The West is one of the four cardinal directions or cardinal points, the direction opposite the East. Basically, it referred to all states that exist geographically in the Western division of the world, including European and other Western states. The world, however, is somewhat subjective in nature, depending on cultural, economic, spiritual or political criteria. The geopolitical divisions in Europe that created a concept of East and West originated in the Roman Empire. The Eastern Mediterranean was home to highly urbanized cultures that had Greek as their common language (due to the older empire of Alexander the Great and Hellenistic successors), while the West was much more rural in character and adopted more easily Latin as a common language. its common language. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay After the fall of the Roman Empire and the end of the unjust rule of the Church (the darkness and brutality in name of religion), the The golden period of the geographic West began. Western and Central Europe was significantly cut off from the East, where Byzantine Greek culture and Eastern Christianity became founding influences in the Arab-Muslim world and among the East and South Slavic peoples. Roman Catholic Western and Central Europe, as such, retained a distinct identity, particularly as it began to redevelop during the Renaissance. European arts and culture were revived and scientific education, research and progress were welcomed. From there, the West experienced transformative episodes such as the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, and the development of liberal democracy. The Renaissance is a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, considered the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It began as a cultural movement in Italy in medieval times and later spread to the rest of Europe, marking the start of the modern era. Since the Renaissance, the West has evolved beyond the influence of the ancient Greeks and Romans and the Islamic world due to the commercial, scientific and industrial revolutions and the expansion of the peoples of the Western and Central European empires, and in particular of the world empires of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Reformation and the resulting dissolution of Western Christendom as a unitary body politic, even if nominal, culminated in the Thirty Years' War, a war fought primarily in central Europe between 1618 and 1648. One of the most longest and most destructive in human history. as the deadliest European religious war in history. the Peace of Westphalia, which enshrined the concept of the nation-state and the principle of absolute national sovereignty in international law. This process of influence (and imposition) began with the voyages of discovery, colonization, conquest and exploitation of Portugal and Spain. . This continued with the rise of the Dutch East India Company (18th century) and the creation and expansion of the British and French colonial empires. Because of the reach of these empires, Western institutions expanded across the world. The institutions persisted. A specific example was the demand for great influence from postcolonial societies around the world. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain between the mid-18th and early 19th centuries, forever changed the economy.