Chapter 1. Europe Classical and Medieval

European civilisation is unique because it is the only civilisation which ahs imposed itself on the rest of the world. It did this by conquest and settlement; by it seconomic power; by the power of its ideas; and because it had things that everyone else wanted. Today every country on the tearht uses the discoveries of science and the technologies that flow fromit, and scinece was a European invention.

At its beginning Eurpean civilisation was made up of three elements

1. the culture of ancient Greece and Rome

2. Christianity, which is an odd offshoot of the religion of the Jews, Judaism

3. the culture of the German warriors who invaded the Roman Empire

The morden Europen civilisation orginated from ancient Greece, if you take a look at the arts, the literature, the maths, the science, the medicine and the thinking about politics. First democracies emgerged in Greece 500-200BC.

The Greeks did not do the science as we do, with hypotheses and testing by experiment. They thought if you got your mind nito gear and thought hard you would get the right answer. So they proceeded by a system of inspired guesses. that the answers must be simple, logical and mathematical.

The Romans were better than the Greeks at fighting. They were better than the Greeks at law, which they used to run their empiror. They were better than the Greeks at engineering, which is useful for both fighting and running the empiror. But in everything else they acknowledged that the Greeks were superior and slavishly copied them.

The second element in the mix of European civilisation is Chritianity

The Greeks and Romans had many gods, whereas the Jews came to believe that there weas only one god. Though the Jews believed they were the chosen people, they didn't have a dream run. They suffered frequently, but they didn't doubt that God exist and would would care for them. If they suffer they would conclud that they have not followed the moral law that they had offended the God.

Christianity is for everyone, and everyone could be Christian. This is the view of paul, the great early missionary, and to some, the founder of Chrisitanity. ecamefrom that time, Christianity became, potentially a world religion. Within 300 years it had spreed right throughou the whole Roman empiror. Year 313, Constantine gave official support to Christianity

The 3rd group in the mix are the German warriors who invaded the Roman empiror around 400AD. They were not literated, but were born soildier