The Rise of the West

Abstract

Europe’s rise to world supremacy began with the Renaissance; which helped to change the course of European art, music, literature, architecture, politics, religion, education, commerce, and science and technology. It was one of those widespread, deep cultural changes that take place every now and again (such as the spread of Christianity and Islam in earlier times, or the impo­sition of communist rule and its eventual unravelling in the twen­tieth century), concerning the world and humanity. The focus of that change, whether we are dealing with the art forms of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) or Michelangelo (1475-1564), or the politi­cal writings of Niccolà Machiavelli, or the scholarly works of Desiderius Erasmus in Holland, or the writings of William Shake­speare (1564-1616) in England, or François Rabelais (1494-1553) in France, was on the human and the secular.