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The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident (from Latin: ''occidens'' "sunset, West"; as contrasted with the Orient), is a term referring to different nations depending on the context. There are many accepted definitions about what they all have in common.〔(Western Civilization ), Our Tradition; James Kurth; accessed 30 August 2011〕 The concept of the Western part of the earth has its roots in Greco-Roman civilization in Europe, and the advent of Christianity.〔Religions in Global Society – Page 146, Peter Beyer – 2006〕〔Cambridge University Historical Series, ''An Essay on Western Civilization in Its Economic Aspects'', p.40: Hebraism, like Hellenism, has been an all-important factor in the development of Western Civilization; Judaism, as the precursor of Christianity, has indirectly had had much to do with shaping the ideals and morality of western nations since the christian era.〕〔Caltron J.H Hayas, ''Christianity and Western Civilization'' (1953),Stanford University Press, p.2: That certain distinctive features of our Western civilization — the civilization of western Europe and of America— have been shaped chiefly by Judaeo–Graeco–Christianity, Catholic and Protestant.〕〔Horst Hutter, University of New York, ''Shaping the Future: Nietzsche's New Regime of the Soul And Its Ascetic Practices'' (2004), p.111:three mighty founders of Western culture, namely Socrates, Jesus, and Plato.〕〔Fred Reinhard Dallmayr, ''Dialogue Among Civilizations: Some Exemplary Voices'' (2004), p.22: Western civilization is also sometimes described as "Christian" or "Judaeo- Christian" civilization.〕 In the modern era, Western culture has been heavily influenced by the traditions of the Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, Age of Enlightenment—and shaped by the expansive colonialism of the 15th-20th centuries. Before the Cold War era, the traditional Western viewpoint identified Western Civilization with the Western Christian (Catholic-Protestant) countries and culture.〔()|Google books results in English language between the 1800–1960 period〕 Its political usage was temporarily changed by the antagonism during the Cold War in the mid-to-late 20th Century (1947–1991). The term originally had a literal geographic meaning. It contrasted Europe with the linked cultures and civilizations of the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the remote Far East, which early-modern Europeans saw as the East. Today this has little geographic relevance since the concept of the West has been expanded to include the former European colonies in the Americas, Russian Northern Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. In the contemporary cultural meaning, the phrase "Western world" includes Europe, as well as many countries of European colonial origin with substantial European ancestral populations in the Americas and Oceania. == Introduction == Western culture was influenced by many older great civilizations of the ancient Near East, such as Phoenicia, Carthage, Sumer, Babylonia, and also Ancient Egypt. It originated in the Mediterranean basin and its vicinity; Greece and Rome are often cited as its originators. Over time, their associated empires grew first to the east and west to include the rest of Mediterranean and Black Sea coastal areas, conquering and absorbing. Later, they expanded to the north of the Mediterranean Sea to include Western, Central, and Southeastern Europe. Christianization of Bulgaria (9th century), Christianization of Kievan Rus' (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus; 10th century), Christianisation of Scandinavia (12th century) and Christianization of Lithuania (14th century) brought the rest of present-day European territory into Western civilisation. Historians, such as Carroll Quigley in ''The Evolution of Civilizations'', contend that Western civilization was born around 500 AD, after the total collapse of the Western Roman Empire, leaving a vacuum for new ideas to flourish that were impossible in Classical societies. In either view, between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Renaissance, the West (or those regions that would later become the heartland of the culturally "western sphere") experienced a period of first, considerable decline,〔(Middle Ages ) Of the three great civilizations of Western Eurasia and North Africa, that of Christian Europe began as the least developed in virtually all aspects of material and intellectual culture, well behind the Islamic states and Byzantium.〕 and then readaptation, reorientation and considerable renewed material, technological and political development. This whole period of roughly a millennium is known as the Middle Ages, its early part forming the "Dark Ages", designations that were created during the Renaissance and reflect the perspective on history, and the self-image, of the latter period. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Western world」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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