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Definition of Civilization

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Submitted By neymatara
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Course Date Definition of Civilization
When people in the community live peacefully, the level of development increases tremendously thereby civilization sets in. Before civilization came into existence, the early people lived off the land and were nomadic hunter-gatherers. With time, these hunters and groups of foragers started to settle down. There were strains on the nomadic people in that they had to find reliable sources of food for the animals that were large to feed. The exact meaning of “civilization” sometimes becomes hard to define since it can be ambiguous. It is easier for civilization to be described than it can be defined. According to Mazlish (5), civilization can be defined in many ways, but many scholars agree that when a society forms cities the result is that it becomes a civilization. Scholars define civilization as a set of attributes that certain societies possess, for example, agriculture, writing, monumental construction, government, mathematics among others. Emphasis is employed in the definition of civilization in terms of describing societies as being urbanized and hierarchical. Civilization is traced back to the Latin word “civilis” that has the meaning of “citizen” that means a member in a state that has a government or any sort of ruling in place. Civilization takes many forms that may include division of labor, surplus of food, and organization of governments and religion.
Many people should be cognizant, and understand that civilization is regarded as a useful historical concept that does not exclude people. In the past people who lived in urban cities tended to despise those that lived outside cities and saw these people as barbarians. In Greece, the word barbarian was used to refer to the non-Greek speakers and mostly the Persians but over time, the meaning changed to the people who were less civilized.

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