Article: A civil religion: how Christianity created free and prosperous societies.

When Europeans first began to explore the globe, their greatest surprise was not the existence of the Western hemisphere, but the extent of their own technological superiority over the rest of the world. Not only were the proud Mayan, Aztec, and Inca nations helpless in the face of European intruders, so were the fabled civilizations of the East. China, India, and the nations of Islam were backward by comparison with sixteenth-century Europe.

How had this happened? Why was it that although many civilizations had pursued alchemy, it led to chemistry only in Europe? Why was it that Europeans were for centuries the only people who possessed eyeglasses, chimneys, ...

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