composed mainly of the old Persian and Syrian elite, now converted to Islam and
schooled in Arabic—created new forms of prose and poetry. A commercial revolution
in China helped to vivify commerce in the Islamic world. At hand was a cultural
flowering in a land of prosperity.
The Making of Western Europe
No reasonable person in the year 750 would have predicted that, of the three heirs of
the Roman Empire, Western Europe would, by 1500, be well on its way to
dominating the world. While Byzantium cut back, reorganized, and forged ahead,
while Islam spread its language and rule over a territory that stretched nearly twice
the length of the United States today, Western Europe remained an impoverished
backwater. Fragmented politically and linguistically, its cities (left over from Roman
antiquity) mere shells, its tools primitive, its infrastructure—what was left of Roman
roads, schools, and bridges—collapsing, Europe lacked identity and cohesion. That
these and other strengths did indeed eventually develop over a long period of time is
a tribute in part to the survival of some Roman traditions and institutions and in part
to the inventive ways in which people adapted those institutions and made up new
ones to meet their needs and desires.
