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Essay on Harappan Civilization in 1000+ Words

• Updated on  
• Apr 8, 2024

Essay on Harappan Civilization: Harappan Civilization is one of the four oldest civilizations in the world: Mesopotamia (Iraq), Egypt, the Indus Valley (Harapan), and China. According to Archaeological excavations, the Harappan Civilization existed from 3300 to 1300 BCE. Based on the findings, the existence of this civilization was divided into three phases; the Early Harappan Phase from 3300 BCE to 2600 BCE, the Mature Harappan Phase from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE, and the Late Harappan Phase from 1900 BCE to 1300 BCE. 

Table of Contents

• 1 Major Harappan Sites and their Excavators
• 2 Town Planning in Harappan Civilization
• 3 Harappan Civilization Religion
• 4 Social Life
• 5 Trade and Commerce
• 6 Arts and Craft
• 7 Script and Language
• 8 Decline of Harappan Civilization

‘I like the evening in India, the one moment when the sun balances on the rim of the world.’ – James Cameroon

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Major Harappan Sites and their Excavators

The Harappan Civilization was first discovered by Dayaram Sahni in 1921. He was an Indian Archaeologist, who was working under the guidance of Colonel Meke and Sir John Marshal. Daryaram discovered the city of Harappan in the Montgomery district of Punjab, on the left bank of river Ravi. After India’s partition, the city is located in Pakistan.

• At Harappan, Dayaram found a row of 6 granaries, stone lingam and yoni figurines, a virgin goddess seal, wheat and barley in a wooden mortar, and dancing Natraja.
• In 1922, another Indian archaeologist, RD Banerjee, discovered Mohenjodaro in the Larkana district of Sindh, on the right bank of the River Indus (Pakistan). In Mohenjodaro, he found a Pashupati seal, a bronze image of a dancing girl, three cylindrical seals, and a seated male sculpture of the priest King, the Great Granary, and the Great Bath.
• After 9 years of rigorous search, NG Majumdar excavated Chanhudaro in Sindh, Pakistan. The findings at this site included shops for shell ornament makers, bead makers, metal workers, and other precious stones.
• Apart from the above-mentioned sites, other places were also discovered in the following years. Kalibangan in Rajasthan was discovered by Luigi Pio Tessitori, an Italian Indologist.
• Interestingly, four more sites were discovered in the Indian state of Gujarat alone. These were: Dholavira and Surkotada in the Rann of Kutch; Lothal near the Gulf of Cambay, and Rangpur on the left bank of river Mahi.

Quick Read: Essay on Indian Independence Day

Did You Know: Harappa Was the First City to be Discovered? That is why this civilization is often known as the Harappan Civilization.

Town Planning in Harappan Civilization

Town planning in the Harappan Civilization was not uniform. However, the grid system is unique in itself. Streets were cutting across one another at right angles (90 degrees). This divided the entire town into large, rectangular blocks.

• The town was divided into two sections or parts: the Upper Part (Citadel) and the Lower Part.
• The Citadel was fortified on the Western side of the town and consisted of public buildings for members of the ruling class.
•  The Lower town was located on the Eastern side where common people lived.
• One interesting town-planning feature of the Harappan Civilization was the Underground Drainage System, which connected all houses to the street drains.
• At Mohenjodaro, the Great Bath was discovered. The Great Bath was used for religious bathing. It was systematically designed so that steps at either end lead to the surface. Alongside the Great Bath, there were changing rooms as well.
• At Harappa, Six rows of Granaries were discovered.
• Common houses in the lower town were made up of burnt bricks, and they included a square courtyard, which had several rooms on all sides. The bathrooms were tiled and the windows did not face the main streets.
• On streets, lamp posts were also installed, indicating the existence of street lighting.

Quick Read: Viksit Bharat Essay

Harappan Civilization Religion

Indus Valley people had their own deities and gods. Pashupati Mahadeva, or Proto Shiva, was the chief male deity. Two deer presented at his feet, and a seal encircled by a buffalo, elephant, tiger, and rhino appeared to him. The four animals were facing in different directions.

• Mother Goddess was the female deity. She was depicted in various styles. There were also signs of Phallus and Yoni worship.
• In Lothal, Kalibangan, and Harappa, evidence of fire worship has been found. The Unicorn bull and the Pipal tree were also worshipped.
• The Harappans also believed in evil powers, and there were signs of using amulets as protection against them.

Social Life

Harappan people followed a highly developed urban way of life. The society mainly consisted of middle-class urban people. There was evidence of various classes, like priests, merchants, craftsmen, peasants, and labourers 

• The dress of men consisted of two clothes; the upper and lower cotton garments. There is evidence of wool and necklaces.
• The vanity case reveals that the Harappan women knew the art of wall painting. 
• Ploughed fields have shown the evidence of domestication of animals like buffaloes, oxen, sheep, asses, elephants, pigs, and dogs.
• Products like wheat, pulses, and barley were produced in Harappa. The Eastern part of the civilization showed evidence of rice cultivation.

Trade and Commerce

The Harappan people were constantly engaged in domestic and international trade. There is no evidence of metallic or hard money. Only a barter system was practiced. 

• Trade was based on the production of agricultural, industrial, and forest products.
• Weights and measures in Harappa were made of limestone and steatite.
• Mesopotamian cylindrical seals have been found in Mohenjodaro.

Arts and Craft

The Harappans were aware of bronze and used it to make their tools. Bead making and jewelry of gold and silver have been found.

• Cotton fabrics were used in summer and woollen in winter.
• Both plain and painted pottery have been found. Pots were decorated with human figures, plants, animals, and geometrical patterns.
• Seals were made up of steatite pictures of unicorns, bulls, buffalo, tigers, and rhinoceros. Seals were used to mark the ownership of property.

Script and Language

Harappan scripts and language are undeciphered. It means the language in which they are written is not known to us. Scripts are pictographic, where fish are mostly represented.

• The overlapping of letters shows that scripts were written from right to left in the first line and from left to right in the second line. This writing style is called Boustrophedon.
• At Dholavira in Gujarat, a signboard inscription bearing 10 pictographs has been found.

Decline of Harappan Civilization

Archaeologists and historians have cited several reasons for the decline of the Harappan civilization. The most widely accepted factors are external aggression, climate change, and epidemics, which might have led to the decline of the Harappan civilization.

Ans: Harappan Civilization is one of the four oldest civilizations in the world: Mesopotamia (Iraq), Egypt, the Indus Valley (Harapan), and China. The Harappan Civilization was first discovered by Dayaram Sahni in 1921. He was an Indian Archaeologist, who was working under the guidance of Colonel Meke and Sir John Marshal. Town planning in the Harappan Civilization was not uniform. However, the grid system is unique in itself. Streets were cutting across one another at right angles (90 degrees). This divided the entire town into large, rectangular blocks.

Ans: The Harappan Civilization was first discovered by Dayaram Sahni in 1921. He was an Indian Archaeologist, who was working under the guidance of Colonel Meke and Sir John Marshal. 

Ans: Archaeologists and historians have cited several reasons for the decline of the Harappan civilization. The most widely accepted factors are external aggression, climate change, and epidemics, which might have led to the decline of the Harappan civilization.

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With an experience of over a year, I've developed a passion for writing blogs on wide range of topics. I am mostly inspired from topics related to social and environmental fields, where you come up with a positive outcome.

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Civilization and Its Consequences

Professor of History & Politics and Director, International & Research, School of Humanities & Communication Arts, Western Sydney University

• Published: 11 February 2016
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This article outlines the origins and meanings of the concept of civilization in Western political thought. In doing so it necessarily explores the nature of the relationship between civilization and closely related ideas such as progress and modernity. In exploring these concepts, some of their less savory aspects are revealed, including things done in the name of civilization, such as conquest and colonization under the guise of the “burden of civilization.” The article outlines other important aspects, including the relationships between civilization and war and between civilization and the environment. It concludes with a discussion about rethinking and restructuring some of our perspectives on civilization.

Civilization refers to both a process and a destination. It describes the process of a social collective becoming civilized, or progressing from a state of nature, savagery, or barbarism to a state of civilization. It describes a state of human society marked by significant urbanization, social and professional stratification, the luxury of leisure time, and corresponding advancements in the arts and sciences. The capacity for reasonably complex sociopolitical organization and self-government according to prevailing standards has long been thought of as a central requirement of civilization.

There is widespread greement in the Western world that civilization is a good thing, or at least that it is better than the alternatives: barbarism, savagery, or a state of nature of some sort. In theory, as time passes and the further we get away from the Big Bang and the primordial soup, the more we progress both as a species and as individual human beings; the more we progress, the more civilized we become individually and collectively; the more civilized we become, the further we are removed from the vestiges of savagery and barbarism. In fact, for many in the West civilization, progress, and modernity are by definition good things (e.g., Stark 2014 ). Samuel Huntington has summarized the state of debate rather succinctly: to be civilized is good, and to be uncivilized is bad (1998, 40).

As with so many debates, however, rarely are things so clearly black or white; there are usually many more shades of gray. For instance, in stark contrast to the rosy picture of civilization and modernity suggested above, Zygmunt Bauman (2001 , 4, 6) has alarmingly highlighted the dark side, suggesting that the Holocaust was not so much “a temporary suspension of the civilizational grip in which human behaviour is normally held” but a “‘paradigm’ of modern civilization” and modernity. This is not necessarily to suggest that civilization is “bad” or not worth having or being a part of; it is just to highlight that along with the upsides there are some potential downsides, even a “dark side” ( Alexander 2013 ).

To enable a better understanding of the various perspectives on civilization, this article begins by outlining what civilization means, particularly in the history of Western political thought (for other traditions of thought see, for example, Weismann 2014 ). It then examines the significance and nature of the rather symbiotic relationship between civilization and concepts such as progress and modernity. The article then explores some of the potential consequences that go along with or are outcomes of the pursuit of these ideals, the less commonly acknowledged darker side of civilization. Included here are other important dimensions of the relationship between civilization and progress, such as the relationship between civilization and war and the exploitative nature of the relationship between civilization and the environment or the natural world more generally. The conclusion proposes a slightly different way of thinking about civilization that might help us avoid some of the pitfalls that lead away from the light and into darkness.

The Meaning of Civilization

The word civilization has its foundations in the French language, deriving from words such as civil (thirteenth century) and civilité (fourteenth century), which in turn derive from the Latin civitas . Prior to the appearance of civilization , words such as poli or polite, police (which broadly meant law and order, including government and administration), civilizé , and civilité had been in wide use, but none could adequately meet the evolving and expanding demands on the French language. Upon the appearance of the verb civilizer sometime in the sixteenth century, which provided the basis for the noun, the coining of civilization was only a matter of time, because it was a neologism whose time had come. As Emile Benveniste states, “ [C]ivilité , a static term, was no longer sufficient,” requiring the coining of a term that “had to be called civilization in order to define together both its direction and continuity” (1971, 292).

The first known recorded use of civilization in French gave it a meaning quite different than what is generally associated with it today. For some time civilizer had been used in jurisprudence to describe the transformation of a criminal matter into a civil one; hence civilization was defined in the Trévoux Dictionnaire universel of 1743 as a “term of jurisprudence. An act of justice or judgement that renders a criminal trial civil. Civilization is accomplished by converting informations ( informations ) into inquests ( enquêtes ) or by other means” ( Starobinski 1993 , 1). Just when the written word civilization first appeared in its more modern sense is open to conjecture. Despite extensive enquiries, Lucien Febvre states that he has “not been able to find the word civilization used in any French text published prior to the year 1766,” when it appeared in a posthumous publication by M. Boulanger, Antiquité dévoilée par ses usages . The passage reads, “When a savage people has become civilized, we must not put an end to the act of civilization by giving it rigid and irrevocable laws; we must make it look upon the legislation given to it as a form of continuous civilization ” ( Febvre 1973 , 220–222). It is evident that from early on civilization was used to represent both an ongoing process and a state of development that is an advance on savagery.

An initial concern with the concept of civilization gave way to detailed studies of civilizations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in large part instigated by the foundation and development of the fields of anthropology and ethnography (e.g., Bagby 1959 ; Coulborn 1959 ; Quigley 1961 ; Sorokin 1957 ; Melko 1969 ). Such a shift led to claims that a broader concern with the normative aspects of civilization had “lost some of its cachet” ( Huntington 1998 , 41). The result of this shift was a preoccupation with narrower definitions such as that offered by Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss (1971 , 811): “A civilization constitutes a kind of moral milieu encompassing a certain number of nations, each national culture being only a particular form of the whole.” A leading exponent of the comparative study of civilizations was Arnold Toynbee , who did not completely set aside the ideal of civilization, for he noted, “Civilizations have come and gone, but Civilization (with a big ‘C’) has succeeded” or endured (1948a , 24; 1948b). Toynbee also endeavored to articulate the link between “civilizations in the plural and civilization in the singular,” noting that the former refers to “particular historical exemplifications of the abstract idea of civilization.” This is defined in “spiritual terms,” in which he “equate[s] civilization with a state of society in which there is a minority of the population, however small, that is free from the task, not merely of producing food, but of engaging in any other of the economic activities—e.g. industry and trade—that have to be carried on to keep the life of the society going on the material plane at the civilizational level” (1972, 44–45).

Toynbee’s argument concerning the organization of society as marked by the specialization of skills, the move toward elite professions, and the effective use of leisure time has long been held in connection with the advancement of civilization (and civilized society). Hobbes (1985 , 683), for example, insisted that the “procuring of the necessities of life … was impossible, till the erecting of great Common-wealths,” which were “the mother of Peace , and Leasure ,” which was in turn “the mother of Philosophy ; … Where first were great and flourishing Cities , there was first the study of Philosophy .” This general line of argument has been made time and again throughout history. Such accounts of the relationship among civilization, society, and government fit with Anthony Pagden’s (1988 , 39) claim that the “philosophical history of civilization was, then, a history of progressive complexity and progressive refinement which followed from the free expression of those faculties which men possess only as members of a community.”

R.G. Collingwood has outlined three aspects of civilization: economic, social, and legal. Economic civilization is marked not simply by the pursuit of riches—which might actually be inimical to economic civilization—but by “the civilized pursuit of wealth.” The realm of “social civilization” is the forum in which humankind’s sociability is satisfied by “the idea of joint action,” or what we might call community. The final mark of civilization is “a society governed by law,” and not so much by criminal law as by civil law—“the law in which claims are adjusted between its members”—in particular (1992, 502–511). For Collingwood , “Civilization is something which happens to a community …. Civilization is a process of approximation to an ideal state ” (1992, 283). In essence, Collingwood is arguing that civilized society—and thus civilization itself—is guided by and operates according to the principles of the rule of law. When we combine these three elements of civilization, what they amount to is what I would call sociopolitical civilization, or the capacity of a collective to organize and govern itself under some system of laws or constitution.

This article is more concerned with the normative dimensions of civilization, but it is interesting to note a recent resurgence in international relations (IR) of studies focusing on civilizations, and not just in response to Huntington’s clash thesis. For example, reflecting on Adda Bozeman’s Politics & Culture in International History , Donald Puchala (1997 , 5) notes that “the strutting and fretting of states, and their heroes, through countless conflicts over several millennia accomplished little more than to intermittently reconstruct political geography, desecrate a sizeable proportion of humankind’s artistic and architectural heritage, waste wealth, and extinguish hundreds of millions of lives.” He adds that “the history of relations among states—be they city-, imperial-, medieval-, westphalian-, modern-, super- or nation-states—has been rather redundant, typically unpleasant and more often than not devoid of much meaning in the course of human cultural evolution.” He insists that in contrast to relations between states, “the history of relations among peoples has been of much broader human consequence.” Or as Bozeman (2010 , xv) sought to explain, the “interplay … of politics and culture has intensified throughout the world,” and this has been taking place “on the plane of international relations as well as on that of intrastate social existence and governance.” She concluded that “the territorially bounded, law-based Western-type state is no longer [if it ever was by this reading] the central principle in the actual conduct of international relations, and it should therefore not be treated as the lead norm in the academic universe” ( Bozeman 2010 , xl). The kinds of relations that both Bozeman and Puchala are referring to are relations between civilizations (see also Hall and Jackson 2007 ; Katzenstein 2010 ; Bowden 2012 ).

The “Burden of Civilization”

Not too far removed from Collingwood’s concern with the elimination of physical and moral force via social civilization are accounts of civilized society concerned with the management of violence, if only by removing it from the public sphere. Such a concern is extended in Zygmunt Bauman’s account of civilization to the more general issue of producing readily governable subjects. The “concept of civilization ,” he argues, “entered learned discourse in the West as the name of a conscious proselytising crusade waged by men of knowledge and aimed at extirpating the vestiges of wild cultures” (1987, 93).

This proselytizing crusade in the name of civilization is worth considering further. Its rationale is not too difficult to determine when one considers Starobinski’s (1993 , 31) assertion: “Taken as a value, civilization constitutes a political and moral norm. It is the criterion against which barbarity, or non-civilization, is judged and condemned.” A similar sort of argument is made by Pagden (1988 , 33), who states that civilization “describes a state, social, political, cultural, aesthetic—even moral and physical—which is held to be the optimum condition for all mankind, and this involves the implicit claim that only the civilized can know what it is to be civilized.” It is out of this implicit claim and the judgments passed in its name that the notion of the “burden of civilization” was born. And this, many have argued, is one of the less desirable aspects and outcomes of the idea of civilization ( Anghie 2005 ; Bowden 2009 ).

The argument that only the civilized know what it means to be civilized is an important one, for as Starobinski (1993 , 32) notes, the “historical moment in which the word civilization appears marks the advent of self-reflection, the emergence of a consciousness that thinks it understands the nature of its own activity.” More specifically, it marks “the moment that Western civilization becomes aware of itself reflectively, it sees itself as one civilization among others. Having achieved self-consciousness, civilization immediately discovers civilizations.” But as Norbert Elias (2000 , 5) highlights, it is not a case of Western civilization being just one among equals, for the very concept of civilization “expresses the self-consciousness of the West…. It sums up everything in which Western society of the last two or three centuries believes itself superior to earlier societies or ‘more primitive’ contemporary ones.” He further explains that in using the term civilization, “Western society seeks to describe what constitutes its special character and what it is proud of: the level of its technology, the nature of its manners, the development of its scientific knowledge or view of the world, and much more.” It is not too difficult to see how the harbingers of civilization might gravitate toward a (well-meaning) “proselytising crusade,” driven, at least in part, by a deeply held belief in the “burden of civilization” (see Bowden 2009 ).

The issue is not only the denial of the value and achievements of other civilizations, but the implication that they are in nearly irreversible decline. From this perspective their contribution to “big C” Civilization is seen as largely limited to the past, out of which comes the further implication that if anything of value is to be retrieved, it cannot be done without the assistance of a more civilized tutor. Such thinking is only too evident, for example, in Ferdinand Schiller’s mistaken claim that “the peoples of India appear to care very little for history and have never troubled to compile it” (1926, vii; cf. Guha 2002 ). The British took it upon themselves to compile such uneven accounts as that which was prepared by James Mill and published as The History of British India in 1817. Despite never having actually visited India, Mill’s History relayed to European audiences a fundamentally mistaken image of Indian civilization as eternally backward and undeveloped.

Standards of Civilization

One of the primary justifications underpinning such thinking relates to the widely held view that a capacity for reasonably complex sociopolitical organization and self-government according to prevailing standards is a central requirement of civilization. The presence, or otherwise, of the institutions of society that facilitate governance in accordance with established traditions—originally European but now more broadly Western—has long been regarded as the hallmark of the makings of, or potential for, civilization. An exemplar of the importance of society to the qualification of civilization is J. S. Mill’s “ingredients of civilization.” Mill states that whereas

a savage tribe consists of a handful of individuals, wandering or thinly scattered over a vast tract of country: a dense population, therefore, dwelling in fixed habitations, and largely collected together in towns and villages, we term civilized. In savage life there is no commerce, no manufactures, no agriculture, or next to none; a country in the fruits of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, we call civilized. In savage communities each person shifts for himself; except in war (and even then very imperfectly) we seldom see any joint operations carried on by the union of many; nor do savages find much pleasure in each other’s society. Wherever, therefore, we find human beings acting together for common purposes in large bodies, and enjoying the pleasures of social intercourse, we term them civilized. (1977, 120)

The often overlooked implications of this value-laden conception of civilization led to what Georg Schwarzenberger (1955) described as the “standard of civilization in international law,” or what Gerrit Gong (1984) later labeled the “standard of civilization in international society.” Historically, the standard of civilization was a means used in international law to distinguish between civilized and uncivilized peoples to determine membership in the international society of states. The concept entered international legal texts and practice in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries under the influence of anthropologists and ethnologists, who drew distinctions among civilized, barbarian, and savage peoples based on their respective capacities for social cooperation and organization. Operating primarily during the European colonial period, the standard of civilization was a legal mechanism designed to set the benchmark for the ascent of non-European states to the ranks of the civilized “Family of Nations,” and with it their full recognition under international law. A civilized state required (1) basic institutions of government and public bureaucracy; (2) the organizational capacity for self-defense; (3) a published legal code and adherence to the rule of law; (4) the capacity to honor contracts in commerce and capital exchange; and (5) recognition of international law and norms, including the laws of war ( Gong 1984 ; Bowden 2004 , 2009 ). If a nation could meet these requirements, it was generally deemed to be a legitimate sovereign state, entitled to full recognition as an international personality.

The inability of many non-European societies to meet these European criteria, and the concomitant legal distinction that separated them from civilized societies, led to the unequal treaty system of capitulations. The right of extraterritoriality, as it was also known, regulated relations between sovereign civilized states and quasi-sovereign uncivilized states in regard to their respective rights over, and obligations to, the citizens of civilized states living and operating in countries where capitulations were in force. As the Italian jurist Pasquale Fiore (1918 , 362) explains, in “principle, Capitulations are derogatory to the local ‘common’ law; they are based on the inferior state of civilization of certain states of Africa, Asia and other barbarous regions, which makes it impracticable to exercise sovereign rights mutually and reciprocally with perfect equality of legal condition.” In much of the uncivilized world this system of capitulations incrementally escalated, to the point that it became large-scale European civilizing missions, which in turn became colonialism. Following the end of the First World War, this legal rationale contributed to the establishment of the League of Nations mandate system.

Despite criticism of them, standards of civilization remain influential tools in the practice of international affairs. Some prominent recent discussions of standards of civilization in IR and international law have focussed on proposals for appropriate standards for the late twentieth or early twenty-first centuries, ranging from human rights, democracy, economic liberalism, and globalization to modernity more generally (see Donnelly 1998 ; Franck 1992 ; Fidler 2000 ; Mozaffari 2001 ; Gong 2002 ). Much of this literature is largely uncritical of the sometimes damaging consequences of applying standards of civilization, insisting that the new missionary zeal for promoting human rights, democracy, and economic liberalism is somehow quarantined from the “fatal tainting” associated with colonial exploitation and conquest. Other studies have highlighted the dark side of standards of civilization and their role in European expansion, such as mimicking in the case of Japan ( Suzuki 2009 ), or the effects of stigmatism on foreign policy making in the case of defeated powers such as Turkey, Japan, and Russia ( Zarakol 2011 ). As these studies demonstrate, a number of ongoing legacies continue to have an impact on the conduct of international affairs.

Civilization and Progress

One of the primary reasons sociopolitics is central to considerations of civilization is evident in the following, often quoted passage from Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1985, 186):

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continual feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.

One of the important lessons generally drawn from this passage is that life lived outside of society in a state of nature is constantly under threat; there is little to no chance of peace among humans without society. A related point is that some degree of sociopolitical cooperation and organization is a basic necessity for the foundation of civilization. Social and political progress is said to come prior to virtually every other form of progress; moreover, progress within the other subelements of civilization is thought to be contingent upon it. Friedrich von Schiller (1972 , 329) later posited the situation in these terms: “Would Greece have borne a Thucydides, a Plato, and an Aristotle, or Rome a Horace, a Cicero, a Virgil, and a Livy, if these two states had not risen to those heights of political achievement which in fact they attained?”

The close relationship between civilization and progress is captured by Starobinski’s (1993 , 4) observation that the “word civilization , which denotes a process, entered the history of ideas at the same time as the modern sense of the word progress . The two words were destined to maintain a most intimate relationship.” This intimate relationship is also evident in Robert Nisbet’s (1980 , 9) questioning of “whether civilization in any form and substance comparable to what we have known … in the West is possible without the supporting faith in progress that has existed along with this civilization.” He adds, “No single idea has been more important than … the idea of progress in Western civilization for nearly three thousand years.” While ideas such as liberty, justice, equality, and community have their rightful place, he insists that “throughout most of Western history, the substratum of even these ideas has been a philosophy of history that lends past, present, and future to their importance” (1980, 4). Starobinski (1993 , 33–34) makes the related point that “ civilization is a powerful stimulus to theory,” and despite its ambiguities, there is an overwhelming “temptation to clarify our thinking by elaborating a theory of civilization capable of grounding a far-reaching philosophy of history.” Clearly the twin ideals of civilization and progress are important factors in our attempts to make sense of life through the articulation of some kind of all-encompassing or at least wide-reaching philosophy of history. Indeed, in recent centuries it has proved irresistible to a diverse range of thinkers from across the political spectrum.

The relationship between civilization and progress was central to François Guizot’s analysis of Europe’s history and its civilizing processes. In an account that captures both the sociopolitical and moral demands of civilization, Guizot (1997 , 16) insisted that “the first fact comprised in the word civilization … is the fact of progress, of development; it presents at once the idea of a people marching onward, not to change its place, but to change its condition; of a people whose culture is conditioning itself, and ameliorating itself. The idea of progress, of development, appears to me the fundamental idea contained in the word, civilization. ” As for Hobbes and others, for Guizot sociopolitical progress or the harnessing of society is only part of the picture that is civilization, on the back of which, “[l]etters, sciences, the arts, display all their splendor. Wherever mankind beholds these great signs, these signs glorified by human nature, wherever it sees created these treasures of sublime enjoyment, it there recognizes and names civilization.” For Guizot (1997 , 18), “[t]wo facts” are integral to the “great fact” that is civilization: “the development of social activity, and that of individual activity; the progress of society and the progress of humanity.” Wherever these “two symptoms” are present, “mankind with loud applause proclaims civilization.”

J. B. Bury (1960 , 2–5) similarly asserts that the “idea [of progress] means that civilization has moved, is moving, and will move in a desirable direction.” In keeping with the irresistibility of promulgating a grand theory, Bury contends that the “idea of human Progress then is a theory which involves a synthesis of the past and a prophecy of the future.” This theorizing is grounded in an interpretation of history that regards the human condition as advancing “in a definite and desirable direction.” It further “implies that … a condition of general happiness will be ultimately enjoyed, which will justify the whole process of civilization.” In short, the end of history is in close proximity to a state of humankinds’ individual and social perfectibility, in which the dangers and uncertainties of the Hobbesian war of all against all are left behind in favor of the relative safety and security of civil or civilized society.

One of the things that we have increasingly been confronted with and have fought to both survive and eradicate in centuries past is the scourge of war between communities, including civilized communities. In some ways this might seem a bit at odds with the ideas of civilization, progress, and human perfectibility, but just as there is a close relationship between civilization and progress, so too there is a close relationship between civilization and war, and between war and progress.

Civilization and War

Instinct would suggest that the more civilized we have become over time, or the further we have progressed from a brutish state of nature, the more likely it is that the violent and bloody realities of armed conflict will become ever more abhorrent and objectionable and to be avoided at almost any cost. Indeed, this is one of the key lessons we take from Hobbes (1985 , 186–188; see also Lorenz 1966 ; Keeley 1997 ) about the uncertainties and brevity of life in a state of nature, in which every man is an enemy to every man, and while not necessarily constantly at war with all others, is at least prepared for it. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, on the other hand, claimed that the state of nature was the playground of the noble savage, who by and large lived in a state of harmony with his fellow beings and the natural world more generally. It was only with the coming of civilization that the Garden of Eden was disturbed by war and the other ills associated with civilized modernity. As Rousseau (1997 , 161) eloquently put it, “The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, to who it occurred to say this is mine , and found people sufficiently simple to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, how many miseries and horrors” would humankind “have been spared by him who, pulling up the stakes or filling in the ditch, had cried out to his kind: Beware of listening to this impostor; [y]ou are lost if you forget that the fruits are everyone’s and the Earth no one’s.” With these vastly different perspectives in mind, having studied the origins and evolution of war among humans across two million years, Azar Gat (2006 , 663) argues that of the two, “Hobbes was much closer to the truth.”

This conclusion fits nicely with assumptions about the spread of civilization underpinning an ever more orderly and peaceful, civilized international society in which resorting to armed conflict is becoming increasingly rare. But is the association between civilization and war really a straightforward, inverse linear relationship, or is there more to it than that? The suggestion that civilization and war share a common heritage, that “the cradle of civilization is also war’s cradle,” would seem to indicate that there is something more complex going on ( Meistrich 2005 , 85). As Ira Meistrich explains (2005 , 85), “War requires the kind of mass resources and organization that only civilization can provide, and so the fertile ground from which men harvested civilization’s first fruits also nurtured the dragon-tooth seeds of warfare.” Harry Holbert Turney-High (1971 , 23) makes a similar point, that the “war complex fits with the rest of the pattern of social organization.”

As Toynbee (1951 , viii) explains, the “possibility of waging war pre-supposes a minimum of technique and organization and surplus wealth beyond what is needed for bare subsistence.” At the same time, somewhat curiously, it is thought that war making is the all-important grit around which the pearl of civilization grows and acquires its luster. Robert R. Marrett (1920 , 36) suggests that it “is a commonplace of anthropology that at a certain stage of evolution—the half-way stage, so to speak—war is a prime civilizing agency.” Quincy Wright (1965 , 98–99) draws similar conclusions: “Primitive warfare was an important factor in developing civilization. It cultivated the virtues of courage, loyalty, and obedience; it created solid groups and a method for enlarging the area of these groups, all of which were indispensable to the creation of the civilizations which followed.”

William Eckhardt (1975 , 55–62; 1992 ) similarly argues that “anthropological evidence” points to the fact “that primitive warfare was a function of human development more than human instinct or human nature.” He further suggests that it “was only after we settled down to farming and herding that the land became of importance to us and, therefore, something worth fighting for.” In much the same way that Hobbes explains the process and outcomes of socially contracted civilized society, Eckhardt (1990 , 10–11) points out how the “agricultural revolution made available a surplus of food, which carried humans beyond the subsistence level of making a living to the point where the surplus could be used to pay some to govern others, and to engage in art, religion, and writing, and to engage in war in order to expand the benefits of civilization to others, or to get others to help pay for the process of civilization, or to defend oneself from those who might be tempted to take a short cut to civilization.” This suggests a rather different relationship between civilization and war than the argument that there is a direct correlation between civilized society and a propensity for peacefulness. On the contrary, it is claimed that “the more civilized people become, the more warlike we might expect them to be” ( Eckhardt 1990 , 15).

Wright (1965 , 99) makes the further point that as “primitive society developed toward civilization, war began to take on a different character. Civilization was both an effect and a cause of warlikeness.” Eckhardt (1990 , 9) makes a similar case, “that warfare really came into its own only after the emergence of civilization some 5,000 years ago.” Following Wright, Eckhardt (1990 , 14) concludes that in essence, “war and civilization, whichever came first, promoted each other in a positive feedback loop, so that the more of one, the more of the other; and the less of one, the less of the other.” This simultaneously civilized yet vicious circle forms the basis of Eckhardt’s (1990 , 9–11) “dialectical, evolutionary theory of warfare,” in which “more developed societies engaged in more warfare.” Moreover, “civilized peoples took to war like ducks take to water, judging by their artistic and historical records,” with “wars serving as both midwives and undertakers in the rise and fall of civilizations in the course of history.”

James Boswell (1951 , 35) once wrote, “How long war will continue to be practised, we have no means of conjecturing,” adding, “Civilization, which it might have been expected would have abolished it, has only refined its savage rudeness. The irrationality remains, though we have learnt insanire certa ratione modoque , to have a method in our madness.” Indeed, rather than civilization and all its trappings representing the antidote to or the antithesis of war, it would seem that civilization and war go hand in hand; mechanized industrial civilization in particular seems to be particularly adept and efficient in the art of war making. As Eckhardt (1990 , 15) put it, “war and civilization go and grow together.” And so “far as civilization gives birth to war or, at least, promotes its use, and so far as war eventually destroys its creator or promoter, then civilization is self-destructive, a process that obstructs its own progress.” A similar point is made by Toynbee (1951 , vii–viii), who concluded that while “War may actually have been a child of Civilization,” in the long run, the child has not been particularly kind to its creator, for “War has proved to have been the proximate cause of the breakdown of every civilization which is known for certain to have broken down.” This in effect brings us full circle in the relationship between civilization and war: war making gives rise to civilization, which in turn promotes more bloody and efficient war making, which in turn brings about the demise of civilization (or civilizations).

Civilization and the Environment

Anthropomorphic climate change, its associated consequences, and the delicate state of the natural world more generally are at the forefront of the new and emerging threats to civilization ( Fagan 2004 , 2008 ). In fact, the nature of humankind’s largely exploitative relationship with the wider natural world in general is being called into question and is forcing some of us to seriously rethink that relationship. While Rousseau might have characterized the relationship between human beings and the natural world as one marked by harmony and beneficence, for most the story of civilization has in large part been about humankind’s capacity to conquer nature: conquer the wild frontier, tame the animal world, and civilize the barbaric and savage peoples of our own species. As V. Gordon Childe (1948 , 1) explains, “progress” and “scientific discoveries promised a boundless advance in man’s control over Nature.” This attitude toward nature and natural resources has long predominated in European and Western thinking in particular. John Locke (1965 , 339/II:42), for instance, in his discussion of the Americas, Amerindians, and property rights, wrote, “Land that is left wholly to Nature, that hath no improvement of Pasturage, Tillage, or Planting, is called, as indeed it is, wast [waste].” The land was there to be improved and exploited in order to accommodate a greater number of people than the Amerindians were inclined to, and if they were not going to make appropriate use of it, then the British were entitled to take it—in fact, it was their duty to do so.

As outlined above in relation to progress, a significant aspect of civilization revolves around evolving or developing, whether from a state of nature, savagery, or barbarism, toward urbanized, scientific, technological civilization. A large part of this evolutionary process concerns society’s capacity to control nature and exploit its resources. This is illustrated by Adam Smith (1869 , 289–296) when he outlines four distinct stages of human social development: the first is “nations of hunters, the lowest and rudest state of society,” his prime example being the “native tribes of North America.” The second stage is “nations of shepherds, a more advanced state of society,” such as that of the Tatars and the Arabs. But such peoples still have “no fixed habitation” for any significant length of time, as they move about on the “whim” of their livestock and with the seasons in the endless search for feed. The third stage is that of agriculture, which “even in its rudest and lowest state, supposes a settlement [and] some sort of fixed habitation.” The fourth and most advanced stage is that of civilized, urbanized, commercial society, an efficient and effective exploiter of nature and all the fruits it has to offer. Similarly, Walter Bagehot (1875 , 17–19) argued that the “miscellaneous races of the world be justly described as being upon various edges of industrial civilization, approaching it by various sides, and falling short of it in various particulars.” The problem with those falling short, the uncivilized who were supposedly ruled by nature as opposed to rulers of it, was that they “neither knew nature, which is the clock-work of material civilization, nor possessed a polity, which is a kind of clock-work to moral civilization.”

In some ways, the relationship between civilization and nature is not so different from the dialectical relationship between civilization and war: the higher the level of civilization, the greater the exploitation of nature; the greater the exploitation of nature, the more civilization progresses. But as with civilization and war, this relationship cannot go on forever: natural resource extraction and exploitation is not a bottomless pit, but rather is finite and can only support so many people for so long. And of course as our planet is telling us, there are severe consequences associated with the processes of civilization, modernization, urbanization, and all that goes with them. The cycle of extracting more stuff from the ground, processing more stuff, building more stuff, producing more stuff, owning more stuff, throwing away more stuff, and buying more new stuff to replace it is proving unsustainable on such a large scale. The consequences of such excess, in the forms of environmental degradation and climate change, are many and varied; they include melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels, variations in air and sea temperatures, extended periods of drought in some parts of the world while others experience increased rainfall and flooding, and increasing frequency of extreme weather phenomena, to name just a few.

These environmental changes in turn impact our capacity to continue to inhabit certain parts of Earth and our abilityto continue to utilize and exploit resources as we have done for centuries. A knock-on effect is that these diverse changes and threats are often interrelated; one realm of security or insecurity can have a direct and dramatic impact on another, generating a kind of vicious cycle of insecurity. For instance, scarcity of and competition for essential resources such as land, food, water, and energy are potential catalysts for violent conflict ( Dyer 2008 ; Mazo 2010 ; Homer-Dixon 2001 ; Pumphrey 2008 ). And these are not just imaginary scenarios; the period 2007–2008 witnessed violent food riots in as many as thirty countries around the globe, some of them developed Western nations. If the dire predictions are correct, then this is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

Rethinking Civilization

Just over a couple of hundred years ago, Edward Gibbon (1963 , 530) wrote that humankind may “acquiesce in the pleasing conclusion that every age of the world has increased and still increases the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race.” In many ways, the record of human history bears this out: for example, the life expectancy of a Roman during the days of the empire was around twenty-five years. Today the world average life expectancy is somewhere in the mid- to late sixties, and life expectancy is considerably higher in many parts of the world. Thanks in part to advances in science and technology, in the twentieth century alone, the “average national gain in life expectancy at birth [was] 66% for males and 71% for females, and in some cases, life expectancy … more than doubled” during the course of the century ( Kinsell 1992 ; Galor and Moav 2005 ). The twentieth century also witnessed unprecedented urbanization, a key marker of progress and development, with an increase from 220 million urban dwellers, or around 13% of the world’s population, at the beginning of the century to 732 million or 29% by mid-century and reaching around 3.2 billion people or 49% in 2005. With urbanization expected to continue apace, it is estimated that by 2030 almost 5 billion people will live in cities, equivalent to roughly 60% of the global population ( United Nations 2005 ).

In respect to the global economy, it has been calculated that in the past millennium, during which the global population increased some twenty-two-fold, global per capita income rose by approximately thirteen times, while global GDP expanded by a factor of almost 300. The vast majority of this growth can be attributed to advances made as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution; since 1820 the global population has grown by a factor of five, while per capita income has increased approximately eight-fold. This kind of development far outstrips the preceding millennium, when Earth’s population is estimated to have grown by as little as one-sixth, and during which time per capita income was largely stagnant ( Maddison 2006 ).

It might seem then that civilization is chugging along quite nicely, just as so many have imagined it; we live longer than our predecessors, we are better educated than ever before, and we have access to far more stuff than most of us will ever need. But at what cost have this civilization and progress come to us and our planet? The distinguished scientist, the late Frank Fenner—the man who announced to the world in 1980 that smallpox had been eradicated—recently stated that he is convinced that “ Homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years.” Like others, he argues that Earth has entered the Anthropocene, and while “climate change is just at the very beginning … we’re seeing remarkable changes in the weather already.” It is on this basis that he argues that humankind will collectively “undergo the same fate as the people of Easter Island.” The only things that will be left of us are our monuments to the excesses of a fallen civilization. Before then, as Earth’s “population keeps growing to seven, eight, or nine billion, there will be a lot more wars over food.” And not only are humans doomed, so are a “lot of other animals … too. It’s an irreversible situation” (Fenner in Jones 2010 ; Boulter 2002 ).

It is difficult to believe that the human condition is really that perilous, that the thin ice of civilization is melting away so quickly and so dramatically that its future is at risk. Are we really lurching toward some sort of post-apocalyptic world like that depicted in Mad Max or The Road ? While climate change skeptics might beg to differ, at the very least, all is not well in the world of civilization. I suggest that a good part of the problem may well be the very way in which we conceive of civilization and progress, which for so long now has been predominantly all about the social, political, and material dimensions of civilization at the expense of its ethical and other-regarding dimensions. In considering human progress, Ruth Macklin (1977 , 370) is slightly at odds with Gibbon in her claim that it “is wholly uncontroversial to hold that technological progress has taken place; largely uncontroversial to claim that intellectual and theoretical progress has occurred; somewhat controversial to say aesthetic or artistic progress has taken place; and highly controversial to assert that moral progress has occurred.”

The question of moral progress appears to be at the heart of the major challenges to civilization outlined above. In respect to both the relationship between civilization and war and that between civilization and the environment, we can see two potentially self-destructive processes in which civilization brings about its own demise as it cannibalizes itself in a kind of suicidal life cycle. The relationship between civilization and war is seemingly one in which war making gives rise to civilization, the organizational and technological advances of which in turn promote yet more bloody and efficient war making, which in turn eventually brings about the demise of civilization either through overstretch or internal collapse. Similarly, up to this point in human history, the march of civilization has largely been at the expense of the environment and the natural world more generally. And now, in turn, the environment is threatening the future of civilization through the potentially catastrophic consequences of climate change. In both cases this represents a sort of vicious circle in which civilization is ultimately its own worst enemy. On top of this are the less than savory things done in the name of civilization; for centuries civilization has proven to be hell bent on expunging that which is not civilized, or that which is deemed a threat to civilization. The consequences range from European conquest and colonization to the global war on terror.

The Nobel Peace Laureate of 1952, Albert Schweitzer , offers a different take on civilization that owes more to moral and ethical considerations than to sociopolitical and material concerns. He writes (1947, viii), “Civilization, put quite simply, consists in our giving ourselves, as human beings, to the effort to attain the perfecting of the human race and the actualization of progress of every sort in the circumstances of humanity and of the objective world.” This giving of ourselves is as much an attitude or frame of mind as it is a political, material, or cultural expression of civilization, for it necessarily “involves a double disposition: firstly, we must be prepared to act affirmatively toward the world and life; secondly, we must become ethical.” For Schweitzer (1967 , 20), the “essential nature of civilization does not lie in its material achievements, but in the fact that individuals keep in mind the ideals of the perfecting of man, and the improvement of the social and political conditions of peoples, and of mankind as a whole.” And as he put it slightly differently (1947, ix), “Civilization originates when men become inspired by a strong and clear determination to attain progress, and consecrate themselves, as a result of this determination, to the service of life and the world.” This call for service to life and the world is at the heart of Schweitzer’s philosophy of civilization, which in effect is also his account of ethics; it is what he referred to as the idea of Reverence for Life ( Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben ), which requires of us a “world-view” that is other-regarding and extends a right to life and an ethic of “responsibility without limits towards all that lives” (1967, 215; Cicovacki 2007 ). In the age of the “selfie” and the self-obsession that goes with it, perhaps this is too much to ask, but that should not and need not be the case.

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Civilization Essay Topics

• Augustan Rule and the Senate in Roman Civilization
• The Role of the River Nile in Ancient Egyptian Civilization
• The Path to the Wild Place and the Return to Civilization
• Ancient Egyptian Civilization
• A Forerunner of Western Civilization Was Alexander the Great
• Western Culture, as Represented by Alexander the Great
• Islamic Civilization’s History
• Development of Asian Civilization
• The Mysteries of the Ancient Civilization: The Ashoka Pillars
• The Meaning of the Veil to Islamic Reformists and How the Veil Became A Symbol of Muslim Civilization
• Greek Civilization: Herodotus’ “Philosophy of Life,” “Morality,” and “History as Written”
• The Arabs’ and Islam’s Historical and Cultural Contributions to World Civilization and the Development of Human Society
• History and Culture of the Middle East
• Utilization of An Allegory Pitting Civilization Against Barbarism and Violence
• Mediterranean Civilization in Antiquity
• Greek Civilization’s Earliest Days: “Out of Africa” and “Not Out of Africa:
• Contrast between the Origins of Greece and the Illusions of “Afro-centrists.”
• Origins and Development of the Mayan Civilization
• European Americans and Native Americans
• Comparison of Judaism as A Civilization by Mordecai Kaplan and the Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel
• Pre-Columbian America’s Great Civilizations: The Inca Empire
• Egypt and Mesopotamian Civilization
• A View from the Book of Genesis on Nature, Human Uniqueness, Interpersonal Relationships, and Civilization
• The Ambitions and Failure of the Civilization: A Look into the Heart of Darkness
• The Culture of Japan
• Christian Civilization in the Middle Ages
• The Impact of Religion on Global Civilization
• What Effect Did the Enlightenment Have on Western Civilization?
• The Teotihuacan Civilization’s Past
• The Mayan Civilization of Antiquity
• Factors Affecting Human Civilization’s Development
• Race and Civilization’s Role in Redefining Manhood
• The Problems with Civilization

Essay Topics on Civilization

• The New World of Reason and Perception from A Medieval Perspective
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• History of the Civilization of Ancient Mesopotamia
• Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation: Their Importance in the History of Western Civilization
• East Asian History and Civilization
• A Foundation of Civilization from Marx’s Theory of “The Condition of the Working Class in England.”
• The Importance of Civilization and Freedom
• How East Asian Civilization in the 19th Century Changed as A Result of the Challenge from the West
• Indian Critics of Modern Civilization
• The West European Civilization: Moving Toward Progress
• Greek History of Civilization
• Modern Civilization’s Beating Heart: The Internet
• Primary Source for World Civilization
• The Development of A Sustainable Civilization
• Fairness: Islam and the West in the Case of Richard Bulliet’s Islamo-Christian Civilization
• Impact of the Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito Problems on Western Civilization
• The Agricola and Germania’s Depiction of Western Civilization
• Growth of Western Civilization
• Western Civilization’s History of Technology and Innovation
• History of the Mayan Civilization
• Western Civilization: Bernard Lewis’s Perspectives
• The Western Civilization Is Falling: A Documentary
• Written by Herbert Marcuse, Eros, and Civilization
• The Decline and Fall of the Mayan Civilization
• Civilizational Impact of Roman Lifestyles
• The World Civilization’s Impact on Arab Scientists
• City Artifacts: The Rise of Urban Civilization
• History of the Arabs and the Muslims: Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization
• Mesopotamian Early Civilization
• Iranian History, Culture, and the Resurgence of Islam
• Civilization in China During the Han Dynasty

Fascinating Civilization Topics to Write About

• Early Civilization and the Features of Homo Sapiens
• “World Civilization: “A Book by Kevin Reilly
• Cahill’s: “How the Irish Saved Civilization”
• Development of Civilization’s Fragile Web
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• Leonard’s “Black Friday: Consumerism Minus Civilization”
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• According to Diamond’s Theory, the Mayans
• Historical and Contemporary Banks in Islamic Civilization
• United States of America’s Civilization
• Cold War and Victorian Civilization
• The Evolution of the Indus Valley Civilization
• Examination of Roman Civilization
• Mesopotamian Culture and the Great Flood Are Examples of the Ancient Near East.
• Cheikh Anta Diop’s “Civilization or Barbarism” and Race
• The First Crusade Represents Western Civilization.
• Middle-Eastern Chinese Civilization
• The Renaissance, Contemporary Western Civilization
• The Decline of the Minoan Civilization in 1450 Bc
• 1000 Bc–500 Ad: Classical Civilization
• The High Middle Ages in European Civilization
• The Role of Education as A Distinguishing Feature of Civilization
• An Examination of Western Civilization’s Current Moral Climate
• Justifications for Western Civilization
• Rome’s Historic Civilization
• European Middle Ages Civilization
• Influence of the Burgundians on French Civilization
• Western Civilization’s Liberal and Nationalist Traditions
• Native American Belief: Cherokee: Entrance to Modern Civilization
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Civilization Essay Titles

• The Contrast between Islam and India’s Civilizations
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• Western Civilization: Historical Analysis Up to 1648
• The Opium Wars in Western Civilization
• According to R. E. W. Adams’ “The Origins of Maya Civilization,”
• The Classic Maya Civilization’s Economy
• French Revolution, 1789–1999: Western Civilization
• Vector-Borne Diseases: Insects and Human Civilization
• Barbarism and Civilization in Contemporary Culture
• Chinese Civilization’s Past
• The Development of Russian Culture
• Contributions of the Greeks to Western Civilization
• Williams and Gandhi’s Interpretation of Civilization’s Purpose
• Anthropometric and Human Factors in Islamic Civilization
• Women’s Representations in Western Culture
• The Concept of Thoreau’s Wilderness and Civilization
• Comparing Hellenistic Civilization and Hellenic Society
• Definition of the Term “Western Civilization.”
• Islamic Civilization’s Most Important Successes
• Western Civilization’s Historical Development
• A Comparison of Near Eastern Civilizations with Classical Greek Civilization
• The Military Strength of Roman Civilization
• Rome and Athens’ Prehistoric Civilization
• Christians, Jews, and the Roman Civilization
• The Unique Chinese Culture Before 1400 Ce
• In Sumerian Civilization, Men Predominated.
• Early Civilization and Culture: Key Elements of A New Culture
• Benefits and Costs of the Cold War
• Review of the Islamic Civilization
• Early African Civilization Analysis
• Religion and Government in the Arab World

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Defining the Concept of Civilizations Essay

Civilization is one of the key concepts of Anthropology. Recognizing this phenomenon as a complex one, researchers integrate materialistic and spiritualistic approaches to defining it, considering physiological peculiarities of the development of the nervous system, geographical and social environment, and system of beliefs as the main determinants of the formation and development of the civilizations.

The theories of Boas and Mead contradict the views of Tylor and Morgan on the main factors which have impact on the process of evolution.

Defining the concepts of civilization and culture, anthropologists Boas and Mead established the relationship between the heredity, social and geographical environment and realization of these or those peculiar characteristics. Boas used the observational data for defining the peculiar features of various peoples and races, using an evolutionary approach to his comparative analysis. His main argumentation was focused on the changes in person’s central nervous system which are dependent upon the environment and living conditions.

“Social and geographical environment must have an influence upon the form of the body of the adult, and upon the development of his central nervous system” (Stocking 215). He supported the monogenist theories concerning the common ancestry of all the humans. At the same type the central concept of his researches is the plasticity of human types predetermined with the differences in external factors of both geographical and social surrounding.

At the same time, Boas does not claim for the comprehensiveness of his studies, pointing at the weaknesses of the statistics analysis and particular inconsistencies of observational data. “A race must not be identified with a subjectively established type but must be conceived as a biological unit, as a population derived from a common ancestry and by virtue of its descent endowed with definite biological characteristics” (Boas 37).

Developing his theories, Mead shifts the emphasis to the peculiarities of temperament in men and women. She researched the attitude towards sex-differences among the representatives of the three primitive societies (Mundugumor, Arapesh, and Tchambuli). Mead used the analysis of temperament peculiarities and social roles of the two sexes for defining the particular elements of civilizations as the so-called social fabrics.

Mead’s primary argument is “the general belief of our society that there was a natural sex-temperament which could at the most only be distorted or diverted from normal expression” (Mead 22). The anthropologist does not overemphasize the role of the physiology, acknowledging that the observations are focused on generally accepted behavioral patterns and the social attitudes that innate characteristics.

The anthropologists Morgan and Tylor investigated the main principles of organization and development of the society. Along with the evolutionary approach that was implemented by Boas and Mead, these researchers consider the backward movement within the community as a significant factor which can result in degradation and regress of mankind.

Morgan’s historical analysis of formation and development of civilizations is based on the theory of acquisition of knowledge and experience. Starting from the analysis of the tribes of savages and barbarians, the researcher gets to the roots of the origin of the civilizations, considering the progress of the humanity as a rather casual phenomenon that could be prevented under particular circumstances.

“Civilization must be regarded as an accident of circumstances” (Morgan 553). Morgan’s views on the paths of the development of the humanity contradict Boas’s and Mead’s theories and cannot co-exist with them. As opposed to Boas’s hypothesis concerning the diversity of the races, Morgan considers the process of progress predictable, explaining it with the universal natural laws of human mind.

Using the same method of statistics analysis, anthropologist Tylor evaluates the role of progress and regress strengths in the development of civilizations. Recognizing the concept of civilization as a complex phenomenon, the researcher does not limit its definition to constant progress of the primitive society resulting in the present day level of development of humanity.

As opposed to Boas and Mead who decided on the materialistic approach to defining the concepts of culture and civilization and focused on the physiological characteristics of the central nervous system, heredity or social environment as the most important issue of their theories, Tylor focuses on the relationship between the system of beliefs and the life of the community, integrating the issue of regress of civilizations into his analysis for making it more comprehensive.

“In striking a balance between the effects of forward and backward movement in civilization, it must be borne in mind how powerfully the diffusion of culture acts in preserving the results of progress from the attacks of degeneration” (Tylor 376).

Using different approaches for defining the concepts of culture and civilizations, Boas and Mead, on the one hand, and Morgan and Tylor, on the other hand, formulated their hypotheses of the main principles of the development of the mankind which cannot co-exist because of the differences in the anthropologists’ approaches.

Implementing the same method of historical and statistical analysis for defining the concept of civilization and the main principles of its development, Boas and Mead, on the one hand, and Morgan and Tylor, on the other hand, came to different conclusions, emphasizing various sides of life.

Works Cited

Boas, Franz. The Mind of Primitive Man. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1938. Print.

Mead, Margaret. Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. New York: William Morrow and Company. 1935. Print.

Morgan, Lewis. Ancient Society. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1907. Print.

Stocking, George. (ed.) The Shaping of American Anthropology 1883-1911: A Franz Boas Reader. New York: Basic Books Publishers. 1974. Print.

Tylor, Edward. Primitive Culture: Researchers into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art and Custom. London: John Murray. 1871. Print.

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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Civilizations.

A civilization is a complex human society that may have certain characteristics of cultural and technological development.

Anthropology, Archaeology, Sociology, Geography, Human Geography, Social Studies, Ancient Civilizations

Mandalay Myanmar

This forest of Buddhist shrines remains at Myanmar's (Burma's) first capital.

Photograph by W.E. Garrett

Scholars often differ over how to define “civilization” and how to categorize societies based on that definition – or whether to categorize them at all. Most historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists working today feel that the word is problematic because of the way the label has been used to set up harmful oppositions among world societies, with “civilized” societies being seen as superior to “non-civilized” societies.

To understand why scholars are careful with the word civilization, and why people disagree about what it means, it helps to get back to its etymological root. The word “civilization” relates to the Latin word “civitas” or “city.” This is why the most literal definition of the word “civilization” is “a society made up of cities.” The word “civilization” was first used in France in the mid-eighteenth century, but it was not used to categorize societies. By the late 1700s, scholars started applying criteria to what made a society “civilized.” In general, they believed that: civilizations are urban rather than nomadic ; there is a division of labor; agriculture, science, technology, commerce, literature, and art are developed; class structure and government exist.

By this definition, there are many ancient societies that could be called civilizations. The Shang Dynasty of China (1600 BCE to 1046 BCE) is credited with inventing the earliest form of writing in China. It had a strong government seated in a capital and a formidable military, thanks to their development of the chariot and use of bronze weapons. and created beautiful bronze and jade works. The Aksum Empire (160 CE to 960 CE), in what is now Ethiopia, was a wealthy society with impressive architecture, a writing system, a large capital city, international commerce, and military might. The Abbasid Caliphate —which controlled Iran, Iraq, the whole Arabian Peninsula, and much of North Africa at the height of its power in the ninth century CE—gave rise to a period called the Golden Age of Islam that saw an astounding flowering or arts, music, literature, science, and technology. But the application of the word “civilization” historically has not been evenhanded, especially with regard to societies outside of Europe and the Mediterranean.

Early in the development of the term, historians and others used labels such as “civilization” and “civilized society” broadly to differentiate between societies they found culturally superior and those they found culturally inferior. Well into the twentieth century and even today, most of the people who wrote about civilization or civilizations in their published papers and books are white males of European ancestry. Their concept of what constitutes a civilization was widely accepted.

One such person was Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), a British historian and member of the British parliament who became famous for his six-volume work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published between 1776 and 1788. Gibbon’s work is considered the foundation for the modern study of ancient Rome, and his methodology and use of primary sources became a model for future historians. The book was widely read by the wealthy, educated class, and it had a major impact on the politics and culture of Europe. Western nations looked to Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece as models of great civilizations, which they tried to emulate.

Over time, “civilization” came to imply Western-style civilization in most contexts, mainly because it was primarily Western scholars who were responsible for applying the term. Even while admiring certain cultures and their practices, European scholars judged them as lacking in some ways. Religious and racial prejudice often played a part in their judgment. India, for example, has been home to many powerful and internationally influential societies for five millennia. These societies made enormous advances in science, technology, arts, and commerce. When India was colonized by the British Empire in the nineteenth century, Hindu or Muslim faith was seen as dangerous superstition. Indians also faced racism from the British. Their culture was deemed uncivilized, a judgment that the colonizers used as justification for subjugating the Indian population. In this case, and many others, the idea of civilization contributed to generations of violence by “civilized” societies against “uncivilized” societies.

In the twentieth century, the word civilization came to be applied to some non-Western societies. However, scholars were still almost all white, male, wealthy, and of Western European heritage, so they were still making the determination of what was or was not civilized. For example, the Inca Empire of Peru thrived from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries CE. It was invaded and defeated by Spain in 1572. The Inca had a complex civilization with a strong government and fixed social  hierarchy . They left behind a wealth of art and had highly developed architecture—but no written language. The Inca also did not use the wheel as a tool. These factors would have been considered evidence that it was a “backward” society by nineteenth-century scholars.

The man who brought the Inca Empire to the attention of Western audiences was an explorer led by locals to the ruins of the major Inca city Machu Picchu in 1911. His name was Hiram Bingham III (1875-1956). He was American, white, and highly educated. He became an influential politician and later a governor, and his views were respected. The National Geographic Society and Yale University gave their financial support to his continued study of Inca society, and National Geographic devoted its whole April 1913 magazine edition to his work. Bigham’s writing gained wide visibility, and the Inca Empire was soon recognized as an important civilization, even though it was not Western. Important excavations in the Middle East in the twentieth century, again by Western scholars, uncovered ruins of ancient Mesopotamian societies that was more advanced than Ancient Greek societies and predated Ancient Greek civilization by almost a thousand years.

Today, anthropologists and historians come from a much more diverse range of backgrounds than in the past. Some have rejected the concept of civilization being the goal toward which societies should strive. Scholars of the understudied history of American Indian populations, for example, have challenged some long-held assumptions.

American Indians were categorized as savages for centuries, ever since European invaders first arrived in the 1400s. European invaders viewed the Native Americans as savages due to their unfamiliar cultural practices, their non-Christian beliefs, and their race. Some American Indian societies, particularly in North America, were nomadic. Colonizers saw the nomadic lifestyle as very primitive, a sentiment still echoed today. Archaeologists devoted little time to the research of sites of settlement in the Americas, and most concluded that humans had not arrived in the Americas until about 12,000 years ago.

However, increased interest by scholars and improved technology have turned some assumptions about the Americas on their heads. For example, Dr. Paulette Steeves, a Cree-Métis anthropologist, challenged the idea that America’s first people arrived 12,000 years ago. In her acclaimed book The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere (2022), she presents her own research, which she says indicates that the humans arrived much earlier than previously speculated – as early as 130,000 years ago. Many archaeologists disagree, but Steeves’s research has drawn more interest to the question of human settlement in the Americas. In 2018, researchers using laser imaging to survey the Guatemalan jungle found a sprawling system of Maya cities that had been hidden in the foliage for centuries. Based on this discovery, they concluded that earlier estimates of the Maya population had been off by millions of years.

Archaeological discoveries such as these show that the diverse range of American Indian cultures were much older and larger than previously thought. With increased interest and better tools, more discoveries like these will be made around the world.

Many scholars today see human societies as too complex and varied to fit into simple categories of “civilized” or “not civilized.” Their research builds on the discoveries of the past but opens a new vision of how societies develop and interact.

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Short Essay on Civilization [100, 200, 400 Words] With PDF

In this session, you are going to learn how you can write short essays on Civilization. There will be three different sets of essays in this session covering different word limits. 

Short Essay on Civilization in 100 Words

A civilization is a complex society that is marked by urban development, social hierarchy, governmental bodies and advanced systems of communication like writing. In the prehistoric era, human beings lived in caves and hunted for food. Gradually, people began to come together in groups and settle down. With time, these settlements grew larger and became towns, cities and states. People began to do organized works like agriculture, mining and keeping domesticated livestock.

Different forms of government came into existence to maintain law and order in these societies. Thus, from the prehistoric men who lived in the wild, an advanced society was formed that had a complex structure. Some examples of such civilizations are the Ancient Egyptian civilization, Indus Valley civilization, Mesopotamian and Roman civilizations. 

Short Essay on Civilization in 200 Words

The word civilization comes from the Latin word ‘civitas’ or ‘city’. Thus, in simple words, a civilization is a complex society made up of a group of cities. However, there are many other things like cultural and technological developments that are necessary for a society to be considered a civilization. So, a more accurate definition of civilization would be that it is a complex society that is marked by urban development, social hierarchy, governmental bodies and advanced systems of communication like writing. Society should also be settled and not live a nomadic life. 

In the prehistoric era, people lived in caves alone or with their family members and hunted for food. Gradually, people began to come together in groups and form nomadic societies. They moved together from place to place in search of food. With time, the practice of farming was developed and people began to settle down. Slowly, these settlements grew larger and became towns, cities and states.

Division of labour occurred and people began to do organized works like agriculture, mining and keeping domesticated livestock. Different forms of government came into existence to maintain law and order in these societies. Thus, from the prehistoric men who lived in the wild, an advanced society was formed that had a complex structure. Some of the famous civilizations are the Ancient Egyptian civilization, Indus Valley civilization, Mesopotamian and Roman civilizations. 

Short Essay on Civilization in 400 Words

The word civilization comes from the Latin word ‘civitas’ or ‘city’. Thus, in simple words, a civilization can be defined as a complex society made up of a group of cities. However, there are many other things like cultural, urban and technological developments that are necessary for a society to be considered a civilization. So, a more accurate definition of civilization would be that it is a complex society that is marked by urban development, social hierarchy, governmental bodies and advanced systems of communication like writing. Society should also be settled and not live a nomadic life. 

In the prehistoric era, people lived in caves alone or with their family members and hunted for food. Gradually, people began to come together in groups and form nomadic societies. They moved together from place to place in search of food and shelter. With time, the practice of farming was developed and people began to settle down beside rivers and other water bodies.

These settlements kept growing larger and became towns, cities and states. Instead of every person having to gather their food, division of labour occurred and the jobs were divided among people. Some farmed, some made pottery, some kept livestock while others made clothes and furniture. Art, music and entertainment also became a huge part of people’s lives.

Different forms of government came into existence to maintain law and order in these societies. Written languages were developed. These societies looked a lot like the societies we live in today. Thus, from the prehistoric man who lived in the wild and had to fend for himself, an advanced society was formed that had a complex structure. 

The definition of civilization, however, is not perfect. When the word was first coined, it was used by people to differentiate between their culture, which they felt was morally superior as well as highly developed, and other cultures which they considered morally inferior and backward. They called themselves civilised and referred to the others as barbarians. This led them to try to conquer and “civilise” the people whom they saw as barbaric. This, in turn, led to various native cultures around the world being terrorised, killed and forced to give up their unique ideas, identities and ways of life. 

This definition of civilization also excludes cultures like the Incan empire which had complex societies, religion, division of labour and technological prowess, from being considered a civilization just because they didn’t have a written language. Some examples of proper civilizations are the Ancient Egyptian civilization, Indus Valley civilization, Mesopotamian and Roman civilizations. 

I have tried to write these essays in a very simple language for a better and easier understanding of all kinds of students. If you still have any kind of confusion regarding this topic, let me know through the comment section below. Keep browsing our website for more such sessions on various important topics. 

Thank you. 

3.1 Early Civilizations

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Discuss the attributes of early civilizations
• Analyze the way human relationships changed with the development of urban areas

Early civilizations, most of which arose along large rivers, were marked by an agriculturally sustained population that remained settled in one area and could number in the tens of thousands. The stability of the population allowed for the development of a discernible culture , which consists of all the different ways a distinct group of people interact with one another and their environment and pass these ways down from generation to generation over time. This is not to say that earlier groups of people lacked social identities. But there were important differences between them and the early civilizations that followed.

The development of early civilizations occurred between 10,000 and 8,000 BCE in just a few specific areas of the world that historians have labeled the “cradles of civilization.” In these locations—today’s Mexico, Peru, China, India/Pakistan, Iraq, and Egypt—the introduction of farming allowed larger populations to settle in one place, and the ability to produce and distribute surpluses of food enabled some people to specialize in such tasks as manufacturing handicrafts, tending to the spiritual world, and governing. The peoples of these cultures experienced radical changes in their lifestyles as well as in the ways their communities interacted with each other and their environments.

Attributes of Early Civilizations

Even after the Neolithic Revolution , many people continued to lead a nomadic or seminomadic existence, hunting and gathering or herding domesticated animals. People produced or gathered only enough materials to meet the immediate food, shelter, and clothing needs of their family unit. Even in societies that adopted farming as a way of life, people grew only enough for their own survival. Moreover, the family unit was self-sufficient and relied on its own resources and abilities to meet its needs. No great differences in wealth existed between families, and each person provided necessary support for the group. Group leaders relied primarily on consensus for decision-making. Order and peace were maintained by negotiations between community elders such as warriors and religious leaders. Stability also became dependent on peaceful relationships with neighboring societies, often built on trade.

Early civilizations, by contrast, arose where large numbers of people lived in a relatively small, concentrated area and worked to produce a surplus of food and other materials, which they distributed through a system of exchange. For farming communities, this food surplus meant family size grew to six or seven children and caused the global human population to skyrocket. Population growth rooted in agricultural production led to larger cities, in which the food produced by farmers in outlying rural areas was distributed among the population of the urban center, where food was not produced. This system of specialization was a key feature of early civilizations and what distinguished them from previous societies. Individuals performed specific tasks such as farming, writing, or performing religious rituals. People came to rely on the exchange of goods and services to obtain necessary supplies. For example, artisans specializing in craft production relied on farmers to cultivate the food they needed to thrive. In turn, farmers depended upon artisans to produce tools and clothing for them. A weaver acquired wool from a shepherd and produced cloth that might then be given to a physician in exchange for medicine or a priest as payment for conducting a religious ritual.

The system of exchange, however, created hierarchies within society. Those who could accumulate more goods became wealthy, and they passed that wealth from one generation to the next. This wealth led, in turn, to the accumulation of political and religious power, while those who continued to labor in production remained lower on the social scale. This social stratification , another characteristic of early civilizations, means that families and individuals could vary greatly in their wealth and status. Those who share the same level of wealth and status make up a distinct class or strata, and these strata or classes are ordered from highest to lowest based on their social standing.

The nature of government also changed as populations grew. In smaller groups, decisions about war and migration were made in concert because no individual or family was likely to survive without the others. Also, in small communities, order and peace were often enforced at the family level. If someone acted badly, the customs of the society were brought to bear on them to correct the offending behavior. For example, the San of South Africa held a ritual dance to contact their elders for advice on how to correct a difficult situation. The act of coming together was often enough for the community to heal. In larger civilizations, officials such as priests and kings possessed the authority to command the obedience of subjects, who relied on the powerful to protect them. In return for physical protection and the promise of prosperity, farmers and artisans provided food and goods and, eventually, paid taxes. This exchange served to reinforce both the developing social hierarchy and the specialization of labor.

As civilizations developed around the world in this way, they shared the features noted. Their existence did not mean the end of older ways of living, however. Nomadic and seminomadic peoples not only remained an integral part of the ancient world, they also provided crucial resources and a vehicle for the exchange of knowledge and culture. They were particularly important as a means of connecting one large city to another.

The First Urban Societies

Around 10,000 BCE, wheat was first domesticated in what is today northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, and western Iran, and also in Syria and Israel. This region is commonly called the Fertile Crescent (because of its shape). It includes Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), southern Anatolia (modern Turkey), and the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine) and has yielded the earliest evidence of agriculture ( Figure 3.4 ). This same region saw the rise of the first urban areas in the Neolithic Age , often called Neolithic cities. Examples include Jericho (8300–6500 BCE) along the Jordan River in what is today the Palestinian Territories, and Çatalhöyük (7200–6000 BCE) in southeastern Turkey. Archaeologists have established that these early urban areas had populations as high as six thousand.

Link to Learning

Hunter-gatherer cultures also built large structures, such as the monumental architecture at Göbekli Tepe in southeast Turkey and at Poverty Point in Louisiana in the United States. Listen to this TEDx Talk lecture by the archaeologist who excavated at Göbekli Tepe to find out more about the site. You can learn more about the Poverty Point culture by exploring the Poverty Point website . Look especially at “History and Artifacts.”

Neolithic settlements depended upon the transition to agricultural production to sustain their populations. Such developments were also accompanied by increasing complexity in other areas of life, such as religion. An agricultural surplus enabled religious specialists to devote time to performing bull sacrifices at Çatalhöyük, for example, and freed artisans to hone their skills to create the frescoes that decorated the interior space where these sacrifices occurred. Some form of government must have organized the labor and materials necessary to construct the walls and tower at Jericho, which may have served as an observatory to mark the passage of the solar year. In both Jericho and Çatalhöyük, a shared belief system, or unity behind a leader, must have inspired the inhabitants to labor in the fields and distribute their agricultural surplus. At Jericho, the community may have been united by its veneration of ancestors, whose skulls were decorated and revered as idols. The people of Çatalhöyük may have offered their bull sacrifices to a mother-deity, possibly represented by small figurines of a woman that archaeologists have discovered there.

Ancient Greece - Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

Ancient Greece, a civilization known for its significant contributions to art, philosophy, politics, and science, has left a lasting impact on the modern world. Essays on this topic could explore the various city-states, the classical philosophers, the political concepts of democracy and oligarchy, and the advancements in arts and sciences. Furthermore, discussions might delve into the Greco-Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian War, and the enduring legacy of Ancient Greece. We have collected a large number of free essay examples about Ancient Greece you can find at PapersOwl Website. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

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Women in Ancient Greece Theatre Practices

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Ancient Greek Contributions to Western Civilization

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The Greeks set a tone for Western world and art history we know today through their paintings, sculptures, architecture, and many other innovations. Although they were influenced highly from Egypt and Mesopotamia, they would develop their own independent identity. The biggest concern while building what would become such impactive architecture, dealt with the proportion, harmony, and perspective. This would lead to the creation of many temples, theatres, and stadia that would become staple features of their cities/towns antiquity onwards. Greek […]

Alexander the Great the Gleaming Pearl of Ancient Greece

In the history of the ancient world, there are outstanding leaders with strategic minds and the ability to defeat all enemies. Among the most talented kings in the world, the most important one is probably Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great (356 - 323 BC) was the emperor who crushed the mighty Persian Empire and built the Greek Empire. He was a natural military genius and also considered to be a great contributor to the development of the history of […]

Spartan Warfare and Society in Ancient Greece

Introduction Sparta experienced territorial expansion due to its well organized and trained army (Cartledge 3). The Spartans inhabited fertile lands located in Eurotas and Pamisos where they practiced agricultural activities (Cartledge 3). On the other hand, the Helots were pushed to marginalized lands. They were nevertheless allowed by Spartans to live semi-autonomous lives in spite of being slaves. The Spartan helots would also be allowed to serve as warriors (Whitmore 3). This paper will discuss the Spartan warfare and how […]

Sparta and Athens Society Compare and Contrast

The life of a man or a woman in Ancient Greek was really different from the lives we have today. What I say is not about technology but about human rights such as the right to participate in public life. In Ancient Greek, women had no right to elect or to be elected, and only free men had their voice in the government. In Sparta, most people did not have any role for decision making for the community and Spartan […]

Historical Events of Ancient Greece

What importance did the Battles of Marathon and Salamis, and the Punic Wars have for Ancient Greece and Rome? Ancient Greece: The battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC during the first Persian invasion on Greece. Citizens of Athens and citizens of Plataea revolted against the Persian army. The battle was a very big victory for the Greeks. From this victory, they gained confidence in their defense system and a new battle tactic called phalanx. The phalanx tactic is […]

Daily Life in Ancient Greece

Daily life in Greece is much different from ours today. In today's world male and female should have equal rights. Men should help the women clean house, women can mow the lawn, women can build houses and do construction work if they desire to do so. In Greece, it's a totally different story. Men are required to take a roll of being very involved in the community. While the women's lives were ALWAYS being at home doing work around the […]

Ancient Greece Art Essay

Ancient Greece is one of my favorite subjects to talk and learn about. I love the history, the stories, and the art, Greece itself is a masterpiece. However, even though Greece has many legendary art works, there is one that I considered my favorite above all of them. There is a vase called “Ajax and Achilles Playing a Game” by the famous Exekias who was known as an ancient Greek vase-painter and potter. Exekias made many beautiful pieces of artwork […]

Ancient Greece: a Women’s Life

The treatment of Women in Ancient Greece was often based on the social economic class that they were born into, or married into. The rich women had less rights than the poor women. Women that were married to rich men were often confined to their homes. Their only jobs were to manage the house and to give birth to sons for the husband. These women also lived in different parts of the house away from the men. They even ate […]

The Role of Women and Stereotypes in the Greek Society in the Odyssey by Homer

The Odyssey is a classic poem by Homer ha revolves around the narrative of Odysseus an ancient Greek hero. Homer describes a full twenty-year journey that Odysseus spends fighting the Trojan War and traveling back to his family. The most significant theme is the nature and the role of women in Greek society. According to the story, men during the period were dominant and made most of the rules. However, Homer defies and illustrates the disparity in the role of […]

Ancient Greece Modern Comparison Project

Since the Grecian times, poems have been a very integral and influential part of every culture. Poems have affected whole countries at a time by expressing emotion, deep feelings, and a sense of what is beautiful about the world. From India to America, people have always drawn important parts of life and history from poems. A couple of the most unforgettable and prominent poets of all time include Homer and William Shakespeare. For my comparison essay, I will analyze the […]

Ancient Greece at the Met

Old Greek engineers tackle rigor and excellence of craftsmanship which are the trademark of Greek art universally. The methods they fabricated during the early sixth century B.C. still influence modern architecture. According to Sayre, H. M., (2013) there are two main principal orders in Classical and Archaic Greek architecture. They are commonly called Doric and the Ionic. In the Doric order, columns are fluted without any form of base. While with the Ionic order, bases support the columns, which have […]

Unveiling the Tapestry: the Pervasive Influence of Ancient Greece Geography

In the grand tapestry of human history, few threads are as intricately woven into the fabric as the geography of Ancient Greece. Beyond being a backdrop of azure seas and rugged mountains, the geographical features of this ancient land wielded a profound impact on the course of its history, culture, and societal structures. Let's embark on a journey through the undulating hills and craggy coastlines, unraveling the influence of Ancient Greece geography on the shaping of a civilization. The defining […]

Harmonies of History: the Lyre in Ancient Greece

The ancient Greeks, known for their rich contributions to art, philosophy, and politics, also held a profound affinity for music, with the lyre standing as a testament to this cultural passion. This stringed instrument, deeply intertwined with Greek mythology, literature, and daily life, resonates not just with musical notes but also with historical significance. The lyre, with its elegant structure, typically consisted of a soundbox made from tortoiseshell or wood, with arms extending upwards and joined by a crossbar. Strings, […]

Oedipus and the Sphinx

The great sphinx is a famous landmark known around the world for its loin body and a human head. It was built for a pharaoh as a guide in the afterlife. There is so much to learn about the sphinx. Like when and where it as built, ancient Greek myths, and King Khafre (the head of this amazing monument). Not to mention all the astonishing facts about the statue. When and where was the great sphinx built? The sphinx was […]

The Contribution of Ancient Greece to the Western Civilization

The ancient Greeks gave many contributions to the western civilization. They gave the Pythagorean Theory, Hippocratic Oath, limited democracy and more. Today those contributions benefit us. Pythagoras gave the Pythagorean Theory to us. He made a formula (a2+b2=C2); this formula is used to calculate the relationship between the sides of a right triangle. Euclid was a Greek mathematician and is often called the father of geometry. He put together, scientifically arranged, and wrote portions of the mathematics textbook Elements. Very […]

Birthdays: a Wish for the Gods

Birthdays are celebrated to remember personal achievements, show appreciation to those we love and care for, and to simply acknowledge our existence. Although lives are measured by the ceaseless passing of time, birthdays are a time to be remembered. That is how birthdays are defined in America today. The single day that all people have to mark a time in history, celebrate youth or adulthood, highlight milestones, rites of passage, and feel recognized; it is a celebration of life. They […]

Conquests of Alexander the Great

Alexander was set up to succeed his dad Philip II through watchful direction. When his dad kicked the bucket, he had mentored him from multiple points of view and he had additionally set the ground for his successes. Alexander acquired a urbanized people, an efficient military, and philosophical and military training and he used his insight to vanquish Persia and different parts of Asia. His heritage comprised of his despotic governments and utilization of military power as a major aspect […]

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Free Civilization Essay Sample

Introduction.

Civilization is a society defined by fundamentals such as a method of writing, a growth of social classes, and cities. Some of the early civilizations include the ancient Greece, classical Rome, Mesopotamia, and classical China. All have made unique contributions to societies that are felt to date by the modern society. The various inventions, advancement, and individual contributions of the ancient people during ancient civilizations have shaped the world we live in today.

Ancient Civilization

The oldest and most ancient civilization was the Mesopotamia civilizations and stretched northeastern across the present-day Egypt. The earliest inhabitants to inhabit Mesopotamia made significant contributions such as inventing wheeled vehicles and the early form of writing to the world. The Mesopotamian civilization is the origin to various great knowledge man has ever developed these was because of a scientific uprising that took place. The Mesopotamian civilization is distinguished for introducing the first mathematical breakthrough through the discovery of exponents and roots. Such mathematical systems allowed for the construction certain architectural designs like the arch, the dome, and vaulted ceilings. The modern man though very simple has never improved such concepts to date. Architecture innovations have enabled more people to fit in less space in the modern world allowing more residents to leave in cities. It is notable to say that the Mesopotamia civilization was indeed a great civilization due to its immense contributions to the modern society. Besides developments in mathematics and architectures the Mesopotamian, culture has full recognition in rise to practical medicine with the development in pharmaceutical tablets that have been found to cure a variety of venereal disease. The Astronomy field was neither left behind in the Mesopotamia civilization; their astrological discoveries remained unchallenged until Galileo invented the telescope.

Due its flourishing nature, Mesopotamia invented trade routes that have remained way after. Nations engaged in international trade relies on trade routes to do business with their business. Mesopotamia in my opinion should be regarded as an amazing civilization, the modern man owes a great deal to these civilization and its culture. It notable that everywhere there is proof of prehistoric Mesopotamian influence making it one of the greatest civilizations ever existed. The Ancient Greek Contributions to the modern society was influential in the manner in which governments are formed. The Greek culture serves as the structure of reference for the Western way of life that touches on government, architecture, math, and arts. It is on the Greek culture where our modern society is built upon. According to Greek civilization government are formed by citizens regardless social standing, this is what is currently known as democracy, or “government of the people.” Athens democracy encouraged every citizen to participate in debates a common aspect practiced by most Western civilizations to date. Through the same scenario many government elect their officials and enforce laws.

Mathematical Geometry, which is a major foundation in mathematics, had its early development in Ancient Greece by Euclid. Mathematical discoveries resulted to Grecian architecture that was instrumental in designing buildings in Greece. Most of the buildings were either mathematically designed either in symmetrical shapes that are prominently done in the modern world. Although the Greek culture fell several years ago it has remained as one of the most sought after examples that Western civilization copy after.

The Ancient Rome has helped build the society that we all live in today. Its contribution has been very instrumental to the growth of Western Civilisation. The Ancient Rome culture has lent the Western Civilisation a number of attributes that have transformed the world into what it is today. The Ancient Rome was the first government to be created, these have been replicated across all nations in the world to date, and all nations have set governments and systems of governance to help serve its people in a fair manner. Assuming that the Romans had not laid proper laws and structures and never chosen people to rule Rome, and then we would most likely be living in different way in the modern society. Most recent buildings have been influenced by the Ancient Roman architecture. The development of Latin the Ancient Roman language is the base of most English words currently used in communication today. In fact, without Rome civilization communication would be a great challenge, English has remained as the main form of communication across the world. The introduction of rules and laws has brought order because wrong doers are punished under rules and laws that make up government, though they have changed over time. Rome culture has been fundamentals setting up systems of running a country peacefully, though the Ancient Rome was either a democracy or a republic but its existence is very relevant to majority of Western countries.

The Roman culture that which is founded on family values, military strength, and wise leadership among its leaders. On the contrary, the Rome civilization brought the concept that whatever flourishes at times start to decline leading to a downfall. Rome downfall was a result of economic decay that resulted from the expensive lifestyles their leaders had. The Rome government got money by taxing the poor people who formed the largest percentage as it the case with most of the modern governments. The current economic downfall is as old as the Rome civilization, their leaders were among the first to cause an economic downfall within their government similar to what the world is experiencing today.  

The excavations of the remains at Mohenjodaro and Harrappa today in Pakistan prove the being and a developed urban civilization inside India. Indus valley civilization, which dates approximately 3000 B.C., made India to be civilized since the very last 5000 years. The being of an urban civilization presumes the being of urbanized techniques of structural design and construction. These techniques would have no doubt, been systematically affirmed in documentation for transmission to later generations as well as being kept to act as reference medium for real construction. Unfortunately, this Indus Valley civilization has no such account preserved either as astound edicts, manuscripts or in folk tale and folklore. Constructed cities then bear a testimony to existence of systematized and highly urbanized technique of structural design for as before as 5000 years ago. In the past ages, as of the 7th century B.C., there is both writings and well-stored references and still archeological evidences to confirm the being of great urban civilizations at the Ganges Valley. Like in other sciences, remotely linked with faith or religion in architecture, also the scientific thoughts and techniques have been incorporated with philosophy and religion. This is so as majority of huge constructions are the temples.

The classical China civilization was a dynasty first established by Qin Shi Huang in 221 BC as the "First Emperor." Through Chinese civilization the Chinese language, measurements, length, and currency all came to be. However, it never lasted for long it introduced authoritarian policies that resulted to widespread rebellion. The current china economy depended on the china civilization that began its rapid development during and after. Writing was developed in the Indus Valley, China. Such civilization was for the purpose of record keeping then. Good record keeping system is vital to a society's evolution. The discovery of medicines by the china has been a big break though in containing and treating most of the diseases affecting the world today. China to date has remained a strong pillar in the manufacture of most of the medicines in use today. New discoveries are still taking place in China with this being one of the greatest contributions the China Ancient culture has contributed to the world to date. Art and painting has remained in the hearts of the China Culture for a number of years, the Ancient society was the first introduce painting and use of color schemes in its artistic works. These developments in art are in use by all societies and cultures to date. The china civilization introduced clothing and jeweler among its citizens, these have remained an important aspect of human decency without which the world would be very different from what it is today. The Ancient Indian civilization is known for the introduction of Civil Construction that was instrumental in the construction of Ancient temples, palaces among other civil construction.

Ancient civilizations have played a major role in defining the modern society. Every aspect of modern society has its roots on either of the ancient civilizations; the current way of life is just but an improvement of the ancient way of life. Modern science, medicine and art all have any ancient perspective.

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Art of the Americas to World War I

Course: art of the americas to world war i   >   unit 2, the maya, an introduction.

• Maya glyphs, a basic introduction
• Mirror-Bearer (Maya)
• Vessel with a mythological scene (Maya)
• Politics and History on a Maya Vase
• Maya: The Fenton Vase
• Chakalte’, Relief with Enthroned Ruler (Maya)
• Palenque (Classic Period)
• Maya: The Yaxchilán Lintels
• Yaxchilán—Lintels 24 and 25 from Structure 23 and structures 33 and 40
• Códice Maya de México: Getty Conversations
• Tikal Stela 16
• Classic Maya Portrait Stelae
• Jade plaque of a Maya king

Periods in Maya history

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Essay on Civilization

We believe that we live in a wonderful era, an era of all round progress. We think that we have excelled and surpassed our forefathers in almost every respect. The twentieth century seems to us a glorious age and we pride ourselves on its achievements.

No doubt, there is justification for this satisfaction and complacency. The science has made tremendous progress. The use of machine in industry has eliminated human labour. Electricity is serving us in thousand ways. Railways, ships and aeroplanes have reduced distances and made travel fast and comfortable.

Telephones and telegraphs have made communications swift and easy Cinema, radio and television have added a new charm to life Medicines and surgery have made immense strides. Atomic energy has brought in numerous benefits upon mankind. The wonders and miracles of science would justify us in paying a tribute to modem civilization.

Apart from scientific progress that makes our civilization so great, politically also much has been achieved Countries under foreign domination have been liberated Our age has seen many countries under foreign domination being liberated In the social sphere, our progress is no less marked; outdated customs are vanishing: the standard of living of people is rising.

The working class is getting better wages and more facilities. The world percentage of literacy has greatly risen. Besides, we have achieved a higher level of culture than was reached by our ancestors. We live in a truly enlightened age. There is greater refinement than ever before.

People have become polished in their manners and behaviour. There is a widespread appreciation of art and literature, a keen interest is evinced in books, periodicals, paintings, music, dancing exhibitions and the like.

There is, however, a dark side of the picture as well and in any examination of modern civilization, we must not shut your eyes to it A closer scrutiny of modern civilization will reveal its defects. In the political field, for instance, there is much cause for dismay and disappointment.

Our age has been witness to two great wars that have affected humanity. Democracy has had to face serious challenges and suffer serious setbacks. The rise of Fascism and Nazism, and Communism has been a serious menace to liberty and democracy.

The loss of life and property in the two world wars was chiefly due to the deadly weapons invented by science. This shows that scientific progress has not been an unmixed blessing. Long-range guns, flying bombs, magnetic mines, submarines, poisonous gases and, above all, the atom bomb and other nuclear weapons, represent the destructive side of science.

Again, our industrial civilization has produced an adverse effect on health and beauty. We have to live in congested towns and breathe air that is adulterated with factory smoke. The use of machinery has proved a mixed blessing.

The search for excitement, for pleasure, for new sensations is the order of the day. The craze for fashions in dress is widespread. All these tendencies are reflected in books periodicals, paintings and films.

There is a bloom of pornography in literature. Pictures in the nude are becoming popular. Obscenity is defended in the name of art. Religions seem to have no place in modern civilization. Science has shaken people’s faith in God. God and the soul are now antiquated concepts.

Our civilization is purely materialistic. Spiritual values no longer govern the actions of people With the loss of spiritual faith, people have also lost their main support and source of consolation in the hour of distress.

Men do not know what to live for. Boredom with life and a feeling of ennui reflect their frame of mind. Thus a general restlessness prevails in society.

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