have
occupied portions of the earth during several thousand years. We know a
great deal about the western civilization which we observe and in which
we participate. Professor Morse's florid words apply to none of the
civilizations known to history. Certainly they are poles away from an
accurate characterization of our own varient of this social pattern.

We are writing this introduction in an effort to make our word pictures
of mankind and its doings correspond with the facts of social history.
With the nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over our heads, it is high
time for us to exchange the clouds of fancy and the flowers of rhetoric
for the solid ground of historical reality. The word "civilization" must
generalize what has been and what is, as nearly as the past and present
can be embodied in language.

Civilization is a level or phase of culture which has been attained and
lost repeatedly in the course of social history. The epochs of
civilization have not been distributed evenly, either in time or on the
earth's surface. A combination of circumstances, political, economic,
ideological, sociological, resulted in the Egyptian, the Chinese, the
Roman civilizations. One of these was centered in North Africa, the
second in Asia, the third in eastern Europe. All three spilled over into
adjacent continents.

No two civilizations are exactly alike at any stage of their
development. Each civilization is at least a partial experiment, a
process or sequence of causal relationships, altered sequentially in the
course of its life cycle.

These thoughts about culture and civilization should be supplemented by
noting the relationship between civilizations and empires. An empire is
a center of wealth and power associated with its economic and political
dependencies. A civilization is a cluster or a succession of empires
and/or former empires, co-ordinated and directed by one of their number
which has established its leadership in the course of survival struggle.

The total body of historical evidence bearing on human experiments with
civilization is extensive and impressive. It covers a large portion of
the Earth's land surface, includes parts of Asia, Africa and Europe and
extends sketchily to the Americas. In time it covers many thousands of
years.

Experiments with civilization have been conducted in highly selective
surroundings possessing the volume and range of natural resources and
the isolation and remoteness necess