Western Civilization. The Rise Of Sovereignty And The Creation Of Essay

Western Civilization. The Rise Of Sovereignty And The Creation Of Nation States - Essay Example Western civilization has been described in the western culture that is found in the scientific, political, artistic and the philosophical principles that were adopted by people at that time. This term has been linked to immigration and settlement in Western Europe. This period has been marked by the changing way of life of the people. It was marked by changes in different spheres of life of the people. In particular there was marked rise of industrial systems, education, urbanization and other aspect of life of the western world. Among the things that marked the rise of western civilization was the rise in sovereignty of the nations. In this regard there was increased fall of empires and the rise of nations. The Western Roman Empire which ruled the modern states of Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and England for centuries had collapsed as a result of combination of a number of factors. One of such factors was economic decline which had an impact on the decline of the military spending leading to reduced military strength. The empires were based on the military strength and therefore the fall of military might led to invasion by other tribes. The fall of the Western Roman Empire in its military strength led to the invasion by the barbarian tribes which were coming from Scandinavia and other states like Germany. They invaded the Western Roman Empire and led to its eventual fall. This had an effect on other factors like racial, religious, and the political life of these empires. Increased warfare with the invading tribes and economic crisis could have contributed in a great way to the fall. (Hobsbawm, 1992) Therefore with the fall of the empires there was increased rise of the modern sovereign states. The fall of the empire led to the defragmentation to individual states which were sovereign with internal government. The fall of the Western Roman Empire led to the formation of the modern day states of France, Spain, Portugal, England and Italy. Owing to the factors that led to the fall of the empire such as racial, religious and political division, the emerging states were grouped in some aspects of community. It has been shown that racial and ethnic factors were the main leading factors that led to the fall of the empire and the consequential formation of sovereign states which were based on common aspects of these communities. Those who spoke the same language grouped themselves together and formed one sovereign state. For example those who spoke Spanish grouped themselves together to form Spain, while those who spoke French formed the modern day France. This marked the beginning of the rise of sovereign states which were internally governed. In the high middle Ages, feudalism rose to be a dominant social, economic and political system in the western countries. The monarch and the nobles were at the top of the society while the rest of the society was left as peasants and serfs. The serfs were given protection by the monarchs from the invasions of the outsiders. The church also grew strong and had a say in the administration of the states which were growing to be sovereign. The Catholic Church became especially strong at this time and in the medieval period, there was suppression of other religions and the church also had a lot of influences on the political life of the states. In the late middle ages, there was the rise of the