Remaking the World

Some years are recognized as watersheds in the history of a culture or civilization. I found Andrew Wilson's pinpointing of 1776 as such a year with respect to Western civilization remarkable, as---like most Americans---I associated that year solely with the American Revolution. That was certainly an important event and a turning point in Western history, but as Wilson brought out, it did not have its effects in isolation; it coincided with major developments in philosophy (the Enlightenment, the Romantic movement, and the rise of post-Christian thinking) and economics (globalization, the Industrial Revolution, and the rapid increase in wealth, particularly in… show more.