Civilization
The term civilization (or civilisation) - from the Latin civis meaning 'citizen' or 'townsman' - has been used in various ways at different times.
Sometimes examples are given of the earliest civilizations, such as
China, ancient Egypt, Indus Valley Civilization and Sumer.
The features of these groups that are seen as distinguising them from earlier settlements such as neolithic Jericho and Catalhuyuk:
Encompassing concepts such as chivalry, barbarian. The concept of
civilisation has at time formed part of the justification by which some
groups have exerted control over others, e.g., during European colonization of the Americas or British India. Hence, Mahatma Gandhi's famous response to the question "What do you think of Western civilization?" – his reply: "I think it would be a good idea." In regard to behaviour, civilized can be said to mean all the customs and sanctions necessary to prevent people becoming violent, except as a last resort. Therefore the possession of deterrents to violence in the form of a standing army does not necessarily disqualify a people from claiming to be civilised.
One school of thought says that civilization is a cultural identity which represents the broadest level of identification in which an individual intensely identifies, broader than family, tribe, hometown, nation, or region. Civilizations are usually tied to religion or some other belief system.
The concept of civilization is central to the historical theories of Arnold J. Toynbee who described history as the process of the rise and decline of civilizations, of which he identified 26. It is also central to the political beliefs of Samuel P. Huntington who argues that the defining characteristic of the 21st century will be the interaction and conflict between civilizations.
The concept of empire overlaps with that of "civilisation", so the empirical description of the 500-year old Western empire by Noam Chomsky and the more theoretical analysis by Negri and Hardt constitute other contemporary analyses of civilizations.
Some postmodernists refuse the term as undesirable:
From a naive European Christian ethnocentric viewpoint human history is the history of "progress" leading to development of the achievement of "civilization" represented by European Christian culture. This attitude was associated with European colonialism and with the relation of Europeans and Americans with indigenous peoples such as the Native Americans. Some peoples thought holds that there are and have been many advanced civilizations in human history and that no one culture is inherently superior.A stage of technical or political development
A standard of behaviour
A cultural phenomenon
A tool of oppression
| Civilization | Main Empire |
|---|---|
| Sumerian | Sumerian Empire |
| Egyptian | Middle Empire |
| Indus Valley | Harappa |
| Minoan | Minoan Empire |
| Hittite | Hittite Empire |
| Chinese | Qin Empire |
| Hindu Indian | Mauryan Empire, Gupta Empire |
| Austronesian | Champa |
| Babylonian | Babylonian Empire |
| Mesomerican | Olmec, Toltec, Aztec |
| Greek and Roman | Roman Empire |
| Mayan | Maya civilization |
| Levantine | Syria, Phoenicia, Canaan, Kingdom of Israel |
| Southeast Asian | Khmer Empire |
| Islamic | Arabian Empire |
| Mississippian | Cahokia and other cities |
| Japanese | Tokugawa Shogunate |
| Mongol | Mongol Empire |
| Western | British Empire, French Empire and Spanish Empire |
| Russian | Russian Empire |
| Zimbabwe | Great Zimbabwe |
| Andean | Inca Empire |
| Communist | Soviet Union |
Source (with some changes): Guinness Book of Historical Records
This classification is certainly subject to debate in various details. The Maya, for example, while achieving a high degree of civilization, were never an Empire which imposed their power over other peoples of Mesoamerica, whereas Teotihuacan and the Aztecs fit that criterion.
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