artifacts, institutions and practices predominate in Europe, North
America and Australasia. They play a prominent role in the lives of
Asians, South Americans and Africans.

Two thousand years ago a long established Egyptian civilization was
passing into the shadows. Civilizations in China and India were
developing. Roman civilization was approaching the zenith of its
ascendancy.

A thousand years ago Roman civilization, like that of Egypt, was a
memory; Chinese and Indian civilizations were holding their own, while
the followers of Islam were reaching out into Central Asia, North Africa
and Eastern Europe.

In east central Europe and around the Mediterranean the beginnings of
western civilization had made their appearance and were expanding their
control along the Eurasian trade routes and beginning to penetrate
western and northern Europe. The Crusades had introduced Asian culture
traits into the European backwoods. Hardy European and Asian mariners
were penetrating the Americas. Dark ages of ignorance and superstition
which had held sway in Europe for centuries were coming to an end.
Western civilization was beginning to draw the breath of a new life.

The vast structure of Roman civilization had split West from East. The
Eastern Empire retained its form and continued its culture for centuries
after its break with the West. Meanwhile the West fragmented into
smaller and smaller units, increasingly self-contained and increasingly
isolated. Cities raised and manned their own walls. The countryside
broke up into smaller and smaller divisions over which the Holy Roman
Empire exercised little more than a shadowy authority. Each landed