Western world

Several terms redirect here. For other uses, see Westerners (Korea), Western United States, and Western States Endurance Run. For other uses, see Western World (disambiguation) and Western Power (disambiguation).

The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and states in Western Europe,[a] Northern America, and Australasia;[b] with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America[c] also constitute the West.[3][4] The Western world likewise is called the Occident (from Latin occidens 'setting down, sunset, west') in contrast to the Eastern world known as the Orient (from Latin oriens 'origin, sunrise, east'). Definitions of the "Western world" vary according to context and perspectives; the West is an evolving concept made up of cultural, political, and economic synergy among diverse groups of people, and not a rigid region with fixed borders and members.[5]

Some historians contend that a linear development of the West can be traced from Ancient Greece and Rome,[6] while others argue that such a projection constructs a false genealogy.[7][8] A geographical concept of the West started to take shape in the 4th century CE when Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor, divided the Roman Empire between the Greek East and Latin West. The East Roman Empire, later called the Byzantine Empire, continued for a millennium, while the West Roman Empire lasted for only about a century and a half. Significant theological and ecclesiastical differences led Western Europeans to consider the Christians in the Byzantine Empire as heretics. In 1054 CE, when the church in Rome excommunicated the patriarch of Byzantium, the politico-religious division between the Western church and Eastern church culminated in the Great Schism or the East–West Schism.[9] Even though friendly relations continued between the two parts of Christendom for some time, the crusades made the schism definitive with hostility.[10] The West during these crusades tried to capture trade routes to the East and failed, it instead discovered the Americas.[11] In the aftermath of the European colonization of the Americas, primarily involving Western European powers, an idea of the "Western" world, as an inheritor of Latin Christendom emerged.[12] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest reference to the term "Western world" was from 1586, found in the writings of William Warner.[13]

The countries that are considered constituents of the West vary according to perspective rather than their geographical location. Countries like Australia and New Zealand, located in the Eastern Hemisphere are included in modern definitions of the Western world, as these regions and others like them have been significantly influenced by the British—derived from colonization, and immigration of Europeans—factors that grounded such countries to the West.[14] Depending on the context and the historical period in question, Russia was sometimes seen as a part of the West, and at other times juxtaposed with it, as well as endorsing anti-Western sentiment.[15][16][17] The United States became more prominently featured in the conceptualizations of the West as it rose as a great power, amidst the development of communication–transportation technologies like the telegraph and railroads "shrinking" the distance between both the Atlantic Ocean shores.[15]

At some times between the 18th century and the mid-20th century, prominent countries in the West such as the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand have been envisioned by some as ethnocracies for Whites.[18][19][20] Racism is claimed as a contributing factor to Western European colonization of the New World, which today constitutes much of the geographical Western world and is split between Global North and Global South.[21][22] Starting from the late 1960s, certain parts of the Western world have become notable for their diversity due to immigration and changes in fertility rates.[23][24] The idea of "the West" over the course of time has evolved from a directional concept to a socio-political concept—temporalized and rendered as a concept of the future bestowed with notions of progress and modernity.[15]

  1. ^ "The World of Civilizations: Post 1990". Archived from the original on 12 March 2007.
  2. ^ Espinosa, Emilio Lamo de (4 December 2017). "Is Latin America part of the West?" (PDF). Elcano Royal Institute. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 April 2019.
  3. ^ Stearns, Peter N. (2008). Western Civilization in World History. Routledge. pp. 88–95. ISBN 9781134374755.
  4. ^ Espinosa, Emilio Lamo de. "Is Latin America part of the West?". Elcano Royal Institute. Archived from the original on 27 December 2023. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  5. ^ Hunt, Lynn; Martin, Thomas R.; Rosenwein, Barbara H.; Smith, Bonnie G. (2015). The Making of the West: People and Cultures. Bedford/St. Martin's. p. 4. ISBN 978-1457681523. The making of the West depended on cultural, political, and economic interaction among diverse groups. The West remains an evolving concept, not a fixed region with unchanging borders and members.
  6. ^
    • Cartledge, Paul (2002). The Greeks A Portrait of Self and Others. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0191577833. an ancient culture, that of the Greeks — is both a foundation stone of our own (Western) civilization and at the same time in key respects a deeply alien phenomenon.
    • Sharon, Moshe (2004). Studies in Modern Religions, Religious Movements and the Babi-Baha'i Faiths. BRILL Academic Publishers. p. 12. ISBN 978-9004139046. Side by side with Christianity, the classical Greco-Roman world forms the sound foundation of Western civilization.
    • Richard, Carl J. (2010). Why We're All Romans: The Roman Contribution to the Western World. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 978-0742567801. In 1,200 years the tiny village of Rome established a republic, conquered all of the Mediterranean basin and western Europe, lost its republic, and finally, surrendered its empire. In the process the Romans laid the foundation of Western civilization. [...] The pragmatic Romans brought Greek and Hebrew ideas down to earth, modified them, and transmitted them throughout western Europe. [...] Roman law remains the basis for the legal codes of most western European and Latin American countries — Even in English-speaking countries, where common law prevails, Roman law has exerted substantial influence.
    • Grant, Michael (1991). The Founders of the Western World: A History of Greece and Rome. New York : Scribner : Maxwell Macmillan International. ISBN 978-0684193038.
  7. ^ Birken, Lawrence (August 1992). "What Is Western Civilization?". The History Teacher. 25 (4): 451–459. doi:10.2307/494353. JSTOR 494353. Archived from the original on 11 July 2023. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  8. ^ Appiah, Kwame Anthony (9 November 2016). "There is no such thing as western civilisation". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 8 April 2023.
  9. ^ "East-West Schism". britannica.com. Archived from the original on 29 September 2023.
  10. ^ Ware, Kallistos (1993). The Orthodox Church. Penguin Books. ISBN 9780140146561. But even after 1054 friendly relations between east and west continued. The two parts of Christendom were not yet conscious of a great gulf of separation between them, and people on both sides still hoped that the misunderstandings could be cleared up without too much difficulty. The dispute remained something of which ordinary Christians in east and west were largely unaware. It was the Crusades which made the schism definitive: they introduced a new spirit of hatred and bitterness, and they brought the whole issue down to the popular level.
  11. ^ Durant, Will; Durant, Ariel (2012). The Lessons of History. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781439170199. The Crusades, like the wars of Rome with Persia, were attempts of the West to capture trade routes to the East; the discovery of America was a result of the failure of the Crusades.
  12. ^ Peterson, Paul Silas (2019). The Decline of Established Christianity in the Western World. Routledge. p. 26. ISBN 9780367891381. Archived from the original on 29 January 2023. Retrieved 29 January 2023. While "Western Civilization" is a common theme in the curriculum of secondary and tertiary education, there is a great deal of disagreement about what the terms "West" or "Western" world signify. I have defined it as those "religious traditions, institutions, cultures and nations, including their contemporary shared values, that together emerged as the intellectual descendants and transformers of Latin Christendom." Geographically, this entails Western Europe (including Poland and other central European countries), North America and many other parts of the world that share these traditions and histories, or have adopted them. Much of Central and South America seem to reflect these traditions and values.
  13. ^ "Western world". www.oed.com. 2017. Archived from the original on 20 August 2024. Retrieved 20 August 2024.
  14. ^ Peter N. Stearns, Western Civilization in World History, Themes in World History, Routledge, 2008, ISBN 1134374755, pp. 91–95.
  15. ^ a b c Bavaj, Riccardo (21 November 2011). ""The West": A Conceptual Exploration". academia.edu. Archived from the original on 2 August 2022.
  16. ^ Roberts, Henry L. (March 1964). "Russia and the West: A Comparison and Contrast". Slavic Review. 23 (1): 1–12. doi:10.2307/2492370. JSTOR 2492370. S2CID 153551831. Archived from the original on 27 June 2022. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  17. ^ Alexander Lukin. Russia Between East and West: Perceptions and Reality Archived 13 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine. Brookings Institution. Published on 28 March 2003
  18. ^
    • Pierce, Jason E. (2016). Making the White Man's West: Whiteness and the Creation of the American West. University Press of Colorado. pp. 123–150. ISBN 978-1-60732-396-9. JSTOR j.ctt19jcg63. Anglo-Americans, from Thomas Jefferson at the beginning of the nineteenth century to Joseph Pomeroy Widney at the century's end, envisioned the West as more than an ordinary place. They dreamed of it as home to a rugged, independent, white population.
    • Kaufmann, Eric (2018). Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities. Penguin Books. ISBN 9780241317105. Between 1896 and 1928, the Republicans won seven of nine presidential contests. Immigration restriction was an important part of their platform. [...] Ethno-traditional nationalists favour slower immigration in order to permit enough immigrants to voluntarily assimilate into the ethnic majority, maintaining the white ethno-tradition. [...] rapid immigration of ethnic outsiders raises existential questions for the ethnic majority. In this case, around whether the white majority is losing predominance in 'its' perceived homeland.
    • Kelkar, Kamala (16 September 2017). "How a shifting definition of 'white' helped shape U.S. immigration policy". PBS News. Archived from the original on 13 December 2022. By 1790, a Naturalization Act declared that "all male white inhabitants" would become citizens, a time when the country started enforcing its hierarchy of whiteness. [...] while the concept of whiteness has changed since the 18th century, they say that white nationalism has historically been a motivation behind U.S. immigration policy
    • "Defining Citizenship". National Museum of American History. 9 May 2017. Archived from the original on 19 November 2022. Retrieved 19 December 2022. 1952: Immigration and Nationality Act eliminates race as a bar to immigration or citizenship.
    • Ward, Peter (2002). White Canada Forever. McGill-Queen's University Press - MQUP. ISBN 9780773523227. Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  19. ^
    • Green, James N.; Skidmore, Thomas (2021). Brazil: Five Centuries of Change. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190068981. The whitening thesis called for an influx of white, preferably northern-European, blood in order for Brazilian society to achieve its goals to become an advanced nation. To the chagrin of the thesis' supporters, "nonwhite" immigrants started arriving on Brazilian shores, too.
    • Goñi, Uki (31 May 2021). "Time to challenge Argentina's white European self-image, black history experts say". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 21 December 2022. "The whitening project was a successful endeavor in terms of the erasure of blackness," said Edwards. [...] Argentina's pro-European immigration policy was initiated under its 1853 constitution
  20. ^
    • "The Immigration Restriction Act and the White Australia policy". National Archives of Australia. Archived from the original on 19 December 2022. Retrieved 19 December 2022. The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 was a landmark law which provided the cornerstone of the unofficial 'White Australia' policy and aimed to maintain Australia as a nation populated mainly by white Europeans. It included a dictation test of 50 words in a European language, which became the chief way unwanted migrants could be excluded. The policy remained in place for many decades.
    • "White New Zealand policy introduced | NZHistory, New Zealand history online". nzhistory.govt.nz. Archived from the original on 1 March 2021. Retrieved 8 March 2021. New Zealand's immigration policy in the early 20th century was strongly influenced by racial ideology. The Immigration Restriction Amendment Act 1920 required intending immigrants to apply for a permanent residence permit before they arrived in New Zealand. Permission was given at the discretion of the minister of customs. The Act enabled officials to prevent Indians and other non-white British subjects entering New Zealand.
  21. ^ Cotter, Anne-Marie Mooney (2016). Culture Clash: An International Legal Perspective on Ethnic Discrimination. Routledge. p. 12. ISBN 9781317155867. In the western world, racism evolved, twinned with the doctrine of white supremacy, and helped fuel the European exploration, conquest and colonization of much of the rest of the world.
  22. ^ Jalata, Asafa (2002). Fighting Against the Injustice of the State and Globalization. Springer. p. 40. ISBN 9780312299071. Western world racism inflated the values of "Europeanness" and "Whiteness" in areas of civilization, human worth, and culture, and deflated the values of "African-ness" and "Blackness".
  23. ^ Spielvogel, Jackson J. (2006). Western Civilization. Wadsworth. p. 918. ISBN 9780534646028. Intellectually and culturally, the Western world after 1965 was notable for its diversity and innovation.
  24. ^ Browne, Anthony (3 September 2000). "The last days of a white world". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 18 November 2022. We are near a global watershed - a time when white people will not be in the majority in the developed world — Just 500 years ago, few had ventured outside their European homeland. [...] clearing the way, they settled in North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand and, to a lesser extent, southern Africa. But now, around the world, whites are falling as a proportion of population. ... While the number of whites is virtually static, higher fertility and net immigration means the number from ethnic minorities is growing by 2 to 3 per cent a year.


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