Building Western Civilization: From the Advent of Writing to the Age of Steam (ISBN 0-15-500115-9) is a history book written by Alan I. Marcus in 1998.
The book discusses western history from 3500 BC to 1715 AD. It has an emphasis on technological history and political history and is considered to be an introductory overview.
Famous quotes containing the words building, western, advent, writing, age and/or steam:
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I wouldn’t say when you’ve seen one Western you’ve seen the lot; but when you’ve seen the lot you get the feeling you’ve seen one.”
—Katharine Whitehorn (b. 1926)
“Not until the advent of Impressionism does the repudiation of principles set in which opened the way for the burlesque parade of the fashionable and publicity-crazed modernities of our century.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.”
—Annie Dillard (b. 1945)
“Captivating the spirit of the age is a matter of great talent; being swept away by it characterizes an average mind. The two are as different from one another as activity and passivity.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Time has an undertaking establishment on every block and drives his coffin nails faster than the steam riveters rivet or the stenographers type or the tickers tick out fours and eights and dollar signs and ciphers.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)