ABSTRACT
The change proceeding among the people of the Near East in the twentieth century is only part of a universal process, the Europeanization of all humanity, at work to-day even in the remotest regions of the world. The Europe which has grown up since the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, the Europe of freedom of the person, of the critical play of the intellect, of technical control of natural resources, has so amply demonstrated its superiority over older and perhaps also deeper civilizations that they have been unable to withstand its penetration. This Europeanization is a process both of education and of resistance. It can be brought to nations from without; in that case it clothes itself in the forms of imperialism, training the peoples in European economic, technical, and general progress in its own interest, and only to the extent its own interest requires, but taking care to prevent, or at least not actively to promote, any deeper measure of Europeanization, of popular education, and of modernization of native trade and industry. To this end it unites with and strengthens those forces which in their own conservative interests are opposed to more far-reaching Europeanization—usually princes, nobles, and priests, but often also a small upper class of big capitalists who profit by the newly-opened commercial relations.
