of which the increase in juvenile delinquency is the most conspicuous. (b) The advent of surgical anaesthesia and pharmaceutical analgesia resulted in the almost complete disappearance of pain, but at the same time made man much more intolerant to pain, and therefore the idea of pain plays a greater role in the psychogenesis of certain neuroses. (c) The enormous increase of quantity of stimulation given to children and adolescents produced biological consequences, one of which is probably the increase of the frequency of schizophrenia. The author concludes by referring to other cultural aspects of mental illness and emphasizes the importance of careful statistical studies and exhaustive individual case histories.

Evolution and Epistemology

PROF. E. SCHROEDINGER'S recent book1 discussing the relevance of ancient Greek thought to present-day scientific philosophy touches on very many of the problems which have been debated throughout the whole history of Western civilization. He closes it (p. 94) with the thought, adumbrated perhaps already by Democritus (see p. 30), that “for the purpose of constructing the picture of the external world, we have used the greatly simplifying device of cutting our own personality out, removing it … this is the reason why the scientific world-view contains of itself no ethical values, no aesthetic values, not a word about our own ultimate scope or destination, and no God, if you please”.