William McNeill's 1963 magnum opus — winner of the National Book Award — arguing that Western civilization's rise to global dominance was the result of its unique position at the intersection of multiple civilizational influences (Near Eastern, Greek, Roman, Germanic) and its subsequent openness to borrowing from other cultures.
Provided the first serious world-historical explanation for Western global dominance — not racial superiority or environmental determinism but the specific interaction patterns between civilizations that gave Western Europe access to a uniquely rich set of technological and institutional borrowings.
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