Great Books of the Western World

Joseph Needham’s The Grand Titration: Science and Society in East and West seeks to answer the question of why modern science developed in the Western world and not in China. He answers this question by “titrating,” or essentially comparing, scientific and technological advancements between China and the West. To conduct his comparison, he investigates the relationship, in both civilizations, between science and a variety of topics. The topics that Needham covers include politics, economics,…

beauty to rule in her way, portrayed by beauty icons in films and plays such as Elizabeth Taylor and Claudette Colbert. Everyone knows her legend but very few actually understand her true importance as a female leader in a world dominated by men as well as her impact on Western Civilization. By proving her importance, the topics will include her rise to power to the Egyptian throne, her relationships with Marc Antony and Julius Caesar and how she gained importance by being the catalyst that…

has been bubbling beneath the surface since the disgraceful colonization of Africa. Regardless of its origins, it’s a magnificent opportunity for the Western World to engage and…

At the end of World War I, Germany was harshly punished in the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and faced a state of disaster. Adolf Hitler gained power and combined his roles of Chancellor and President in the Reichstag into Fuhrer. Hitler had planned for a long time to commence the war of his own volition. Hitler and his fellow Nazis insisted that the eradication of Jews was justified in its response to a war launched against Germany by the Jews. At the core of the Nazi justification for the…

Om On Ra by Victor Pelevin, I new once thought that the usage of grotesque was unnecessary. This book allowed the reader to see the life of a soviet cosmonaut and how real the term, “The race for space” was for the USSR. During this time, the United States of America and the USSR were competing on who could get to the moon first. These two countries didn 't want to just leave their mark on the world after WW2; they had bigger dreams for their countries. Pelevin does not just debunk the Soviets…

products (Cleary 6). The Industrial Revolution took place around the world in three phases throughout history. The first Industrial Revolution was enacted within the 1770s and 1860s, and the first country ever to take part in an industrial revolution was England (Cleary 6). Great Britain, as a result of England's dominating use of technology controlled much of the world's economics, and soon after, the Revolution spread to countries in western and northern Europe and the United States (Cleary…

entitled “The Story of Stuff”, explains in a namesake book the polluting process through which the Stuff is created and eventually dismissed. Her message is clear: we not only have too much Stuff (she prefers not using the word goods, “since goods are so often anything but good”), we also do not use it properly. Annie Leonard is an American environmental activist whose greatest aim is the struggle against excessive consumerism, which afflicts western societies. Her attention, however, is mainly…

Diamond’s book Guns, Germs, and Steel asserts that in order for a society to become complex a surplus and steady supply of food is needed, for the more food a civilization has the bigger the population becomes. It is within these large populations that advanced technologies, such as a writing system, evolve (Diamond 226). This paper will examine the success of early civilizations, and power shifts throughout human history; this paper will compare those factors, which allowed the past world…

“never-ending miles of ripe wheat.” There, under the “burning summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky,” Burden’s childhood rears his love for the great country and he soon begins “to lose himself in those big Western dreams.” He later becomes a lawyer for the railroads, retaining his “fresh color and sandy hair and quick-changing eyes.” The imagery is carried through into the first four sections of the first book. In section one, Burden describes a friendly…

While all religions believe that their own perspective on the natural and metaphysical world are correct, it is through this reading that the audience can learn about the entire process of religion formation and the ways that different people can be religious around the world. As systems of belief vary greatly depending on the area of the world, society in which they occur, and the way that different cultures understand one another, there is no true right or wrong…