Genealogies of the West

This book presents a new look at the West by tracing the still-recognizable footprints of the past and reflecting on the present challenges is facing. It recalls the genealogies of the plural processes, ideas, and events that structure the West's tradition and identity, and their presence nowadays. It proposes to reach back to the foundations of the Western Civilization such as Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, and the early Christianity. It explores the painful split between Rome, Constantinople and Mecca. It connects the great values of the Middle Ages - from the chivalrous spirit to the scholastic rationality - to the present. It shows the faces of the Modernity and its most relevant achievements - the state in politics, the capitalism in economics, the science in knowledge - and how they are being revised nowadays by Postmodernity. It examines the twentieth- and twenty-first century self-inflicted criticism of the West, which threatens the entire civilization to disappear. It invites the reader to not only brush up on knowledge of the past, but also to reflect on the present. This helps readers gain perspective, gives clues for understanding the complexities of the past, challenges some pre-assumed historical inaccuracies, identifies its weight and presence in the present, and projects these thoughts towards the future.