See also: Risks to civilization, humans and planet EarthPolitical scientist Samuel Huntington has argued that the defining characteristic of the 21st century will be a clash of civilizations. Accordin ...
Main article: Societal collapseThere have been many explanations put forward for the collapse of civilization. Some focus on historical examples, and others on general theory.Ibn Khaldūn's Muqaddimah ...
Early civilizationsFurther information: Prehistory and Cradle of CivilizationMap of the world showing approximate centers of origin of agriculture and its spread in prehistory: the Fertile Crescent (1 ...
Another group of theorists, making use of systems theory, looks at a civilization as a complex system, i.e., a framework by which a group of objects can be analyzed that work in concert to produce som ...
"Civilization" can also refer to the culture of a complex society, not just the society itself. Every society, civilization or not, has a specific set of ideas and customs, and a certain set of manufa ...
Social scientists such as V. Gordon Childe have named a number of traits that distinguish a civilization from other kinds of society. Civilizations have been distinguished by their means of subsistenc ...
The word civilization comes from the Latin civilis, meaning civil, related to the Latin civis, meaning citizen, and civitas, meaning city or city-state. Adjectives such as English "civility" developed ...
Civilization or civilisation (in British English) generally refers to state polities which combine these basic institutions, having one or more of each: a ceremonial centre (a formal gathering place f ...