Western Civilization Analysis

The Bronze Age collapse was followed by the Iron Age around 1200 BCE, during which a number of new civilizations emerged, culminating in the Axial Age transition to Classical civilization. A major technological and cultural transition to modernity began approximately 1500 BCE in Western Europe, and from these beginning new approaches to science and law spread rapidly around the world. The English word comes from the 16th century French civilise, from Latin civilis means civil, related to civis means citizen and civitas means city. The fundamental treatise is Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process-1939, which traces social mores from medieval courtly society to the Early Modern period. In The Philosophy of Civilization -1923, Albert

Here, civilization, being more rational and socially driven, is not fully in accord with human nature, and "human wholeness is achievable only through the recovery of or approximation to an original prediscursive or prerational natural unity". From this, a new approach was developed, especially in Germany, first by Johann Gottfried Herder, and later by philosophers such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. This sees cultures as natural organisms, not defined by "conscious, rational, deliberative acts" but a kind of pre-rational “folk spirit”. Civilization, in contrast, though more rational and more successful in material progress, is unnatural and leads to "vices of social life" such as guile, hypocrisy, envy, and avarice. In World War II, Leo Strauss, having fled Germany, argued in New York that this opinion of civilization was behind Nazism and German militarism and nihilism. "Civilization" can also refer to the culture of a complex society, not just the society itself. Every society, civilization or not, has a specific set of ideas and customs, and a certain set of manufactures and arts that make it

Ghosh's latest work of fiction is River of Smoke 2011, the second volume of The Ibis trilogy. The third volume, Flood of Fire, completing the trilogy, has been published 28th May 2015 to positive reviews. Most of his works deals with an historical setting, especially in the context of Indian Ocean world. In an interview with Mahmood Kooria, he said “It was not intentional, but sometimes things are intentional without being intentional”. "Ghosh's notable non-fiction writings are In an Antique Land 1992, Dancing in Cambodia and at Large in Burma 1998, Countdown 1999 and The Imam and the Indian . His writings appear in newspapers and magazines in India and