The West is one of the four cardinal directions or cardinal points, the opposite direction from the East. It basically referred to all states that geographically exist in the Western division of the world, including European states and other Western states. The world, however, is somewhat subjective in nature, depending on whether cultural, economic, spiritual or political criteria are involved. 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 more readily adopted Latin as native language. its common language. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay After the fall of the Roman Empire and the end of the unjust rule of the Church (darkness and brutality in the name of religion), the golden age of the geographical West began. Western and Central Europe were essentially cut off from the East, where Greco-Byzantine culture and Eastern Christianity became key influences in the Arab/Muslim world and among the Eastern and Southern Slavic peoples. Roman Catholic Central and Western Europe, as such, maintained a distinct identity, particularly as it began to develop during the Renaissance. European arts and culture were reborn, and scientific education, research and progress were welcomed. Starting from this, the West has experienced episodes of transformation such as the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the scientific revolution and the development of liberal democracy. The Renaissance was 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 the medieval period and subsequently spread to the rest of Europe, marking the beginning of the modern age. Since the Renaissance, the West has evolved beyond the influence of the ancient Greeks and Romans and the Islamic world through commercial, scientific, and industrial revolutions and the expansion of the peoples of the empires of Central and Western Europe, and especially of the world empires of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Reformation, and the subsequent dissolution of Western Christianity as a unitary even theoretical political body, led to the Thirty Years' War, a war fought mainly in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648. One of the longest and most destructive conflicts in human history , as well as the deadliest European religious war in history. the Peace of Westphalia, which established 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. It continued with the rise of the Dutch East India Company (18th century) and the creation and expansion of the British and French colonial empires. Thanks to the reach of these empires, Western institutions expanded throughout the world. the institutions persisted. One specific example was the requirement that postcolonial societies have a large degree of influence throughout the world. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain in the mid-18th and early 19th centuries, changed the world economy forever. The concepts of a world of nation-states, combined with the ideologies of the Enlightenment, the advent of modernity, the Scientific Revolution and the.