How Did European Culture Influence Western Civilization

The European idea begins with a culture infusing itself by way of contact and trade onto the European landmass via various centres of exchange most notably in the Aegean Sea. The emergence of what can be called a European civilization, developed through certain processes beginning with Ancient Greece. Ancient Greece is largely understood by historians as the birthplace of modern European and to a large extent western civilization in general. Its political and cultural traditions in need of study as it has an enormous impact on what can be understood as European. Western Literature, Rule of Law, Philosophy and Political Culture is central to western distinctiveness and its origin could be traced to Ancient Greece and its intellectuals in The

The Ionian intellectuals can be characterised as having been influenced by its merchant class who was well travelled and therefore experienced contact with various cultures and civilizations in Asia, Africa and Europe. The nobility of the city unlike other ancient Greek cities had no real influence nor was the impact of religion profound on daily life with Thales the Philosopher being a highly acclaimed native. Bertrand Russell a British philosophiser mentions Thales a philosopher from the Ionian School of Philosophy as the ‘beginning of Western philosophy’ in general. With Aristotle also mentioning him as the first ‘philosopher in the Greek

Therefore, the importance of Ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and Thales and the Greek regions of Ionia, Doric and Aeolis and their contribution to the European idea, paramount, as the cultural distinctness of Ancient Greece compared to its Asiatic counterparts birthing the first European civilization. Ancient Greece and philosophical thought and tradition, plays a huge role on the concept of the western world with Ancient Greek literature, history, mathematics, and politics including the republican and democratic systems of government first appearing