The Greeks gave us philosophy, maths... The Romans gave us laws as well as Catholicism, which is a Roman-Christian syncretism. The due credit for the basis of Christianity should be given to Judaism through Jesus of Nazareth.
At first the term ‘the West’ was only applied to Europe, but later with the military expansion & colonization of the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa... they became to be called "the West" too. Europe conquered territories in many more geographic areas, but the there were not many European colonists in areas out of the mentioned areas.
In the areas were these colonists established the Greco-Latin culture was instituted as well as the Judeo-Christian religion. Nowadays Christianity is considered often as an European religion despite its west Asian origin. Paradoxically Christianity is losing followers in Europe at great speed while in Black Africa (right now the politically correct term is es Subsaharan Africa) & in Asia millions of converts join the Christian faith.
Jesus Christ said: Give Caesar what is Caesar's & give God what is God's. In other words; the State goes to one side & the Church to the other. This is probably the factor of desafection from Christianity in Europe: the lack of separation between Church & State.
1492 was the year in which we saw oficially an end to Middle Ages with the conquest of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs. Many other remarkable things happened that year: The expulsion of Jews & Muslims who wouldn't accept the Roman Catholic faith. Moreover, that year Christopher Colombus descovered America.
The western world power started with Spain. The Spanish empire was the first world & overseas power & the first of which it was said that the sun never set on its lands. The Spanish empire was followed by other European global empires like the British Portuguese, French, Dutch, & later the Belgian, Italian, or the German. Wherever the Europeans went they brought with them the Bible, the Greek philosophy, the Roman laws, & the Arabic numbers (in reality they came from India) & their languages. Nowadays the most spoken languages are the ones of former empires: Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Spanish, French, English, Portuguese...
The West in general & Europe in particular has dominated almost every square meter of the earth's surfice. The world didn't start decolonizing from Europa in the 1960s of the XX century. The world decolonization started with the independence in 1776 United States of America.
The Founding Fathers of the United States (Franklin, Jefferson…) were, in certain way idealists that believed in a better world, free from monarchic & religious oppresion. They were idealists regarding the constitucional principles they wrote. Nevertheless for example Franklin was practic man &, therefore realist. The utopic American dream became true.
The American Constitution had several influencies, but the most remarkable was probably the Magna Carta that John Lackland's English subjects made him sign. The Magna Carta, together with the french, has been a source of inspirationn for several constitutions all over the globe. Moreover the American independence the shooting sign for decolonization. In the first decades of the XIX century all the continental Spanish colonies in the Americas became independent, as well as Brasil, independicized from Portugal, all of them following the example of the USA. During the rest of the XIX the European possesions of Ottoman empire became independent.
While these great steps for decolonization were taken at the end of the XIX the scramble for Africa was being performed by the European powers.
The first years of the XX century we saw the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Turkish Ottoman empires. This happened as consequence of the First World War.
Mexico suffered a profound social & political change because of its revolution. Another revolution resulted in 1917 provoked the fall Russian empire that became the USSR, but it wasn't anything but an empire even if it was a red one. Lenin came up with the term "jail of the peoples" to refer to the multinational empire of the tsars, but we could apply it to the very Soviet Union.
Further over the Second World War ended. Some countries became independent from the 1910s to the 1950s, but the decolonizing process accelerated especially in the 60s & 70s.
The end of the Second World War in 1949 made a division of the world in two spheres of interest with client states or satellites. The term satellite is just an euphemism to avoid uisng the term colony. In the Pact of Warsow Russian, not English was the language taught. The presidents of Poland, Czekoslovachia… weren't elected by their peoples but, Moscow's finger.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was in great measure the fall of communism since from that eventful year of 1989 &, until the change to the new century, other Communist dictatorships were falling one by one except China (R.P.C.), Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, North Korea & Eritrea. Soviet Union gave birth to a multiplicity of independent states, 15 in total including Russia, the core.
The comunists have been always anti-imperialists, but the truth is that the fall of the USSR was the end of an empire. We can considerate it to be another in the process of decolonization that the West started. The Pact of Warsaw &, in lesse measure a good part of the comunists & Arab socialists, were "willing" members of this empire. Certainly the European comunist leaders didn't take decisions without consulting Moscow, & when they did it the Russian tanks advanced forward as they did in Prague or Budapest.
The soviets were imperialistic as the most. They had a multilayered empire as an onion. The core was the Socialist Federal Republic of Russia, then the other 14 Soviet Republics, then the Pact of warsaw & finally the rest of the communist states & all kind of socialists (Nasser's Egypt, Assad's Syrian, or Saddam's Iraq, among others) & anti-imperialists of all kind.
Apart from it, the USSR or her friends financed all kinds of socialists terrorist groups: ETA (mixed with Basque nationalism), Shining Path, Red Brigades, Baader-Meinhoff, the Japanese Red Army, FARC, ELN, GRAPO, the Mozambican, Angolan, Timorean, Palestinian… guerrillas. The fall of the "Socialist Empire" & her satellites supposed that the greatest part of socialist terrorist groups would give up arms & abandoned marxism. The police pressure has also been important to finish these groups. The breakup of the USSR also provoked as a bouncing effect the division of Czekoslovachia Balkanic wars from the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Central Asia, that until then depended of Moscow, became open to the world, with her considerable amount of gas & oil resources, a New Geat Game for acquiring them started, similar to the one that the tsarist Russia & the British empire played in the XIX century. Central Asia wouldn't be anymore exclusively Russia lead because in this game entered European Union, the USA, China & India in a lesser measure.
If the fall of the Berlin wall & of the USSR in 1989 & 1991 brought a change & a reshaping of the world, the fall of the Twin Towers in 2001 the crisis that started on 2008 would add some more in reshaping the world.
The wars in Iraq & Afghanistan were a consequence of the unipolar world that started in 1991 with the demise of the USSR. The pariah or anti-imperialist states like Belarus, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Cuba, or North Korea were gonna have it harder after 1991 & more so after 9-11.
In China, Vietnam & Laos, Communist Party maintained power, but the economic policy they commenced took a radical turn of 180 degrees. The economy wouldn't be there as thoroughly controlled by the state. The new system in China was called "communism with Chinese characteristics" & in Vietnam Doi-Moi or renewing. What's certain is that it was a type of market economy without democracy. These economic systems in the rest of the world are known as Market Socialism.
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The USA were going up until they became the great hegemon with following events: the war against Spain in 1898 (acquiring their first colonies: The Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico), the First World War (playing in the league of the great nations), the Second World War (dividing the world in two with the USSR), & the fall of the Berlin Wall & the USSR in 1989-1991 (becoming the sole superpower).
The economic reforms more pro-market & the crisis of 2008, that has concerned principally the West has made institutions like the IMF, OECD, the EU or the G-7 to lose power & that more multilateral institutions like the G-20, BRIC… would gain power. The BRIC (Brasil, Rusia, India, China) nations known as emerging are the great winners of globalization & they can be considered as powers.
The European Union & NATO have extended to the Russian border, but Russia can still blackmail Europe with closing the oil & gas tap. Brazil is expanding its economic & ploitical influence not only through Latin America but, through the former Portuguese of Africa.
Very few overseas islands still belong to the Netherlands, UK, France or Danemark. Danemark owns the strategic island of Greenland, of which the poles melt would have, together with Russia & the rest of Arctic countries, the gate to the shortest routes for world trade. Moreover, it seems like the Arctic area has plenty of hydrocarbons.
The Netherlands only keeps a handful of Caribean islands. The United Kingdom & France lost the wide overseas empires during the XX century. Nevertheless, the Commonwealth or the Francophonie are internacional clubs that give them a considerable power. Other important post-imperial clubs are the Ibero-American Summit (of Spanish & Portuguese speaking countries) y la Commonwealth of Independent States (Ex Soviet republics). The BRIC now are usually called BRICS since South Africa has joined them.
Africa is again, as during the Cold War, the Apple of Discord because of her resources & lands. The most influencing powers in Africa now are the USA, the United Kingdom, France, Brazil, China, India & South Africa.
Hugo Chávez's Venezuela, together with the Castro brothers' Cuba, have created an organization against the free trade treaties promoted by the Americans. This organization is called Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America & its ideology is anti-imperialism & what they call Socialism of the XXI century. The other countries that support this socialism are Ecuador, Bolivia & Nicaragua. Their leaders haven't taken power through revolutionary arm struggle as in the Soviet Union, China or Cuba. With promises of getting new homes social benefits they have achieved power without one shot. Nevertheles, that is a captive vote: you vote for the rival = you lose your home.
In 2011 China became the second economic world power after the USA. If 20 years ago had two opposing powers, USSR-USA, communism-free market, today both powers practice, in different degrees, free market: China-USA. Moreover, the current world is multipolar, not bipolar.
During the Cold War, China was an allied of the USA & rival of the USSR (since the 1950s), while India was an allied of the USSR & anti-American. Now it's the other way round. China is an allied of Russia & rival of the USA while India is an allied of the USA.
The substitute of the Pact of Warsaw is called Organization for Shangai Cooperation. Its members are the ex-Soviet Asian republics & China. As observers there are Iran, Pakistan, India y others. Certainly India can't be in an organization in which her worst enemies are: Pakistan & China.
If 1989 was the year of the end of Real Socialism (comunismo), 2011 was the end of Arab Socialism. At least the beginning of the end. Much has been said that this was the end of Arab dictatorships, but the only ones that had regime change have been Arab socialist states: Lybia, Egypto & Tunis. The Syrian regime, in civil war, has also an Arab Socialist regime (Baathist like Saddam's Iraq). Russia defends Syria because her allied during the Cold War because Russia has in Syria her only base outside the ex-USSR. The Yemeni regime has changed too. This regime wasn't Arab socialist but, it was secular panarabist. Apart from the decaying Syrian regime there are only two Arab Socialist regimes: Algeria & Mauritania. As a good fellow socialist Algeria is allied of the Bolivarian Vanezuela.
It's said that in the fall of Arab Socialism the hidden powers have played an important roll: CIA, NGOs… Nevertheless this has been always suspected about hidden powers on different historical events: 9-11, the fall of the USSR, the French Revolution, the American Revolution… It's seems like the Judeo-Free Mason lodges or the iluminatis are the hidden hand that controll everything. Cer esta viendo cambios importtainly the current world is going through really remarkable changes. The concepto of the West expands & the world is more multipolar.
