This word is applied as well to the comforts and conveniences associated with populated areas, so that today we might use civilization to describe what we have left behind if we go camping in the wilderness and have no cellphone coverage. Civilization concentrates power, extending human control over the rest of nature, including over other human beings. b : the culture characteristic of a particular time or place the impact of European civilization on the lands they colonized. In the early 19th century, speakers of English started using civilization to mean cities or populated areas in general-that is, places where civilizations are located. 1 a : a relatively high level of cultural and technological development specifically : the stage of cultural development at which writing and the keeping of written records is attained. The legendary origin of the Aztec people has them migrating from a homeland called Aztlan. The Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon began construction around the year 100 C.E before the Aztec had arrived in Teotihuacan.These marvels still stand at an incre. When used with a modifier, it refers to the civilization of a specific region ( European civilization, French civilization ), people ( Mayan civilization ), or period of time ( modern civilization ). The Teotihuacan pyramids are some of the largest of their kind in the Americas. This sense arose about the same time, but without the imperialistic undertones attached to the original meaning of the word.

Once a nation, culture, or group of people has been brought out of the “savage” darkness into an enlightened and advanced state, it becomes a civilization. A civilization (or civilisation) is a complex society that is characterized by urban development, social stratification, a form of government, and symbolic. The type of culture and society developed by a particular nation or region or in a particular epoch: Mayan civilization the civilization of ancient Rome. As imperialism boomed in the 19th century, this meaning of civilization gained popularity, but today it is considered narrow-minded, except when used in a historical context. As political scientist and historian Anthony Pagden wrote in a 1988 paper, 18th-century social theory held that a civilization was “the optimum condition for all mankind.” He continued that “only the civilized can know what it is to be civilized,” pointing out the implicit elitism of this concept.

Civilization entered the English language in the mid-18th century with the meaning “the act or process of bringing out of a savage or uneducated state.” In this preimperialistic age of exploration, it was popular to view people from less-developed lands as barbaric and in great need of cultural edification. civilization an advanced state of human society, in which a high level of culture, science, industry, and government has been reached.

Civilization definition