The Untold Story of Western Civilization: Vol.4: The Age of Merchant Capitalists

The purpose of our story is to understand the roots of our subconscious programming regarding gender race class religion and nationality. These are the qualities by which we identify ourselves and construct our lives. And yet our sentimental attachments to these constructs do not allow us to think for the welfare of our species. We cannot fathom how to think or act for the benefit of the whole of humanity even though our crisis is now global in scope. Because the survival of the entire human race and the life support systems of the planet are at stake it now becomes vital to understand what constitutes our fundamental humanity independent of such descriptors. Regardless of our gender race class nation or religious divisions we need to know what we share in common as human beings and where we stand now in our evolutionary march toward human perfection.In Volume I of The Untold Story of Western Civilization we began our journey with a look at the age of the matriarchy during which time the clan mothers led us out of animality and played the primary role in defining early human society.In Volume II of our history we looked at the period that historians call Ancient History. It is the Age of the Warrior Kings. Beginning in Mesopotamia Volume II traces the evolution of the city-state empires in the Middle East and the evolution of western religion through Zoroastrianism the birth of the Jews Jesus Christ and the rise of the Church of Rome (the Catholic Church). In Volume III we move out of the Middle East and into life in Europe. We look at the period that historians call the Middle Ages at the time when the Intellectual Priests ruled European society. It discusses the lifestyles of the Celtic Germanic and Slavic tribes of Europe and their experience with the Roman Empire and eventually the Church of Rome. It looks at the process by which the Church came to dominate the tribes of Europe through its Crusades Inquisitions and Witch Hunts. In Volume IV we discuss the fall of the Church through the periods of the Renaissance and Protestant Reformation and the ascent to power of the merchant-capitalist class during the Enlightenment period. The volume explores the capitalists economic colonization of the world with particular attention to developments in North America. Finally we look at the rise of the United States of America from its revolution to the end of World War II. The volume sets the stage for Vol. 5 which examines the role of the United States as a global empire in a capitalist-dominated world.