thumb|right|400px|The Acropolis, universally viewed as one of the most influential structures in world history, and renowned throughout both the [[Classical_antiquity|Mediterranean and Asiatic ancient worlds. Directly influencing architecture and engineering in Western, Islamic, and Eastern civilizations up to the present day, 2400 years after construction.]] thumb|right|300px|The ancient city of Mohenjo-daro of the Ancient Indus valley civilization, spanning Pakistan, Afghanistan and India is known to be one of the world's earliest cities.

Civilization (or civilisation) is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally urbanized. In classical contexts civilized peoples were called this in contrast to "barbarian" peoples, while in modern contexts civilized peoples have been contrasted to "primitive" peoples.

In modern academic discussions however, there is a tendency to use the term in a less strict way to mean approximately the same thing as "culture" and can therefore refer more broadly to any important and clearly defined human society, particularly in historical discussions. Still, even when used in this second sense, the word is often restricted to apply only to societies that have attained a particular level of advancement, especially the founding of cities, with the word "city" defined in various ways.

The level of advancement of a civilization is often measured by its progress in agriculture, long-distance trade, occupational specialization, and urbanism. Aside from these core elements, civilization is often marked by any combination of a number of secondary elements, including a developed transportation system, writing, standards of measurement (currency, etc.), contract and tort-based legal systems, characteristic art styles (which may pertain to specific cultures), monumental architecture, mathematics, science, sophisticated metallurgy, politics, and astronomy.

Definition

The word ''civilization'' comes from the Latin ''civilis'', meaning ''civil'', related to the Latin ''civis'', meaning ''citizen'', and ''civitas'', meaning ''city'' or ''city-state''.

In the sixth century, the Byzantine Emperor Justinian oversaw the consolidation of Roman civil law. The resulting collection is called the ''Corpus Juris Civilis''. In the 11th century, professors at the University of Bologna, Western Europe's first university, rediscovered the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'', and its influence began to be felt across bodies. In 1388, the word ''civil'' appeared in English meaning "of or related to citizens." In 1704, ''civilization'' was used to mean "a law which makes a criminal process into a civil case." ''Civilization'' was not used in its modern sense to mean "the opposite of barbarism" — as contrasted to ''civility'', meaning politeness or civil virtue — until the second half of the 18th century.

According to Emile Benveniste (1954), the earliest written occurrence in English of ''civilisation'' in its modern sense may be found in Adam Ferguson's ''An Essay on the History of Civil Society'' (Edinburgh, 1767 - p. 2): "Not only the individual advances from infancy to manhood, but the species itself from rudeness to civilisation."

It should be noted that this usage incorporates the concept of superiority and maturity of "civilized" existence, as contrasted to "rudeness", which is used to denote coarseness, as in a lack of refinement or "civility."

Before Benveniste's inquiries, the New English Dictionary quoted James Boswell's conversation with Samuel Johnson concerning the inclusion of ''Civilization'' in Johnson's dictionary:

Benveniste demonstrated that previous occurrences could be found, which explained the quick adoption of Johnson's definition. In 1775 the dictionary of Ast defined ''civilization'' as "the state of being civilized; the act of civilizing", and the term was frequently used by Adam Smith in ''An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'' (1776). Beside Smith and Ferguson, John Millar also used it in 1771 in his ''Observations concerning the distinction of ranks in society''.

The history of the word in English appears to be connected with the parallel development in French, which may be the original source. As the first occurrence of ''civilization'' in French was found by Benveniste in the Marquis de Mirabeau's ''L'Ami des hommes ou traité de la population'' (written in 1756 but published in 1757), Benveniste's query was to know if the English word derived from the French, or if both evolved independently — a question which needed more research. According to him, the word ''civilization'' may in fact have been used by Ferguson as soon as 1759.

Furthermore, Benveniste notes that, contrasted to ''civility'', a static term, ''civilization'' conveys a sense of dynamism. He thus writes that:

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, both during the French revolution, and in English, "civilization" was referred to in the singular, never the plural, because it referred to the progress of mankind as a whole. This is still the case in French. More recently "civilizations" is sometimes used as a synonym for the broader term "cultures" in both popular and academic circles. However, the concepts of civilization and culture are not always considered interchangeable. For example, a small nomadic tribe may be judged not to have a civilization, but it would surely be judged to have a culture (defined as "the arts, customs, habits... beliefs, values, behavior and material habits that constitute a people's way of life").

Civilization is not always seen as an improvement. One historically important distinction between culture and civilization stems from the writings of Rousseau, and particularly his work concerning education, ''Emile''. In this perspective, civilization, being more rational and socially driven, is not fully in accordance with human nature, and "human wholeness is achievable only through the recovery of or approximation to an original prediscursive or prerational natural unity". (See noble savage.) From this notion, a new approach was developed especially in Germany, first by Johann Gottfried Herder, and later by philosophers such as Nietzsche. This sees cultures (plural) as natural organisms which are not defined by "conscious, rational, deliberative acts" but rather a kind of pre-rational "folk spirit". Civilization, in contrast, though more rational and more successful concerning material progress, is seen as un-natural, and leads to "vices of social life" such as guile, hypocrisy, envy, and avarice. During World War II, Leo Strauss, having fled Germany, argued in New York that this approach to civilization was behind Nazism and German militarism and nihilism.

In his book ''The Philosophy of Civilization'', Albert Schweitzer outlined the idea that there are dual opinions within society: one regarding civilization as purely material and another regarding civilization as both ethical and material. He stated that the current world crisis was, then in 1923, due to a humanity having lost the ethical conception of civilization. In this same work, he defined civilization, saying that it "is the sum total of all progress made by man in every sphere of action and from every point of view in so far as the progress helps towards the spiritual perfecting of individuals as the progress of all progress."

Characteristics

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 subsistence, types of livelihood, settlement patterns, forms of government, social stratification, economic systems, literacy, and other cultural traits.

All civilizations have depended on agriculture for subsistence. Growing food on farms results in a surplus of food, particularly when people use intensive agricultural techniques such as irrigation and crop rotation. Grain surpluses have been especially important because they can be stored for a long time. A surplus of food permits some people to do things besides produce food for a living: early civilizations included artisans, priests and priestesses, and other people with specialized careers. A surplus of food results in a division of labor and a more diverse range of human activity, a defining trait of civilizations. However, in some places hunter-gatherers have had access to food surpluses, such as among some of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest and perhaps during the Mesolithic Natufian culture. It is possible that food surpluses and relatively large scale social organization and division of labor predates plant and animal domestication.

Civilizations have distinctly different settlement patterns from other societies. The word ''civilization'' is sometimes simply defined as "'living in cities'". Non-farmers tend to gather in cities to work and to trade.

Compared with other societies, civilizations have a more complex political structure, namely the state. State societies are more stratified than other societies; there is a greater difference among the social classes. The ruling class, normally concentrated in the cities, has control over much of the surplus and exercises its will through the actions of a government or bureaucracy. Morton Fried, a conflict theorist, and Elman Service, an integration theorist, have classified human cultures based on political systems and social inequality. This system of classification contains four categories: ''Hunter-gatherer bands'', which are generally egalitarian.

''Horticultural/pastoral societies'' in which there are generally two inherited social classes; chief and commoner.

''Highly stratified structures'', or chiefdoms, with several inherited social classes: king, noble, freemen, serf and slave.

''Civilizations,'' with complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional governments.

Economically, civilizations display more complex patterns of ownership and exchange than less organized societies. Living in one place allows people to accumulate more personal possessions than nomadic people. Some people also acquire landed property, or private ownership of the land. Because a percentage of people in civilizations do not grow their own food, they must trade their goods and services for food in a market system, or receive food through the levy of tribute, redistributive taxation, tariffs or tithes from the food producing segment of the population. Early civilizations developed money as a medium of exchange for these increasingly complex transactions. To oversimplify, in a village the potter makes a pot for the brewer and the brewer compensates the potter by giving him a certain amount of beer. In a city, the potter may need a new roof, the roofer may need new shoes, the cobbler may need new horseshoes, the blacksmith may need a new coat, and the tanner may need a new pot. These people may not be personally acquainted with one another and their needs may not occur all at the same time. A monetary system is a way of organizing these obligations to ensure that they are fulfilled fairly.

Writing, developed first by people in Sumer, is considered a hallmark of civilization and "appears to accompany the rise of complex administrative bureaucracies or the conquest state." Traders and bureaucrats relied on writing to keep accurate records. Like money, writing was necessitated by the size of the population of a city and the complexity of its commerce among people who are not all personally acquainted with each other.

Aided by their division of labor and central government planning, civilizations have developed many other diverse cultural traits. These include organized religion, development in the arts, and countless new advances in science and technology.

Through history, successful civilizations have spread, taking over more and more territory, and assimilating more and more previously-uncivilized people. Nevertheless, some tribes or people remain uncivilized even to this day. These cultures are called by some "primitive," a term that is regarded by others as pejorative. "Primitive" implies in some way that a culture is "first" (Latin = primus), that it has not changed since the dawn of mankind, though this has been demonstrated not to be true. Specifically, as all of today's cultures are contemporaries, today's so-called primitive cultures are in no way antecedent to those we consider civilized. Many anthropologists use the term "non-literate" to describe these peoples.

Civilization has been spread by colonization, invasion, religious conversion, the extension of bureaucratic control and trade, and by introducing agriculture and writing to non-literate peoples. Some non-civilized people may willingly adapt to civilized behaviour. But civilization is also spread by the technical, material and social dominance that civilization engenders.

Cultural identity

"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 manufactures and arts that make it unique. Civilizations tend to develop intricate cultures, including literature, professional art, architecture, organized religion, and complex customs associated with the elite.

The intricate culture associated with civilization has a tendency to spread to and influence other cultures, sometimes assimilating them into the civilization (a classic example being Chinese civilization and its influence on nearby civilizations such as Korea, Japan and Vietnam). Many civilizations are actually large cultural spheres containing many nations and regions. The civilization in which someone lives is that person's broadest cultural identity.

Many historians have focused on these broad cultural spheres and have treated civilizations as discrete units. Early twentieth-century philosopher Oswald Spengler, uses the German word "Kultur," "culture," for what many call a "civilization". Spengler believes a civilization's coherence is based on a single primary cultural symbol. Cultures experience cycles of birth, life, decline, and death, often supplanted by a potent new culture, formed around a compelling new cultural symbol. Spengler states civilization is the beginning of the decline of a culture as, "...the most external and artificial states of which a species of developed humanity is capable." Resin found later in the Royal Tombs of Ur it is suggested was traded northwards from Mozambique.

Many theorists argue that the entire world has already become integrated into a single "world system", a process known as globalization. Different civilizations and societies all over the globe are economically, politically, and even culturally interdependent in many ways. There is debate over when this integration began, and what sort of integration – cultural, technological, economic, political, or military-diplomatic – is the key indicator in determining the extent of a civilization. David Wilkinson has proposed that economic and military-diplomatic integration of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations resulted in the creation of what he calls the "Central Civilization" around 1500 BC. Central Civilization later expanded to include the entire Middle East and Europe, and then expanded to a global scale with European colonization, integrating the Americas, Australia, China and Japan by the nineteenth century. According to Wilkinson, civilizations can be culturally heterogeneous, like the Central Civilization, or homogeneous, like the Japanese civilization. What Huntington calls the "clash of civilizations" might be characterized by Wilkinson as a clash of cultural spheres within a single global civilization. Others point to the Crusades as the first step in globalization. The more conventional viewpoint is that networks of societies have expanded and shrunk since ancient times, and that the current globalized economy and culture is a product of recent European colonialism.

Future

Political scientist Samuel Huntington has argued that the defining characteristic of the 21st century will be a clash of civilizations. According to Huntington, conflicts between civilizations will supplant the conflicts between nation-states and ideologies that characterized the 19th and 20th centuries. These views have been strongly challenged by others like Edward Said, Muhammed Asadi and Amartya Sen. Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris have argued that the "true clash of civilizations" between the Muslim world and the West is caused by the Muslim rejection of the West's more liberal sexual values, rather than a difference in political ideology. In ''Identity and Violence'' Sen questions if people should be divided along the lines of a supposed 'civilization', defined by religion and culture only. He argues that this ignores the many others identities that make up people and leads to a focus on differences.

Some environmental scientists see the world entering a Planetary Phase of Civilization, characterized by a shift away from independent, disconnected nation-states to a world of increased global connectivity with worldwide institutions, environmental challenges, economic systems, and consciousness. In an attempt to better understand what a Planetary Phase of Civilization might look like in the current context of declining natural resources and increasing consumption, the Global scenario group used scenario analysis to arrive at three archetypal futures: Barbarization, in which increasing conflicts result in either a fortress world or complete societal breakdown; Conventional Worlds, in which market forces or Policy reform slowly precipitate more sustainable practices; and a Great Transition, in which either the sum of fragmented Eco-Communalism movements add up to a sustainable world or globally coordinated efforts and initiatives result in a new sustainability paradigm.

Author Derrick Jensen argues that modern civilization is intrinsically directed towards the domination of the environment and humanity itself in a harmful and destructive fashion.

The Kardashev scale classifies civilizations based on their level of technological advancement, specifically measured by the amount of energy a civilization is able to harness. The Kardashev scale makes provisions for civilizations far more technologically advanced than any currently known to exist ''(see also: Civilizations and the Future, Space civilization)''.

Fall of civilizations

There have been many explanations put forward for the collapse of civilization. Some focus on historical examples, and others on general theory.

Edward Gibbon's work ''"The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"'' was a well-known and detailed analysis of the fall of Roman civilization. Gibbon suggested the final act of the collapse of Rome was the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 AD. For Gibbon:-

''"The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long."''[Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 2nd ed., vol. 4, ed. by J. B. Bury (London, 1909), pp. 173–174.-Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.--Part VI. General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West.]

Theodor Mommsen in his ''"History of Rome (Mommsen)",'' suggested Rome collapsed with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and he also tended towards a biological analogy of "genesis," "growth," "senescence," "collapse" and "decay."

Oswald Spengler, in his ''"Decline of the West"'' rejected Petrarch's chronological division, and suggested that there had been only eight "mature civilizations." Growing cultures, he argued, tend to develop into imperialistic civilizations which expand and ultimately collapse, with democratic forms of government ushering in plutocracy and ultimately imperialism.

Arnold J. Toynbee in his ''"A Study of History"'' suggested that there had been a much larger number of civilizations, including a small number of arrested civilizations, and that all civilizations tended to go through the cycle identified by Mommsen. The cause of the fall of a civilization occurred when a cultural elite became a parasitic elite, leading to the rise of internal and external proletariats.

Joseph Tainter in ''"The Collapse of Complex Societies"'' suggested that there were diminishing returns to complexity, due to which, as states achieved a maximum permissible complexity, they would decline when further increases actually produced a negative return. Tainter suggested that Rome achieved this figure in the 2nd Century AD.

Jared Diamond in his 2005 book ''"Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed"'' suggests five major reasons for the collapse of 41 studied cultures: environmental damage, such as deforestation and soil erosion; climate change; dependence upon long-distance trade for needed resources; increasing levels of internal and external violence, such as war or invasion; and societal responses to internal and environmental problems.

Peter Turchin in his ''Historical Dynamics'' and Andrey Korotayev ''et al.'' in their ''Introduction to Social Macrodynamics, Secular Cycles, and Millennial Trends'' suggest a number of mathematical models describing collapse of agrarian civilizations. For example, the basic logic of Turchin's "fiscal-demographic" model can be outlined as follows: during the initial phase of a sociodemographic cycle we observe relatively high levels of per capita production and consumption, which leads not only to relatively high population growth rates, but also to relatively high rates of surplus production. As a result, during this phase the population can afford to pay taxes without great problems, the taxes are quite easily collectible, and the population growth is accompanied by the growth of state revenues. During the intermediate phase, the increasing overpopulation leads to the decrease of per capita production and consumption levels, it becomes more and more difficult to collect taxes, and state revenues stop growing, whereas the state expenditures grow due to the growth of the population controlled by the state. As a result, during this phase the state starts experiencing considerable fiscal problems. During the final pre-collapse phases the overpopulation leads to further decrease of per capita production, the surplus production further decreases, state revenues shrink, but the state needs more and more resources to control the growing (though with lower and lower rates) population. Eventually this leads to famines, epidemics, state breakdown, and demographic and civilization collapse (Peter Turchin. ''Historical Dynamics.'' Princeton University Press, 2003:121–127).

Peter Heather argues in his book ''The Fall of the Roman Empire: a New History of Rome and the Barbarians'' that this civilization did not end for moral or economic reasons, but because centuries of contact with barbarians across the frontier generated its own nemesis by making them a much more sophisticated and dangerous adversary. The fact that Rome needed to generate ever greater revenues to equip and re-equip armies that were for the first time repeatedly defeated in the field, led to the dismemberment of the Empire. Although this argument is specific to Rome, it can also be applied to the Asiatic Empire of the Egyptians, to the Han and Tang dynasties of China, to the Muslim Abbasid Caliphate, and others. Bryan Ward-Perkins, in his book ''The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization'', shows the real horrors associated with the collapse of a civilization for the people who suffer its effects, unlike many revisionist historians who downplay this. The collapse of complex society meant that even basic plumbing disappeared from the continent for 1,000 years. Similar Dark Age collapses are seen with the Late Bronze Age collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean, the collapse of the Maya, on Easter Island and elsewhere. Arthur Demarest argues in ''Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization'', using a holistic perspective to the most recent evidence from archaeology, paleoecology, and epigraphy, that no one explanation is sufficient but that a series of erratic, complex events, including loss of soil fertility, drought and rising levels of internal and external violence led to the disintegration of the courts of Mayan kingdoms which began a spiral of decline and decay. He argues that the collapse of the Maya has lessons for civilization today. Jeffrey A. McNeely has recently suggested that "A review of historical evidence shows that past civilizations have tended to over-exploit their forests, and that such abuse of important resources has been a significant factor in the decline of the over-exploiting society."

Thomas Homer-Dixon in "''The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization''", considers that the fall in the energy return on investments; the energy expended to energy yield ratio, is central to limiting the survival of civilizations. The degree of social complexity is associated strongly, he suggests, with the amount of disposable energy environmental, economic and technological systems allow. When this amount decreases civilizations either have to access new energy sources or they will collapse....

History

Early civilizations

Old Stone Age

New Stone Age

Ancient Near East

*Mesopotamia

*Indus Valley Civilization

*Levant / Canaan

*Bronze Age Anatolia / Aegean

Bronze Age Europe

Bronze Age India

Bronze Age China

Africa

*Ancient Egypt

*Kush

*Axum

Pre-Columbian Americas

* Norte Chico / Caral

* Olmec

* Zapotec civilization

Antiquity (Axial Age)

Karl Jaspers, the German historical philosopher, proposed that the ancient civilizations were affected greatly by an Axial Age in the period between 800 BC-200 BC during which a series of male sages, prophets, religious reformers and philosophers, from China, India, Iran, Israel and Greece, changed the direction of civilizations forever. William H. McNeill proposed that this period of history was one in which culture contact between previously separate civilizations saw the "closure of the oecumene", and led to accelerated social change from China to the Mediterranean, associated with the spread of coinage, larger empires and new religions. This view has recently been championed by Christopher Chase-Dunn and other world systems theorists.

Mediterranean civilizations of the Classical Period

*Ancient Greece

*Ancient Rome

* Hellenistic civilization

Middle East

* Persia since the Achaemenids

* Second Temple Judaism

Ancient India (Maurya Empire, Gupta Empire)

Ancient China (Qin Dynasty, Han Dynasty)

Ancient Nomads (Hun Xiongnu, Kok Turk Empire)

Medieval to Early Modern

Christendom

*Western Christianity

*Eastern Christianity

Islamic World

*Islamic Golden Age

*Caliphate

*Mongol-Turkish (Ilkhanate, Timurid Empire)

*Mughal India

*Ottoman Empire

Asia

*Chola, India

*Pallava, India

*Pandiya, India

*Chera Dynasty, India

*Tang China

*Mongol Empire (Yuan)

*Ming China

*Feudal Japan

*Confucian Vietnam

South East Asia

*Funan, Chenla, Champa, Anghor Cambodia

*Dvaravati, Hariphunchai, Sukhothai, Ayutthaya Kingdom, pre Modern Thailand

*Pagan Burma

*Chola, Pallava, Sri Vijaya, Sailendra, Mataram and Majapahit

Meso-American civilizations

* Toltec

* Kingdom of Cusco/Inca Empire

* Aztec civilization

* Maya civilization

African civilizations

*Wagadou

*Mali Empire

*Songhai Empire

*Abyssinia

*Benin Empire

Contemporary

Western World

*Europe

*Anglosphere

*Latin America

Post-Soviet states

*Russia

Islamic world

*Arab world

*Middle East

*North Africa

Eastern world / Far East

*East Asia

**Sinosphere

**Nomadic (Altaic)

*South Asia

*Southeast Asia

Sub-Saharan Africa

See also

Anarcho-primitivism

Barbarian

Civilized core

Cradle of civilization

Culture

History of the world

Human population

Kardashev scale

Mission civilisatrice

Muslim world

Proto-civilization

Western civilization

Notes

References

Clash of Civilizations and information on other civilizations, Discussion and news surrounding the clash and concepts such as dialog, equality, acceptance etc. between civilizations.

BBC on civilization

Wiktionary: civilization, civilize

# ''From the Earliest Times to the Battle of Lepanto.'' ISBN 0-306-80304-6 (1987 reprint).

# ''From the Defeat of the Spanish Armada to the Battle of Waterloo.'' ISBN 0-306-80305-4 (1987 reprint).

# ''From the American Civil War to the End of World War II.'' ISBN 0-306-80306-2 (1987 reprint).

Korotayev, Andrey, ''World Religions and Social Evolution of the Old World Oikumene Civilizations: A Cross-Cultural Perspective''. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004. ISBN 0-7734-6310-0

Kradin, Nikolay. Archaeological Criteria of Civilization. ''Social Evolution & History'', Vol. 5, No 1 (2006): 89-108. ISSN 1681-4363.

A. Nuri Yurdusev, International Relations and the Philosophy of History: A Civilizational Approach (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).

Category:Anthropological categories of peoples Category:Cultural anthropology Category:Cultural history Category:Society Category:Theories of history Category:Sociocultural evolution Category:Cultural geography Category:Culture Category:Civilizations

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Matthew Collings (born 1955) is a British art critic, writer and broadcaster.

Life and career

In one of his books on art, Collings states that, in his early teenage years, he ran away to Canada. This act was preceded by a period of hanging around in a house in Oakley Street, Chelsea, whose residents included members of various rock bands including Mighty Baby and Family. For many weeks Collings was the object of an internationally coordinated police search.

Collings trained at Byam Shaw School of Art, and Goldsmith's College, and still practises as an artist. He edited ''Artscribe'' 1983-7. Collings was a producer and presenter on the BBC ''The Late Show'' 1989-95. In the early 1990s, he brought Martin Kippenberger into the BBC studios to create an installation, and he interviewed Georg Herold while this Cologne-based conceptual artist painted a large canvas with beluga caviar.

Collings also wrote and presented documentary films for the BBC on individual artists, such as Donald Judd, Georgia O'Keeffe and Willem de Kooning, as well as broader historical subjects such as Hitler's "Degenerate Art" exhibition, art looted in the Second World War by Germany and Russia, Situationism, Spain's post-Franco art world and the rise of the Cologne art scene.

After leaving the BBC, Collings wrote and presented the Channel 4 TV series ''This is Modern Art'', which won him a Bafta (1998) among other awards. He was originally identified as a proponent of Britart, however more recently his sympathies have become ambiguous or even hostile to it. He wrote in the ''New Statesman'':

"A new popular audience is obsessed by contemporary art. But I think they are being sold something that isn't really there: an all-in package of spirituality, depth and profundity. I am afraid the official institutions of contemporary art are just lying about this stuff."

Collings wrote and presented a Channel 4 series in 2003 about the "painterly" stream of Old Master painting, called ''Matt's Old Masters''. A book by the same title accompanied the series. Further Channel 4 series by Collings included ''Impressionism: Revenge of the Nice'' (2004) and ''The Me Generations: Self Portraits,'' (2005).

For some years Collings presented the Channel 4 TV programme on the Turner Prize. He has described himself as "an apologist for contemporary art", although in the same interview he confessed that this is more a popular assumption about him than his own idea.

In October 2007, with Emma Biggs, Collings curated and wrote a catalogue essay for an exhibition of Picasso's late works at the HN Gallery in London. The paintings were from the 1960s series of ''Painter and Model'' and ''Déjeuner sur l’herbe'' reworkings. According to the catalogue essay the exhibition aimed to draw attention to Picasso's achievement as a manipulator of form rather than the popular myth of Picasso as a showman or lover or sensationalist genius.

That year, Collings presented the Channel 4 TV series "This is Civilisation". In 2009 he appeared on the BBC2 programme "School of Saatchi" a reality TV show for newly trained UK artists. He lectures at City and Guilds of London Art School. In October 2010, he wrote and presented a BBC2 series called ''Renaissance Revolution'', in which he discussed three Renaissance paintings: Raphael's Madonna del Prato; Hieronymus Bosch's ''The Garden of Earthly Delights''; and Piero della Francesca's ''The Baptism of Christ.

Collings' abstract paintings are created in collaboration with mosaicist, Emma Biggs.

Books

''Blimey! - From Bohemia to Britpop: London Art World from Francis Bacon to Damien Hirst'', 21 Publishing, 1997

''It Hurts - New York Art from Warhol to Now'', 21 Publishing, 2000

''This is Modern Art'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Watson-Guptill Publications, 2000

''Art Crazy Nation'', Worldwide, 2001

''Sarah Lucas'', Tate Publishing, 2002

''Matt's Old Masters - Titian, Rubens, Velazquez and Hogarth'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003

''Criticism'' (with Matthew Arnatt), Rachmaninoff's, 2004

''Ron Arad interviewed by Matthew Collings'', Phaidon, 2004

''This is Civilisation'', 21 Publishing, 2008

References

External links

Contains images and updated information on Collings and Biggs' work

Interview with Matthew Collings

Journalisted - Articles by Matthew Collings

Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London Category:Alumni of the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design Category:British art critics Category:British journalists

Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
Region	Western philosophy
Era	Contemporary
Color	lightsteelblue
Name	Jeremy Rifkin
Birth date	January 26, 1945
Birth place	Denver, Colorado
Main interests	Economy, political science, scientific and technological change
Notable ideas	Empathic Civilization, The Third Industrial Revolution, End of the working society
Alma mater	University of Pennsylvania; Tufts University
Signature	}}

Jeremy Rifkin (born January 26, 1945) is an American economist, writer, public speaker, political advisor and activist. He is the founder and president of the Foundation On Economic Trends. Rifkin's work explores the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment.

Biography

Jeremy Rifkin was born in Denver, Colorado in 1945, to Vivette Ravel Rifkin and Milton Rifkin, a plastic-bag manufacturer. He grew up on the southwest side of Chicago. He earned a BS in economics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was president of the graduating class of 1967 and recipient of the University of Pennsylvania General Alumni Association's Award of Merit. He had an epiphany when one day in 1966 he walked past a group of students protesting the Vietnam War picketing the administration building and was amazed to see, as he recalls, that "my frat friends were beating the living daylights out of them. I got very upset." He organized a freedom-of-speech rally the next day. From then on, Rifkin quickly became an active member of the peace movement. He went on to obtain his masters degree in international affairs at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in 1968. Rifkin pursued anti-war activities at Fletcher, and later joined VISTA.

In 1973, Mr. Rifkin organized a mass-protest against oil companies at the commemoration of the 200th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party at Boston's Harbor. Thousands joined the protest, as activists dumped empty oil barrels into Boston's Harbor. The protest came in the wake of the increase in gasoline prices in the fall of 1972, following the OPEC oil embargo-

In 1977, with Ted Howard, he founded the Foundation on Economic Trends; he currently works out of an office in Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C.The Foundation on Economic Trends (FOET), is active in both national and international public policy issues related to the environment, the economy, and climate change. FOET examines new trends and their impacts on the environment, the economy, culture and society, and engages in litigation, public education, coalition building and grassroots organizing activities to advance their goals.

Jeremy Rifkin is the principal architect of the Third Industrial Revolution long-term economic sustainability plan to address the triple challenge of the global economic crisis, energy security, and climate change. The Third Industrial Revolution was formally endorsed by the European Parliament in 2007 and is now being implemented by various agencies within the European Commission. Jeremy Rifkin has lectured before many Fortune 500 companies, and hundreds of governments, civil society organizations, and universities over the past thirty five years [3].

Jeremy Rifkin is the founder and chairperson of the ''Third Industrial Revolution Global CEO Business Roundtable'', comprising more than 100 of the world's leading renewable energy companies, construction companies, architectural firms, real estate companies, IT companies, power and utility companies, and transport and logistics companies. Rifkin's global economic development team is working with cities, regions, and national governments to develop master plans to transition their economies into post- carbon Third Industrial Revolution infrastructures. In 2009, Rifkin and his team developed Third Industrial Revolution master plans for the cities of San Antonio, Texas and Rome, Italy, to transition their economies into the first post carbon urban areas in the world.

In 1988, Rifkin brought together climate scientists and environmental activists from 35 nations in Washington, D.C. for the first meeting of the Global Greenhouse Network. In the same year, Rifkin did a series of Hollywood lectures on global warming and related environmental issues for a diverse assortment of film, television and music industry leaders, with the goal of organizing the Hollywood community for a campaign. Shortly thereafter, two Hollywood Environmental Organizations, Earth Communications Office (ECO), and Environmental Media Association, were formed.

In 1992, Rifkin launched the Beyond Beef Campaign, a coalition of six environmental groups including Green Peace, Rainforest Action Network, and Public Citizen, with the goal of encouraging a 50% reduction in the consumption of beef, arguing that methane emissions from Cattle has a warming effect 23 to 50 times greater than carbon dioxide.

Since 1994, Rifkin has been a senior lecturer at The Wharton School's executive education program at the University of Pennsylvania, where he instructs CEOs and senior corporate management from around the world on new trends in science and technology.

After the publication of ''The Hydrogen Economy'', Rifkin worked both in the U.S. and Europe to advance the political cause of renewably generated hydrogen. In the U.S., Rifkin was instrumental in founding the Green Hydrogen Coalition, consisting of thirteen environmental and political organizations (including Greenpeace and MoveOn.Org) that are committed to building a renewable hydrogen based economy.

Governmental work

Rifkin has advised both the European Commission and the European Parliament. Rifkin has also advised Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain during its presidency of the European Union. Rifkin also served as an adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Jose Socrates of Portugal, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, and Prime Minister Janez Janša of Slovenia, during their respective European Council Presidencies, on issues related to the economy, climate change, and energy security. Rifkin is currently working with European officials to help shape a Third Industrial Revolution long-term economic development plan for the European Union.

Reception

According to the The "European Energy Review" "Perhaps no other author or thinker has had more influence on the EU's ambitious climate and energy policy than the famous American 'visionary' Jeremy Rifkin. In the United States, he has testified before numerous congressional committees and has had success in litigation to ensure responsible government policies on a variety of environmental, scientific and technology related issues. The Union of Concerned Scientists has cited some of Rifkin's publications as useful references for consumers and ''The New York Times'' once stated that "many in the scholarly, religious, and political fields praise Jeremy Rifkin for a willingness to think big, raise controversial questions, and serve as a social and ethical prophet".

Rifkin's work has also been controversial, and opponents have attacked the scientific rigor of his claims as well as some of the tactics he uses to promote his views.Stephen Jay Gould characterised Rifkin's 1983 book ''Algeny'' as "a cleverly constructed tract of anti-intellectual propaganda masquerading as scholarship".

A 1989 ''Time'' article about Rifkin entitled "The Most Hated Man in Science," stated that "[he] has forced the Government to establish regulatory pathways for some genetically engineered products and clarify practices for others."

Works

Jeremy Rifkin became one of the first major critics of the nascent biotechnology industry with the 1977 publication of his book, ''Who Should Play God?'' Rifkin's 1980 work "Entropy" was called "A comprehensive worldview" and "an appropriate successor to ... Silent Spring, The Closing Circle, The Limits to Growth, and Small Is Beautiful." His 1995 book, ''The End of Work'', is credited by some with helping shape the current global debate on technology displacement, corporate downsizing and the future of jobs. His 1998 book, ''The Biotech Century'', addresses issues accompanying the new era of genetic commerce. His 2004 book, ''The European Dream'', was an international bestseller and winner of the 2005 Corine International Book Prize in Germany for the best economics book of the year.

Books

1973, ''How to Commit Revolution American Style: Bicentennial Declaration'', with John Rossen, Lyle Stuart Inc., ISBN 0-8184-0041-2

1975, ''Common Sense II: The case against corporate tyranny'', Bantam Books, OCLC 123151709

1977, ''Own Your Own Job: Economic Democracy for Working Americans'', ISBN 978-0-553-10487-5

1977, ''Who Should Play God? The Artificial Creation of Life and What it Means for the Future of the Human'', with Ted Howard, Dell Publishing Co., ISBN 0-440-19504-7

1978, ''The North Will Rise Again: Pensions, Politics and Power in the 1980s'', with Randy Barber, Beacon Press, ISBN 0-8070-4787-2

1979, ''The Emerging Order: God in the Age of Scarcity'', with Ted Howard, Putnam, ISBN 978-0-399-12319-1

1980, ''Entropy: A New World View'', with Ted Howard (afterword by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen), Viking Press, ISBN 0-670-29717-8

1983, ''Algeny: A New Word—A New World'', in collaboration with Nicanor Perlas, Viking Press, ISBN 0-670-10885-5

1985, ''Declaration of a Heretic'', Routledge & Kegan Paul Books, Ltd, ISBN 0-7102-0709-3

1987, ''Time Wars: The Primary Conflict In Human History'', Henry Holt & Co, ISBN 0-8050-0377-0

1990, ''The Green Lifestyle Handbook: 1001 Ways to Heal the Earth'' (edited by Rifkin), Henry Holt & Co, ISBN 0-8050-1369-5

1991, ''Biosphere Politics: A New Consciousness for a New Century'', Crown, ISBN 0-517-57746-1

1992, ''Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture'', E. P. Dutton, ISBN 0-525-93420-0

1992, ''Voting Green: Your Complete Environmental Guide to Making Political Choices In The 90s'', with Carol Grunewald Rifkin, Main Street Books, ISBN 0-385-41917-1

1995, ''The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era'', Putnam Publishing Group, ISBN 0-87477-779-8

1998, ''The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World'', J P Tarcher, ISBN 0-87477-909-X

2000, ''The Age Of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where All of Life is a Paid-For Experience'', Putnam Publishing Group, ISBN 1-58542-018-2

2002, ''The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the Worldwide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth'', Jeremy P. Tarcher, ISBN 1-58542-193-6

2004, ''The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream'', Jeremy P. Tarcher, ISBN 1-58542-345-9

2010, ''The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness In a World In Crisis'', Jeremy P. Tarcher, ISBN 1-58542-765-9 www.empathiccivilization.com

See also

Biopolitics

''Frankenstein'' argument

Genetic pollution

Jobless growth

National Veterans Inquiry

Winter Soldier Investigation

References

External links

1.http://foet.org/img/University%20Of%20Pennsylvania%20Student%20Award%20of%20Mert.jpg

2.http://www.foet.org/

3.http://foet.org/current-activities.html

4.http://www.foet.org/past/timeline/foet_history.html

5.http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1974/01/21/1974_01_21_067_TNY_CARDS_000305675

6.http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/4559-1

7.http://www.maryellenmark.com/text/magazines/mother%20jones/904Y-000-007.html

8.http://www.foet.org/past/BeyondBeefCampaign.htm

9.http://www.citizen.org/cmep/article_redirect.cfm?ID=10703

10.http://www.foet.org/JeremyRifkin.htm

Other links

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-rifkin

http://www.ted.com/speakers/jeremy_rifkin.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_rifkin_on_the_empathic_civilization.html

http://www.insead.edu/events/wharton_alliance_10th_anniversary/home/

https://microsite.accenture.com/iuec/Documents/Accenture_IUEC2011_INVITE_A4.pdf

http://cetri-tires.org/press/?p=3938&lang=it

http://www.ueapme.com/spip.php?article210

http://www.urbact.pl/Intern%20Meeting%20on%20Sust%20Planning%20-%20Vitoria.pdf

http://www.ghgreductionsummit.com/Program/Keynotes/tabid/76/Default.aspx

http://www.cidadesinovadoras.org.br/cici2011/

http://www.viewontv.org/oecd/forum2011/?titre=21#anc21

http://webtv.internationaltransportforum.org/video_ejZJJ_jeremy_rifkin.html

http://www.holcimfoundation.org/T1017/F10SP_Rifkin.htm

http://www.valleyforward.org/events/33

http://www.wdr.de/defaultError.jhtml

http://www.ey.com/home

http://www.dunkerque2010.org/en/programme/speakers/

https://www.construction-institute.org/ac/2010/agenda.cfm

http://www.eiseverywhere.com/ehome/index.php?eventid=11953&tabid=15060&

http://www.fondazionebancodisicilia.it/en/grandi_progetti/scheda.php?id=28

http://www.smesummit.eu/

http://www.rossinstitute.org/#/Media/Jeremy-Rifkin-Lecture

http://www.euractiv.com/en/energy/jeremy-rifkin-europe-lead-third-industrial-revolution/article-170005

Guardian.co.uk – 'Sorry, Mr President, homilies won't stop the hurricanes: We Americans need to get out of our SUVs and learn the harsh lesson of Katrina and Rita: we are all to blame', Jeremy Rifkin, ''The Guardian'', (September 23, 2005)

European Parliament Leaders announce Green Hydrogen initiative

Category:1945 births Category:American business theorists Category:American business writers Category:American economics writers Category:American economists Category:American non-fiction environmental writers Category:American technology writers Category:American Jews Category:Living people

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