ng role, as food supplies and raw materials came
increasingly from less developed parts of eastern Europe or from the
colonies which were opened up by the planet-wide trade and commerce
promoted by the aggressive expansion of the European empires.

Most Europeans, satisfied with the axiom "old fashions please me best"
were stand-patters in the early stages of this transformation. As the
conversion of Europe from feudal status to urban dynamism continued,
however, an ever larger part of the population became aware of the
change through which their society was passing. With the Renaissance and
the Enlightenment inert unawareness gave place to enthusiastic
propaganda in the writings of pamphleteers, essayists, poets, novelists
and social reformers who set the intellectual tone for the new society.

In a very real sense, the bourgeois Europe which emerged after 1750 was
something new under the sun. Large elements of the population,
previously engaged in producing and consuming the bare necessaries of
food, shelter and clothing were increasingly engaged in trades and
professions and rendering services unknown to the feudal countryside. As
the expansion of western civilization continued, entire European nations
like the Low Countries, England and Germany turned to trade, commerce,
industry, leaving only a dwindling minority engaged in agricultural
pursuits. The change was speeded by the revolution in science and
technology.

Changes in economic and social relations are paralleled by corresponding
alterations in the total way of living. Western civilization was, in its
entirety, a cultural departure from the pattern of any preceding
experiment with civilization because of the drastic changes that the
revolution in science and technology had introduced into human society.

Throughout the life-cycle of western civilization minor and major
alterations have been made in its structure and its function. Some of
the earlier political changes were part and parcel of the bourgeois
revolution. They included:

1. The abolition of absolute monarchies and hereditary aristocracies and
their replacement by limited monarchies and republics with various types
of representative and popular governments selected by ballot.

2. The replacement of personal tyrannies and autocracies by written
constitutions and laws passed by elected parliaments.

3. Replacement of war as the sport of kings and the chief instrument of
policy makers, by negoti