Western civilization arose in the 8th century B.C. Greece. Some 1,500 city-states emerged from a murky, illiterate 400-year-old Dark Age. That chaos followed the utter collapse of the palatial culture of Mycenaean Greece.
But what re-emerged were constitutional government, rationalism, liberty, freedom of expression, self-critique, and free markets – what we know now as the foundation of a unique Western civilization.
