1. The Stone Age in General

2. The Old Stone Age

3. The Middle Stone Age

4. The New Stone Age

5. The Bronze Age and the Birth of Civilizations

6. The Iron Age and the Perfection of Writing

7. Key Inventions

 B.          Early Human Cultures 2,000,000 to 3,000 Years Ago

 One of the basic distinguishing features of the human species besides language is the ability to make a large variety of tools. For this reason, prehistoric human cultures are named after the materials, stone, bronze, and iron, used in the creation of permanent tools. Moreover, because the Stone Age covers about 99% of human history, it is usually divided into three separate periods based on the degree of sophistication in the fashioning and use of tools. Therefore, we distinguish between:

1. The Stone Age in General

2. The Old Stone Age 2,000,000 to 100,000 Years Ago

3. The Middle Stone (Transition) Age 100,000 to 12,000 Years Ago

4. The New Stone Age 12,000 to 5,000 Years Ago

5. The Bronze Age and the Birth of Civilizations 3,000 to 1,000 BCE

6. The Iron Age and the Perfection of Writing 1,000 BCE

(Map source: Wikimedia Commons)

Technological and Social State of the World ca. 1,000 BCE.

 Key to Map:

██ hunter-gatherers

██ nomadic pastoralists

██ simple farming societies

██ complex farming societies/chiefdoms

██ state societies

██ uninhabited

██ (red) Area of iron working

██ Area of bronze working

 1. The Stone Age in General 2,000,000 to 5,000 Years Ago

The Stone Age encompasses the first widespread use of technology in human evolution and the spread of humanity from the savannas of East Africa to the rest of the world. It ends with the smelting of copper ore to produce metal and the development of agriculture, the domestication of plants and animals. It was this transition from collectors of food to producers of food that would make larger communities possible. This period received its name from the fact that most human tools found from that time were made of stone. Also, there were rarely preserved tools made from wood and animal parts such as bones, tendons, etc. The almost complete absence of metal, with the exception of gold, is distinctive of the Stone Age.

      The climate until about 11,000 years ago consisted of a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures.

     Food sources of the hunter-gatherer humans of the Stone Age included both animals and plants that were part of the natural environment in which these humans lived. These humans liked animal organ meats, including the livers, kidneys and brains. They consumed little dairy product or carbohydrate-rich plant foods like legumes or cereal grains. They also ate leaves and roots. They looked for vegetables and fruits, and hunted animals. Large seeded legumes were part of the human diet long before the New Stone Age agricultural revolution as evident from finds from the Mousterian layers of Kebara Cave, in Israel. Moreover, recent evidence indicates that humans processed and consumed wild cereal grains as far back as 23,000 years ago.

     Shelters are believed to have been constructed as long as 2 million years ago by Homo habilis, the “handy man."

• The first man-made structure in East Africa, about 2 million years ago, consisted of simple arrangements of stones to hold branches of trees in position. A similar stone circular arrangement believed to be around 500 thousand years old was discovered at Terra Amata, near Nice, France. Several human habitats dating back to the Stone Age have been discovered around the globe.
• A structure with roof supported with timber, discovered in Dolni Vestonice, Czechoslovakia, dates to around 25,000 years ago. The walls were made of packed clay blocks and stones.
• An animal hide tent dated to around 17,000 to 12,000 years ago, in the Magdalenian, was discovered at Plateau Parain, France. Moreover,
  huts made of mammoth bones were found in Eastern Europe and Siberia. The people who made these huts were expert mammoth hunters. Examples have been found along the Dniepr river valley of Ukraine, including near Chernihiv, in Moravia, Czech Republic and in southern Poland.

     Rituals and beliefs were apparently present among people of the Stone Age. This is not only extrapolated only from living people who exist today apparently at the prehistoric level of development, but also from a thorough examination of findings dating from the Stone Age. It is now believed that activities of even the early prehistoric people went beyond the immediate requirements of securing food, body coverings, and shelters. Specific rites relating to death and burial were practiced, though certainly differing in style and execution between cultures. Other rituals included birth, puberty and marriage rites. Several Stone Age-dated sites in different parts of the world indicate traces of dancing, dancing in files and initiation rites.

2. The Old Stone Age--2,000,000 to 100,000 years ago

The Old Stone Age is also known as the Paleolithic Period and covers the greatest portion of humanity's prehistory. It was early on characterized by the use of rudimentary pebble tools by Homo habilis. Later in the age, chipped stone tools were used by Homo erectus and hand axes were discovered from about 700,000 years ago. Throughout this era humans generally lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers. Most groups were very small, 25-100 members, and egalitarian, that is, all members had roughly equal social, economic, and decision-making rights. However, some larger groups that were made possible by abundant resources and the ability to store food developed social stratification, e.g., leaders and spiritualists with special privileges. This period ended with the Middle Stone Age, which was an overlapping period that marked the transition into the New Stone Age.

     Old Stone Age humans lived in small-scale societies such as bands and gained their subsistence from gathering plants and hunting animals. This period is characterized by the use of stone tools that range from pebbles to stones or flint that were broken and shaped by quick, hard blows with other stones. As noted earlier, humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers; however, given their nature, these have not been preserved to any great degree.

Arrowhead chipped from obsidian, which is a hard, black volcanic glass.

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

3. The Middle Stone (Transition) Age 100,000 to 12,000 Years Ago

The Middle Stone Age, also known as the Mesolithic Period, was a transitional, overlapping phase from the Old Stone Age to the New Stone Age. Life and its activities of hunting, fishing, collecting, and warfare was improved through technological innovations that allowed people to exploit a wider range of animal and vegetable food sources.

• The bola, which consisted of a set of cords or thongs with heavy stone balls at the end for throwing at animals and entangling their legs. The bola is whirled like a sling and then thrown parallel to the ground to entwine the prey's legs.
• The spear thrower (throwing stick or atlatl) performs the function of an extra joint in the arm. It allows the user to transfer energy derived from muscular energy during the throw. The result is greater velocity and increased range that may exceed 100 meters. It was used to kill animals as large as the mammoth. It consists of a shaft with a handle on one end and a spur or cup on the other, against which the butt of the spear rests.
• The bow and arrow--A bow is a weapon that projects arrows powered by the elasticity of the bow. As the bow is drawn, energy is stored in the limbs of the bow and transformed into rapid motion when the string is released, with the string transferring this force to the arrow. It is made of flexible, curved strip of wood with a tightly drawn cord connecting the two ends.
• Ceramic art such as the Venus of Dolní Vestonice dated 29,000–25,000 years ago.
• Dogs were domesticated 100,000 and 14,000 years ago most likely to assist in hunting.
• Knowledge about plants and herbs appears to have been important. Rudimentary forms of horticulture, the clearing of small plots for growing useful plants perhaps such as herbs, vegetables, and even flowers was practiced but not commonly so.
• A lunar calendar was used to document the phases of the moon by the Aurignacians, a European culture named after Aurignac in the Haute Garonne area of France.

The Middle Stone Age occurred mainly in northwestern Europe, and, indeed, the term is no longer used to reflect a worldwide sequence of human cultural evolution.

The earliest known battle occurred during this phase and was radiocarbon dated at 13,740 years ago plus or minus 600 years.  At a site in Egypt known as Cemetery 117, fifty-nine bodies were recovered and many more partial pieces found. There were twenty-four females and nineteen males all over nineteen years of age, thirteen children ranging in age from infancy to fifteen years old, and three bodies that remain unidentified for age and sex due to damage and missing pieces.

     Of the people buried about forty percent died of violent wounds. Stone projectile points were found in the bodies at places that suggest that they were attached to a spear or arrow. The wound sites were in the chest or abdomen area, the back, or in the skull through the lower jaw or neck. Also the lack of bony calluses due to healing around these wounds indicates that they were most likely fatal.

4. The New Stone Age 12,000 to 5,000 Years Ago

(Photo source: Wikimedia Commons)

Stonehenge, England, erected by Neolithic peoples ca. 5,000 years ago.

The New Stone Age is also known as the Neolithic Period. It ended when cultures changed to metal tools in the Bronze Age about 5,000 years ago or even later when some geographical regions developed directly into the Iron Age starting some 3,000 years ago. Unlike the Old Stone Age, where more than one human species existed, only one human species, modern man (Homo sapiens sapiens) reached this phase of development. This age was characterized by stone tools shaped by polishing or grinding, dependence on domesticated plants or animals, settlement in permanent villages, and the appearance of such crafts as weaving and pottery for food storage.

     The Neolithic Revolution, as some call it on account of the dramatic changes in subsistence, technology, and larger settlements, was set apart by the following:

·      Ground stone and polished stone artifacts became much more widespread due to the increased need to harvest and process plants. These man-made objects included tools for grinding, cutting, chopping and adzing (trimming and smoothing wood).

·      The transition from food-collecting to food-producing with the domestication of plants and animals, gradually occurred across Asia and Europe. This began from a starting point in the Fertile Crescent, which is the historical crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, extending from the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.  This area was later the birthplace of several ancient civilizations. These food-producing cultures were thus no longer dependent on hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants.

·      Independent development of farming in other parts of the world, such as Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, led to regionally-distinctive New Stone Age cultures which arose completely independent of those in Europe and Southwest Asia. Farming was based on cereal grasses: wheat and barley in the Middle East, millet and rice in China, and on corn (maize) in Mexico and Central America.

By 9,500 BCE the Sumerians had started farming.

By 7,000 BCE agriculture was established in India

By 6,000 BCE       "          "      "      "      " Egypt

By 5,000 BCE       "          "      "      "      " China

By 2,700 BCE       "          "      "      "      " Mesoamerica

·      Life based on farming and larger settled villages had been firmly achieved by 7000 BCE in the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys, now in Iraq and Iran, and also in Syria, Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan. These earliest farmers raised barley and wheat and kept sheep and goats, later supplemented by cattle and pigs.

·      A solar calendar based on the seasonal year of 365 +1/4 day was required to determine planting dates. It was probably first developed by the Egyptians. 

·      The first large-scale constructions were built, including settlement towers and walls, for instance, the ancient Canaanite city of Jericho whose walls, according to the Bible, were miraculously destroyed when trumpets were sounded. A still existing ancient construction is the ceremonial site at Stonehenge. The site shows that there was sufficient resources and co-operation to enable large groups to work on these projects.

·      Evidence for established trade exists in this period with newly settled people importing exotic goods over distances of many hundreds of miles.

The earliest New Stone Age communities appeared in the Middle East ca. 10,000 years ago, in China ca. 6,000 years ago, and in India ca. 5,600 years ago. The New World achieved a New Stone Age way of life independently. Corn (maize), beans, and squash were gradually domesticated in Mexico and Central America starting 8,500 years ago. However, sedentary communities did not commence there until much later, at about 4000 years ago.

Note: From here on, we enter the age of writing and thus recorded history. Inferences can be made easier when we now like most Western literature speak of times as Before the Common Era--B.C.E. or BCE (formerly Before Christ--B.C.), rather than of "years ago." Add 2,000 years or more accurately the current year to BCE and you get "years ago." And later on we speak of times of the Common Era--C.E. or CE (formerly A.D. or AD meaning after the birth of Christ).

5. The Bronze Age and the Birth of Civilizations 3,000 to 1,000 BCE

The Bronze Age was the first period when metal tools were used. After discovering copper which by itself is soft, some human societies learned to combine copper with a small amount of tin to make bronze, a much harder metal or alloy, which replaced stone for use as tools and weapons. By about 2,500 BCE a fast developing copper metallurgy allowed the casting of tools and weapons. This was a major contributing factor leading to urbanization in Mesopotamia, which was area between the upper Tigris and Euphrates rivers and is now a part of modern Iraq. Later, from about 1000 BC, the ability to heat and forge another metal, iron, brought the Bronze Age to an end, and the Iron Age began.

The Bronze Age was also characterized by:

·         The invention of the wheel

·         The invention of the ox-drawn plow

·         The large-scale production of objects led to increased specialization or division of labor thus increasing productivity.

·         Trading across large distances, starting with the new metal tools, developed.

·         The Invention of Writing was next to language one of humankind's most crucial creation. Necessity was probably the driving force, for the needs of urban societies with their highly developed commerce, industry, agriculture, and state organization, involved the need to keep records. This new form of communicating had gradually developed over a long period of time by many people and in different places. The Sumerian civilization had the first known writing system and its development is explained below. The development of writing would eventually culminate in the Greek phonetic alphabet, see the Iron Age below.

·         Writing includes the following advantages:

1. It preserves language and information through time and across space. Hence, writing was the beginning of recorded history.
2. It accelerates the process of civilizing humanity and made possible civilizations, that is, advanced states of human society, in which a high level of culture, science, industry, and government can be reached.
3. It allowed a more reliable and faster transmission of culture from generation to generation than the oral tradition. It did the same for the diffusion of culture from one society to another.
4. Written communication has a greater impact than orally transmitted information. For example, Isak Dinesen (1885-1965), in her Out of Africa, reported on the response of Kikuyu tribesmen to their first exposures to written texts: "I learned that the effect of a piece of news was many times magnified when it was imparted by writing. The messages that would have been received with doubt and scorn if they had been given by word of mouth were now taken as gospel truth."

     The Sumerians developed the oldest known writing system. It has come down to the present day as inscriptions on clay tablets. The Sumerians lived in Mesopotamia, "the land between" the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. They are credited with the first writing system that could state complete stories. However, the system's rudimentary beginnings appear to coincide with the development of agriculture that made possible the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to more permanent settlements. Hence, there was a need to count ones belongings such as parcels of land, animals, or measures of grain and to transfer these possessions to another individual or another settlement. Incised "counting tokens" from about 7,000 BCE were found in Mesopotamia evidencing this beginning in the New Stone Age.

     By about 3,100 BCE, this writing had evolved into a method of keeping accounts, using a round-shaped stylus impressed into soft clay at different angles for recording numbers. This was gradually augmented with pictographic writing using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted. Round-stylus and sharp-stylus writing was gradually replaced about 2700-2500 BCE by writing with a blunt reed. The impressions left by the stylus were wedge shaped, thus giving rise to the name cuneiform ("wedge shaped"). This was at first used only for logograms, symbols expressing an entire word, but developed to include phonetic elements by the 29th century BCE. About 2600 BCE cuneiform began to represent syllables of the Sumerian language. Finally, cuneiform writing became a general purpose writing system for logograms, syllables, and numbers. As one researcher notes:

The basic idea in the new writings was to express words of the language rather than ideas and meanings. As one anthropologist explains: A message as “I killed five lions” would not be expressed by pictures drawn in any order. It would instead be expressed in picture signs drawn in the order of the words in this sentence. The word “I” might be expressed by the picture sign of a head with the hand pointing to the nose; “killed” by the picture sign of a spear; “five” by five strokes; and “lion” by the picture sign of a lion.

     The Babylonians and Assyrians, who through conquest superseded the Sumerians in the land of the Tigris and Euphrates, accepted almost without change the Sumerian word-syllabic system.

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

A List of Gifts to the High Priestess of Adab on the Occasion of Her Election. Written in 2,600 BCE, it is one of the earliest examples of writing. It is a Sumerian cuneiform script in the Sumerian language

 The Birth of Civilizations

Civilization is the name we give to the interaction of human beings in a very creative way, when as it were, a critical mass of cultural potential and material resources has been build up, and human capacities are released for development which becomes in large measure self-sustaining.

                                                                   J. M. Roberts (1928-2003)

Two well-studied areas of early civilization were Mesopotamia and Egypt. There "cultural potential" or human skills and "material resources" or natural facts came together and produced the first nation states. Like all civilizations, they depended on agriculture for subsistence.

(Picture source: Wikimedia Commons)

Ox-drawn plow, Egypt, ca. 1,200 BCE

• In Mesopotamia, "the land between two rivers," and in Egypt, "the land of the Nile," irrigation, using beasts of burden, and other techniques resulted in a surplus of grain that could be stored for a long time.
• However, much of this surplus was controlled by rulers who exercised and maintained power thru the actions of their government or bureaucracy. For the first time religion became organized and formed an allegiance with rulers for mutual support and social control of the masses.
• Yet, this surplus of food freed people to do other things and improved productivity when they specialized into different skills--the division of labor. 
• Living permanently in one location, combined with and surplus wealth allowed people to acquire more personal possessions and even parcels of land.
• In Sumer/Mesopotamia, the first money in form of silver bars replaced "commodity money" that was used for at least 100,000 years in a form of trading known as bartering, the exchange of goods and services. Examples of commodities that have been used as mediums of exchange include gold, silver, copper, salt, peppercorns, large stones, decorated belts, shells, alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis, and candy. However, bartering was impractical for trading between city dwellers and farmers. Thus, the development of money as a universal means of exchange had become a necessity. 

     Historians have summarized and identified distinctive features of civilizations that include the following as stated by Jackson J. Spielvogel (my emphases):

1.    an urban revolution: cities became the focal points for political, economic, social, cultural, and religious development;

2.    a distinctive religious structure: the gods were deemed crucial  to the community's success, and professional priest classes as stewards of the gods' property, regulated relations with the gods [see "The Code of Hammurabi" below];

3.    new political and military structures: an organized government bureaucracy arose to meet the demands of the growing population while armies were organized to gain land and power;

4.    a new social structure based on economic power: while kings and an upper class of priests, political leaders, and warriors dominated, there also existed a large group of free men (farmers, artisans, craftsmen) and at the very bottom, socially, a class of slaves;

5.    the development of writing: kings, priests, merchants, and artisans used writing to keep records;

6.    new forms of significant artistic and intellectual activity, such as monumental architectural structures, usually religious, occupied a prominent place in urban environments;

7.    the development of more complexity in a material sense: capital was accumulated and metals smelted to produce a variety of material objects.

     About the same time or a little later, like civilizations developed near rivers in India and China. And just like the Middle Eastern civilizations would influence Europe, so would Chinese civilization influence neighboring Asian countries like Vietnam, and as far as Korea and Japan. And India's Hinduism, "the mother of all religions," would strongly influence Christianity directly, or through Zoroastrianism.

     Civilizations with a distinctive cultural and historical pattern

In chronological order starting with the oldest. With the exception of the Andean and Mexican civilization, it appears that the younger ones borrowed from the older ones.

ca. 4,000 BCE the Sumerian

ca. 3,000 BCE the Egyptian

ca. 2,200 BCE the Eastern originate in China and spread to Japan by 600 CE

ca. 2,000 BCE the Minoan

ca. 1,700 BCE the Babylonian

ca. 1,500 BCE the Semitic

ca. 1,500 BCE the Indian

ca. 1,100 BCE to 476 CE the Greco-Roman

ca.   800 BCE the Andean (highlands of Peru)

ca.   300 BCE the Mexican

4th century CE the Byzantine

8th century CE the Islamic

8th century CE the Western began in Western Europe with Charlemagne

(Photo source: Wikipmedia Commons) 

King Hammurabi Receives the Laws from God Shamash ca. 1,760 BCE. The preface states that Hammurabi was chosen by the gods of his people to bring the laws to them. This stone monument is now in the Louvre. It shows the upper part of the stele of Hammurabi's code of laws.

The Code of Hammurabi

Hammurabi, King of Babylonia, is best known for the dissemination of this new code of Babylonian law. This was written on a large stone monument, and placed in a public place so that all could see it.

• The code of Hammurabi contained 282 laws, written by scribes on 12 tablets. Unlike earlier laws, it was written in Akkadian, the daily language of Babylon, and could therefore be read by any literate person in the city.
• The structure of the code is very specific, with each offense receiving a specified punishment. The punishments tended to be harsh by modern standards, with many offenses resulting in death, disfigurement, or the use of the "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth" (Lex Talionis "Law of Retaliation") philosophy.
• Putting the laws into writing was important in itself because it suggested that the laws were immutable and above the power of any earthly king to change.
• The code is also one of the earliest examples of the idea of presumption of innocence. Moreover, it suggests that the plaintiff and the defendant have the liberty to provide evidence. However, there is no provision for extenuating circumstances to alter the codified punishments.
• Similar codes of law were created in several nearby civilizations, including the earlier neo-Sumerian example of Ur-Nammu's code, and the later Hittite code of laws.
• This event parallels and precedes the divine laws given to Moses in the 13th century for the ancient Hebrews.

Today's World Religions recorded between 1,500 BCE and 700 CE.

Until about 10,000 years ago, before learning to domesticate plants and animals, humans subsisted in small groups. Their curiosity was satisfied with mythologies and animistic as well as polytheistic beliefs as told by their usually part-time shaman, witchdoctor or medicine man. Later, as we have seen, civilization made possible by agriculture facilitated larger communities, the division of labor, and eventually full-time rulers. Moreover, surplus wealth made it possible that the earlier part-time spiritualists were replaced with full-time priests within organized religions. For an account of this development see From Origins to Organized Religion, The Most Influential World Religions, and the Relatedness of World Religions.

6. The Iron Age 1,000 BCE

Most of Europe, Africa and Asia reached this phase of development by 2,500 years ago, but its actual date and context vary widely depending on the country or geographical region. The Iron Age was distinguished by:

·       Making steel tools, farm implements, and weapons. Steel is an alloy consisting mostly of iron with a carbon content between 0.02% and 1.7% by weight. The carbon makes for a finer grain and results in a higher hardness. Steel weapons and tools were vastly superior and more cost effective than those made out of bronze.

·       Increased productivity, output per worker's hour, of making steel tools and weapons changed people's culture. More people could own metal ploughs and farm their fields better thus increasing crop yields that in turn would allow more permanent and larger communities.

·       Steel weapons that were superior and a society that had this technology could equip the many and successfully conquer others. This set off a series of large-scale movements of peoples that did not end for 2,000 years and that changed the geography of Europe and Asia. The cry for peace, then, was expressed with the demand to "turn swords into ploughshares."

The Perfection of the Alphabet by the Greeks

The Sumerian writings, or those of this larger area, probably found their way into Egypt were they were further developed. Later the Phoenicians (living then in today's Lebanon) simplified Egyptian writing, and it is their alphabet that found its way into Greece where it was perfected. Between ca. 1000-900 BCE, the Greeks added vowels to the existing consonants. There was then an accurate writing system for the large Indo-European language family* of which Greek, German, and English** are a part:

• All the sounds of a language, its entire phonological structure, can be represented by this writing system.
• It could convey subtle differences in meaning and its explicitness allows a relative sharp distinction between deciphering and interpreting.
• Syllables, the smallest pronounceable segment of speech, can be analyzed into their distinctive underlying constituents, consonants and vowels.
• The syllable pa, for instance, is generated by passing a volume of air through the vocal chords, an action that constitutes the vocalic element, restrained at the outset by sudden release of air through the lips. It is this action that constitutes the consonantal element.
• The efficiency of representation comes from the fact that a large number of syllables can be generated from a small set of these constituents. An alphabet consisting of 21 consonants and five vowels can generate 210 simple consonant-vowel, vowel-consonant syllables. By varying the place of the consonants, e.g., front to back, more than 2,000 consonant-vowel-consonant syllables may be formed. In short, an alphabet can represent a full range of phonological differences.

*This system is not very practical for Asian languages such as Chinese and Japanese because they have a great number of homophones. The Chinese developed a more suitable writing system at about the same time that is still in use in Asian countries. Almost all known writing systems of the world today are ultimately descended from writing developed either in Sumer or in China. Notable exceptions include the Mayan hieroglyphs of Mesoamerica that developed from ca. the 3rd century BCE.

**For English, the differentiation of all the 26 letters of the alphabet was completed in the 19th century CE.

C.        Greece, the Cradle of Western Civilization 900-200 BCE

                           The Birth of Science, Philosophy, and Democracy

The Greek Dark Ages (ca. 1100 BC–800 BCE) refer to the presumed Dorian invasion and the end of the Mycenaean civilization in the 11th century BCE. This period came to an end with the formation of the first Greek city-states in the 9th century BCE. The league of city states that made up Greece were conquered by Rome over a 60-year period beginning at the end of the second Punic War (the war against Hannibal) in 201 BCE. This marked the beginning of a deep Roman involvement in Greece and the eastern Hellenistic world as well as a strong Greek influence on Roman culture. See The Origins of Western Civilization below for the foundational contributions of the Greek culture to civilize the world.

D.   The Roman Republic and the Roman Empire 509 BCE—476 CE 

Until the arrival of the European Middle Ages that got under way with the removal of the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire in 476, Western culture had peaked with the Greco-Roman civilizations. For an account of the Roman State’s contribution to Western civilization, see The Origins of Western Civilization.

E.     The Middle Ages Dominated by Religion 5th to 15th Century

             The Alliance of Throne and Altar and the Imprisonment of Thought

At least one thousand years of intellectual and material progress lost to the self-serving ideologies of state and church. For millions of people in the past, and for billions more in the future, the loss of medical progress alone was or will be the cause of unnecessary suffering and premature death often after an unnecessarily menial and beggarly life caused by the same ideologies.

While this era made a few worthy contributions to Western civilization (see The Origins of Western Civilization), much of the Middle Ages were periods of cultural, intellectual, and moral decadence and regression in Europe that resulted in barbarity and intellectual darkness. Most historians assert that it started in 476 with the official dissolution of the Western Roman Empire when its last emperor was disposed. However, the fall of the empire for various reasons was accelerated and in part caused by the rise of Christianity that started in 313 with the edict of Milan. With this declaration, Emperor Constantine I put an end to institutionalized discrimination, persecution, and sometimes execution of Christians in the Roman Empire. This was the starting point of the meteoric rise of the Roman Catholic Church that eventually replaced the Western Roman Empire as the only universal European institution. For an account of this rise to power see "Institutionalized Christianity and the Monopolized Jesus" in Origins and Growth of Christianity.

After the dissolution of the Roman Empire:

For a more detailed account and substantiation of claims concerning Christianity, see the chapter on Origins and Growth of Christianity.

• Matters of this world were neglected because administrative positions were filled with Christians who believed the end of the world was near. Hence, many of the accomplishments of the Roman Empire, such as a relatively efficient agriculture, extensive road networks, water-supply systems, and shipping routes, decayed substantially. The same calamity befell artistic and scholarly work. Some learning and scholarly work continued in monasteries, but was closely watched by Church authorities. Also, libraries were burned and the last philosophical school was closed circa 550. However, the works of the major Greek philosophers were preserved in the Islamic world. 
• Religious toleration, which had flourished everywhere in the Roman Empire, was completely abolished. From the beginning in the 5^th century, all other religions, including deviating Christian faiths, were exterminated if necessary with the sword, for instance, in the crusades and the inquisition. Even the reading of the newly compiled Bible was under the threat of eternal damnation forbidden for all of the laity and the lower rank clergy. This prohibition was removed only in 1966.
• The Church in collaboration with rulers promoted for mutual benefit the idea of Europe as one large church-state, called Christendom.
• Christendom was thought to consist of two cooperating major powers, the Roman Church's hierarchy controlling the minds of the many through their version of Christianity and the nobility controlling the fruits of people's labor.
• The altar and the throne supported each other for total domination of all aspects of life. The Church instilled docility when it preached obedience to the God-appointed nobility and itself, and the nobility enforced the Roman Catholic religion when necessary by the sword. For details see "Actualized Christianity--Pernicious Pursuits in the Name of Jesus" in Origins and Growth of Christianity
• In reality, however, the Church and the nobility, all motivated by greed, were constantly disagreeing and openly warring with each other for power, profit, privileges, and prestige. The secular rulers often tried to regulate church activities by claiming the right to appoint church officials and to intervene in doctrinal matters. The Church, in turn, not only owned cities and armies but often attempted to regulate affairs of state.

The Roman Church reached another low with the Renaissance papacy that would spark the Reformation and eventually reduce the stranglehold the Church had on the European mind. The historian Barbara Tuchman (1912-1989) points out: 

Over a period of sixty years, from roughly 1470 to 1530, the secular spirit of the age was exemplified in a succession of six popes . . . who carried it to an excess of venality, amorality, avarice, and spectacularly calamitous power politics. Their governance dismayed the faithful, brought the Holy See into disrepute, left unanswered the cry for reform, ignored all protests, warnings, and signs of rising revolt, and ended by breaking apart the unity of [Western] Christendom and losing half the papal constituency to the Protestant secession . . . The abuse of these six popes were not born full blown from the high Renaissance. Rather they were a crown of folly upon habits of papal government that had developed over the previous 150 years.

    The domination of the European mind and the imprisonment of thought were still further reduced in the 17th century with the Age of Reason that continued into the 18th century with the Enlightenment. For details see The Age of Enlightenment. However, this liberation has not yet eliminated many harmful ideas from this dark period as demonstrated by numerous calamitous practices that are still with us. For a description see  Egregious Errors in Religions, Abuse of Childrenin Religions, and Hatred of Women in Religions. It follows that the Enlightenment project or culture war, the battle for the quality of life determining values and ultimate belief between the remnants of the Middle Ages and the Modern Era is far from over. The hope is for the secular state in its own right, which is independent of any church or community of believers.

F. The Factors that Produced Modernity 16^th Century to the Present

            Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.

                                                                                  George Orwell (1903-1950)

Introduction

1. The Renaissance

2. The Age of Discovery and Exploration

3. The Reformation and Counterreformation

4. The Age of Enlightenment

5. Political Revolutions

6. The Scientific Revolution

7. Key Inventions

8. The Industrial Revolution

9. The Rapid Rise of Productivity

10. Universal Education and Secularization

11. The Formation of Nation States

12. The Post-Industrial Society

13. Globalization

Introduction

The modern era, modern society, or industrial civilization began with the Renaissance, the Age of Discovery, and the printing press in the 15th century. After the Reformation in the 16th century, it moved through a crucial stage with the mind-liberating/enabling Enlightenment and the material-progress-bringing industrial revolution beginning in the 18th century. It reached a high point with "The Charter of the UN" and computer-internet technology towards the end of the twentieth century.

     In this text, the terms “modernity” or the “modern era” encompass the large-scale development of cultures, societies, or states that drastically changed their material condition and their worldview from a primarily religious or other-worldly orientation to a more secular or this-worldly one. Thus, this still ongoing evolution or revolution affected humanity like no other development before.

     For the most part, this progress has been almost universal in terms of "hard culture," science, technology, engineering, health care, and material goods (housing, cars, appliances, television, means of communication, etc.). Far from universal, however, and dangerously so, is "soft culture," the tenets that determine the social, moral, intellectual, and ultimate belief realms. Although universal standards such as the UN: Global Human Rights Norms exist, they lack implementation for the most part. Instead, dominant are religious, political, and educational ideologies that are governed by "might makes right" and "the ends justify the means." For details see Antisocial Minds and Their Means.

     Most unfortunately, modernity has also allowed for developments that threaten to destroy our home Planet Earth together with its life forms. For details see Weapons of Mass Destruction and Overpopulation and the Environment. 

1. The Renaissance was the great "rebirth" of art, literature, and learning in Europe in the 15th and 16th century based on classical Greco-Roman sources. However, it must be noted that the high culture of the classical era had remained a minority experience. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread gradually to other countries and marked the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era.

     The Renaissance gave rise to humanism, that is, thinking and action based on the nature, interests, and ideals of humanity. Humanist scholars reconstructed the past in order better to understand themselves and their own time. Early humanism developed into today's Democratic Secular Humanism, which is a modern, non-theistic, rationalist movement that holds that humanity is capable of self-fulfillment, ethical conduct, etc. without recourse to supernaturalism. This way of looking at the world gave reason and facts free play and would thus facilitate the scientific, political, and industrial revolutions that would take place soon after.

• The Renaissance scholars, known as humanists, were engaged in a revival of classical learning and culture from the ancient Greek and Roman world that formed their guiding ideals. This rebirth (renaisance) came after a thousand-year period of much darkness and ignorance known as the Middle Ages. Among the most influential Renaissance humanist were the Italian philosopher Pico della Mirandola who asserted in his work Oration to the Dignity of Man (1496) the radical notion that dignity is not the exclusive property of God, the English statesman Thomas Moore whose book Utopia (1516) reintroduced Plato's idea of a perfect human government, and the Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1466?-1536) whose critique of the Roman Catholic Church helped lay the groundwork for the Reformation. 
• Mystical experiences were gradually thought of as unworldly, irrational, private, and un-authoritative. Lacking objective proof or verification, they were at best binding to the meditating mysterian only.
• The word humanism comes from the studies of humanity (studia humanitatis). Starting in the Renaissance with Greek and Latin texts from antiquity, there was a renewed interest in studies that emphasized the importance of man, his faculties, affairs, worldly aspirations, and well-being. The primacy of theology and otherworldliness was over because it reduced everything to theological arguments (reductio artium ad theologiam). It was rejected because much of it defied reason and observation; hence, it was an impediment to the development of the modern era.
• In the European Middle Ages, a person's priest was his connection to God. And these clerics promoted thinking in terms other-worldliness. Religiosity led often to the neglect of human affairs and concentrated on God and the afterlife. As a reaction to this life-and-body-despising disposition, secularism--this-worldly-ism--at the time of the Renaissance, manifested itself in the development of humanism, when people began to show more interest in human cultural achievements and the possibilities of their fulfillment in this world.
• The search for a new methodology and a new relation with the ancient world was bitterly opposed by the traditionalists, who did not want renewal that would bring about a profound transformation of society and an end to their undeserved privileges. However, the humanists did not have the means to extend education to the masses. Instead, they used the top-down approach by teaching the sons of nobility and rich inhabitants (burghers) of towns and boroughs.
• During this period, society had been profoundly transformed, commerce and banking had expanded, and life in the cities had evolved. Economic and political power, previously in the hands of the priestly hierarchy and the nobility, was beginning to be taken over by the city burghers. Use of the vernacular languages was becoming widespread, and the Bible was translated and printed. This event, for instance, set a standard for the German and English language.

2. The Age of Discovery and Exploration

The Age of Discovery was a period from the early 15th century and continuing into the early 17th century, during which European ships traveled around the globe in search of new lands for colonization, new trading routes and partners to benefit a rapidly developing Europe. Trading goods such as gold, silver and spices would stimulate the European economies and increase the money supply. Europeans encountered previously unknown people and their cultures. Among the most famous explorers of the period were Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Bartholomeu Dias, Ferdinand Magellan, and Captain James Cook.

     Rooted in new technologies that grew out of the Renaissance, the age of exploration used its advances in cartography, navigation, firepower and shipbuilding. Many people wanted to find a route to Asia through the west of Europe. The most important development was the invention of first the carrack and then caravel in Portugal. These vessels evolved from medieval European designs with a fruitful combination of Mediterranean and North Sea designs and the addition of some Arabic elements. They were the first ships that could leave the relatively placid and calm Mediterranean and sail safely on the open Atlantic.

     One of the unfortunate byproducts of colonization was the destruction of native cultures and often their people in the process of conquest and Christianization of the Roman Catholic version. For a closer description see: "Enslaving, Colonizing, Proselytizing in the Name of Christianity" in the chapter Origins and Growth of Christianity.

 3. The Protestant Reformation

The Reformation was sparked by Luther and driven by the princes to repossess Church property and reduce Church influence and power. It was the beginning of freeing the mind from its Middle Age imprisonment. For an account see "The Reformation and Counter-Reformation" in "Actualized Christianity--Pernicious Pursuits in the Name of Jesus" in Origins and Growth of Christianity. 

4. The Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Reason and Enlightenment was a 17th- to 19th- century mainly French, English, U.S., and German philosophical movement characterized by an emphasis on humanitarian political goals and social progress through a reliance on reason and experience rather than mysticism, revelation, dogma, customs, and tradition. The men of the Enlightenment defined themselves as "modern," and were the first to explore in detail what it meant.

     They used a critical approach to religious, social, and philosophical matters that sought to repudiate beliefs or systems not based on or justifiable by observation and reason. Its scholars demanded that the reasoning faculty should discover truth and shape society. For a more detailed description see The Age of Enlightenment.

5. Political Revolutions

These events:

• Led to the formation of the first constitution-based republics founded on modern political theories such as individual and national self-determination and other tenets out of the Age of Enlightenment. And in turn,
• These republics paved the way for institutions of representative democracy, voting rights for all, equal rights, universal education, and universal health care in all industrialized countries except the United States. Universal education yielded mass literacy and facilitated the first mass media in print. And,
• This democratization, together with a later industrialization, would yield for employees better working conditions, fairer wages, more benefits and rights, and even job security in some cases. In addition to these revolutions,
• The horrors of World War I (1914-18) and World War II (1939-45) would motivate the formation of "The Charter of the UN" (1948) and its "Global Human Rights Norms."

The American Revolution (1763-1775) consisted of actions by American colonists protesting British domination. It culminated into a successful war for independence by the American colonies (1775-83). From there on, it was widely accepted that only those states were legitimate in which people of a common culture, though diversified, ruled for themselves a common territory. 

The French Revolution (1789-99), encouraged by the American revolution and its ideals, was an uprising of the people against the oppressive monarchy in France: it began in 1789, resulted in the establishment of a republic, and ended in 1799 with the Consulate under Napoleon. Napoleon introduced new codes of law in Europe based on merit and achievement, rather than on inherited privilege as in the European Feudalism of the Middle Ages.
Central and South American wars of independence (early in the 19th century)--Encouraged by the American and French revolutions, this region's nations won their freedom from their Spanish and Portuguese colonial masters. 

The Russian Revolution (1917) toppled the government of the Czar and consisted of two distinct uprisings. The first (February Revolution) yielded power to a parliamentarian government headed by Kerensky. The second (October Revolution) replaced this government with the Soviet government led by the Bolsheviks (Communists) under Lenin.

     It yielded the first large socialist country that would be the example for many more like it in years to follow. Russia developed under this form of government rapidly from a mainly agrarian country into an industrial one. Although at great cost in terms of human suffering, it would soon be one of the great world powers. In recent times, Russia has moved toward a more democratic government.

6. The Scientific Revolution

1. The Heliocentric, "Sun-Centered," System--Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), a Polish astronomer, proposed that the planets have the Sun as a fixed point that governs their motions. And the Earth is just another planet, which besides orbiting the Sun annually, also turns once daily on its own axis.
2. Anatomical Research--Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) published On the Fabric of the Human Body (De Humani Corporis Fabrica) (1543), which discredited the views of Galen (130?-200? CE). He found that the circulation of blood resolved from pumping of the heart. He also assembled the first human skeleton from cutting open cadavers.
3. The Empirical Method--Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was English and a true Renaissance man, meaning, well-versed in many fields of knowledge. He claimed "Knowledge is power" and "I have taken all knowledge to be my province." He is often mentioned as the father of empiricism (empirical induction) and of experimentation in science. Rather than beginning with assumed first principles from which logical conclusions could be deducted, he emphasized that from organized experiments and careful observation correct generalizations could be formed. Although this honor belongs probably to Galileo, he nevertheless was most influential in promoting the idea that human knowledge should produce useful results--deeds rather than words. In particular, knowledge of nature should be brought to the aid of the human condition.
4. Modern Physics, Mechanics and Astronomy--Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) opened the door to an entirely new scientific world. According to Stephen Hawking, Galileo probably bears more of the responsibility for the birth of modern science than anybody else, [15] and Albert Einstein called him the father of modern science.

(1) He used quantitative experiments whose results could be analyzed with mathematical precision, that is, he practiced the proper relationship between mathematics, theoretical physics, and experimental physics.

(2) He is the father of the experimental, or scientific, method because he devised critical experiments that forced conviction even though the results contradicted earlier authorities.  

(3) He studied the motions of falling bodies and, in contradiction to Aristotle's claim, found that heavy bodies fall at exactly the same speeds as lighter ones when air friction is discounted. He also studied accelerated motion by rolling balls down inclined planes. His experiments laid the foundation for modern mechanics. To accurately time his experiments, he then invented a simple pendulum for measuring time. This was a great improvement over the sand and water clocks then in use.

(4) He opened up the heavens for study when he was the first to make telescopes so he could look at stars and other planets. He discovered that the Milky Way is made of many tiny stars, that the moon has hills, and that Jupiter has at least four moons.

5. The Laws of Planetary Motion--Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) a German astronomer discovered these laws known as “Kepler's laws”: (1) The path of every planet in its motion about the sun forms an ellipse, with the sun at one focus. (2) The speed of a planet in its orbit varies so that a line joining it with the sun sweeps over equal areas in equal times. (3) The squares of the planets' periods of revolution are proportional to the cubes of the planets' mean distances from the sun. These laws removed all doubt that the Earth and planets go around the sun. This laid the groundwork for Newton's law of universal gravitation (see below).
6. Analytic Geometry--René Descartes (1596-1650) was a French mathematician and philosopher who combined algebra, invented by the Arabs, with plane geometry, as stated by the Greek Euclid in ca. 300 BCE. Descartes’ system is also known as coordinate geometry and makes visible, using points, lines, and curves, the numerical relationships of algebraic equations. This laid the groundwork for the development of the calculus (see below).
7. Physiology, the Study of Body Functions--William Harvey (1578-1657) This English physician established the foundations of this science. It began with his dissecting many creatures, including humans, when he discovered the nature of blood circulation and the function of the heart as a pump. Before his discoveries blood was thought to ebb and flow through the body by the contraction of arteries.
8. Powerful Single Lens Microscopes--Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) was the first to construct these instruments and make extensive observations that he published around 1660, opening up the micro-world of biology.
9. Integral and Differential Calculus--was simultaneously invented by Leibnitz (1646-1716) and Newton (1642-1727), though the German Leibnitz published his work 16 years earlier. Integral calculus deals with finding volumes, areas, equations of curves, solutions of differential equations, etc. Differential calculus deals with differentials and derivatives and their application. A derivative is the limiting value of a rate of change of a function with respect to a variable; the instantaneous rate of change, or slope, of a function. It is comparable to calculating the slope of a line in Descartes' coordinate geometry.
10. The Universal Laws of Gravitation--Isaak Newton (1642-1727) was an English mathematician and natural philosopher (all the sciences were then called natural philosophy). He formulated the laws of gravity and motion, thus explaining, among other things, the rising and falling of the planets around the sun and that of the moon around Earth. As Newton's theory of universal gravitation became increasingly accepted, so, too, was Bacon's or Galileo's empirical method which Newton had practiced.
11. The Chemical Sciences then called Chemical Philosophy evolved out of alchemy and became an increasingly important aspect of scientific thought in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The importance of chemistry is indicated by the range of important scholars who actively engaged in chemical research. Among them were the astronomer Tycho Brahe, the chemical physician Paracelsus, and the English scientists Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton. Chemistry, it would eventually be discovered, is the interaction of atoms, which in turn is the life force.
12. Malthusian Population Theory--Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) was an English economist and demographer who is best known for his theory that population growth will always tend to outrun the food supply and that betterment of humankind is impossible without stern limits on reproduction. Population growth tends to occur by unrestricted reproduction, while growth in agricultural output is restricted by the limited availability of productive land. For example, in the Bible, the fertility of their females and the sterility of their soil caused the Hebrews to look for greener pastures, the Promised Land.
13.  The Principles of Geology--Charles Lyell (1797-1875). Early in the 19th century, this Englishman devised the theories, methods, and principles on which the modern science of geology is based. He proved among other things that all features of the Earth's surface were produced by natural forces operating for long times. His strong arguments that the Earth's crust was the product of thousands of millions of years of activity did away with the need for unscientific explanations based on the Biblical record or on intermittent natural catastrophes. His accomplishments in geology also laid the foundations for evolutionary biology, a field that was to be more fully developed by his friend Charles Darwin who acknowledged Lyell's work.
14. The Theory of Evolution--Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Darwin was aware of Malthusian Population Theory and Lyell's Principles of Geology (see above). This helped him in discovering and supporting that biological evolution is driven by "Decent with Modification and Natural Selection." M. T. Riley summed up Darwin's major ideas:

·         Species are related to each other by descent, with the changes from their common ancestors being caused by the survival and reproduction of advantageous genetic variants.

·         Overpopulation and the resulting shortage of food create the pressure that causes organisms that have advantageous genetic variants to produce a greater number of surviving offspring than those who do not have these variants.

·         Man and apes are descended from a common primate ancestor.

·         Secondary sexual characteristics have evolved as part of a complex set of reproductive behaviors.

For an updated version of Darwin's discovery see "What is the evolutionary science of Neo-Darwinism?” in The Evolution of Life.

7. Key Inventions

Today's technology or "hard culture" was the result of these creations. It started with the printing press in the 15th century. The steam engine and subsequent power generating machinery replaced the horse, ox, and even humans as "beasts of burden." They changed the way we travel when they powered ships, trains, cars, and eventually planes. Raw goods could now be transported in huge quantities over vast distances. Products could be manufactured quickly with power driven equipment, marketed all over the world. The industrialized countries starting with Britain and later the U.S., Europe and Japan, used these efficient transportation systems to become economic powerhouses.

More recent inventions are based on scientific discoveries. Electricity, the modern slave, made possible changes in lifestyles through the invention of a multitude of devices powered by it: the light bulb and its improvements, the telephone, radio, X-rays, electron microscopes, television, washing machines and other household appliances. The non-renewable fossil-fuel-driven generation of electricity will have to be replaced with renewable energy such as solar and wind generated power. 

Most recently, the internet, satellite technology, and the cell phone have changed the way we communicate. Discoveries of disinfecting materials, such as chlorine, was a major contributor to almost doubling the life expectancy when compared to the early 19th century. Moreover, antibiotics such as penicillin brought new ways of combating diseases. Surgery and various medications made further progress in medical care, hospitals, and nursing.

8. The Industrial Revolution

By industrial revolution is meant the rapid development of enterprises, the factory system etc. that produce goods and services. In manufacturing, for instance, raw materials such as cotton, wood, minerals, etc. are converted into goods and then marketed. A nation's wealth is largely dependent on its industry and its efficiency in producing surplus wealth that not only facilitates a high stage of social and cultural development, but also increases the material wealth of the many.

   This revolution was initiated by mechanical automation of the manufacture of cotton cloth and the use of steam engines that commenced in the 18th century in Great Britain. It was followed in the 19th century by a later series of developments, which saw advanced systems of power generation, transportation and communication introduced in the form of steamships, railroads and the telegraph (see "Key Inventions" above).

     In the late 19th century, a Second Industrial Revolution, prompted by developments in the chemical, petroleum, steel and electrical industries, further transformed the modern era. 

9. The Rapid Rise of Productivity

The life chances of a people, their standard of living and quality of life, depends largely on the productivity of a nation's industrial, agricultural, and service sector. And productivity generates surplus wealth, which is defined as abundance above the subsistence level. And it is the just distribution of this surplus that raises the comforts in everyday life enjoyed by a community, class, or individual.

     Productivity is an indicator as to how efficiently things, goods and services, are produced. It is usually measured as the ratio of output to input. For instance, how many goods one worker can produce in one hour, or how much of a crop can be harvested from a parcel of land, or how many farmers it takes to feed the rest of a nation.

     There has been a 20-fold increase in workers’ productivity in the United States since 1880. While increases in productivity have slowed down in the U.S., there was still a quadrupling in the last fifty years through mechanization, automation, computerization, etc. However, median family incomes have not increased proportionately. Instead, productivity gains under the capitalist system go largely to those who own the means of production, financial services, etc. Worldwide, at present (2008), some 600 multi-billionaires have as much wealth as over 50% of the world's bottom half, that is 600 have as much as 3 billion (3,000,000,000) of their fellow earthlings.

     Crop yields increased a thousand fold, with the help of the plow and draft animals, when agriculture was invented some 12,000 years ago. However, farming was still very labor intensive so that in the U.S. as little as 150 years ago it took 60% of the population to feed the rest. Today, on account of mechanization and the consolidation of larger parcels, it takes only 1% of the population living on farms to feed the rest. 

10. Universal Education and Secularization

Industrialization and gains in productivity provided the free time and economic means for universal public education. Education is necessary because a modern nation is only as strong as its citizens. Moreover, a country's industry and government needs skilled or at least trainable individuals, and a functioning democracy needs informed citizens.

     However, with modernity, and facilitated by education and mass literacy, comes secularization and a perceived loss of human self-esteem from what Max Weber called "the disenchantment of the world." As Weber's phrase indicates, the scientific revolution and the enlightenment is not seen by many as a process of liberation from the chains of superstition, tradition, and muddled thinking. Instead, for those who share Weber’s observation, science has robbed humanity of its elevated status in the cosmic scheme:

1. Copernican astronomy that removed the earth from the center of the universe. 
2. Darwinian evolutionary theory reduced man’s status from specially created to just another animal that had evolved like, and from, other animals.
3. To exacerbate the humiliation, Nietzsche's and Freud's depth psychology concluded that man was a sick animal deprived of his real nature by civilization and cursed with the foreknowledge of his ultimate non-existence. 
4. Moreover, the study of history discovered the relativity of religious and many other cultural values, that is, one is as true or false as another.

To summarize--Real as religious phenomena may be in the life of believers, it has lost its importance as a central organizing idea for society as a whole and was replaced by reason and science. Secularization through scientific explanation challenged theology, religion and metaphysics. The triumph of science seemed to make them obsolete and superfluous in the spheres of modern life and government. Although, still important in ultimate belief formation, religion is increasingly an individualized activity that is removed from organized religion and from the public square. 

11. The Formation of Nation States

As commonly defined in political science literature: "A nation state is a specific form of state, which exists to provide a sovereign territory for a particular nation, and which derives its legitimacy from that function. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity."

     Because religion was closely associated with the state, the Protestant Reformation led to many bloody wars. For details see "The Reformation and Counter-Reformation (1517-1648)" in "Actualized Christianity--Pernicious Pursuits in the Name of Jesus" in Origins and Growth of Christianity. One of the conflicts was the Thirty Years' War that ended with the agreement known as the 1648 Peace of Westphalia which established the modern international system of independent nation states and their diplomatic relations:

·         It nullified the idea that the Holy Roman Empire has secular dominion over the entire Christian world.

·         It granted that the nation-state would be the highest level of government, subservient to no others. This included the sovereignty of states and the fundamental right of political self determination.

·         It established the principle of legal equality between states.

·         It stated the principle of non-intervention of one state in the internal affairs of another state.

·         Its principles of tolerance allowed Catholic and Protestant factions to cooperate and go to war for reasons of state and not for reasons of religion.

Today:

The relationship between nation states is codified by the The Charter of the UN. 

The basic rights of people are codified by the United Nations Global Human Rights Norms.  

12. The Post-Industrial Society

Scientists have used the theory of evolution to analyze various trends and to predict the future development of societies. These scientists have created the theories of postindustrial societies, arguing that the current era of the industrial dominated society is coming to an end, and services and information are becoming more important than industry and goods.

     In 1974 Daniel Bell, author of The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, introduced the concept of postindustrial society. Like many more classical evolutionists, he divided the history of humanity into three eras: pre-industrial, industrial and postindustrial. He predicted that by the end of the 20th century, United States, Japan and Western Europe would reach the postindustrial stage. This would be visible by:

• domination of the service sector (administration, banking, trade, transport, healthcare, education, science, mass media, culture) over the traditional industry sector (manufacturing industries, which have surpassed the more traditional, agriculture and mining sector after the 19th-century Industrial Revolution);
• growing importance of information technologies;
• increased role of long-term planning, modeling future trends;
• domination of technocracy and pragmatism over traditional ethics and ideologies;
  increasing importance and use of technology and intellect;
• changes in the traditional hierarchy of social classes, with highly educated specialists and scientists overtaking the traditional bourgeois;

13. Globalization

Many theorists argue that the entire world has already become integrated into a single "world system," a process known as globalization. It is driven by the advantages globalization has to offer to powerful players for profit and power. Another force, some claim, is European neocolonialism and America's desire to spread its ideology of capitalism. The benefits for the masses are there too but appear to be byproducts rather than planned, intended objectives. Nevertheless, as a result, different civilizations and societies all over the globe are economically, politically, and even culturally interdependent in many ways. However, while technology and its implementation has been almost universal, the same cannot be said for the thinking that determines interests and values for individual and societies.

     As already noted in the Introduction to this section, globalization has been almost universal in terms of "hard culture," science, technology, engineering, health care, and material goods (housing, cars, appliances, television, means of communication, etc.). Far from universal, however, and dangerously so, is "soft culture," the tenets that determine the social, moral, intellectual, and ultimate belief realm. Although universal ethical standards such as the "UN: Global Human Rights Norms" exist, they lack implementation for the most part. Their enforcement would still allow for a variety of cultures and their particular religions. Instead, dominant are religious, political, and educational ideologies that are governed by "might makes right" and "the ends justify the means."