The Millennium of Discovery

ON THE CAMPUSES OF AMERICA THESE days, Eurocentrism is a naughty word, a no-no in an age of political correctness. Yet there is no gainsaying the reality that the central theme of the second millennium is, to cite the title of a popular book by the British historian J.M. Roberts, The Triumph of the West. In the first part of this era, Europe began to develop a civilization that was able to compete with richer and more sophisticated cultures, particularly those of China and Islam. And with the Age of Exploration, midway through the 15th century, European civilization gradually became the...