In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the West entered a period of history that many people—in Europe, in America, and even in other parts of the world—thought was the highest level of civilization ever achieved by any people, anywhere. When considering the longer span of world history, the idea is debatable; perhaps the Chinese under the Tang and Song Dynasties, the Arabs under the Abbasid Caliphate, or the Indians under the Mughals were more “civilized,” depending on one's definition of the word. Yet there can be no question that the physical expansion and power of Western civilization in its period of greatest material achievement was unprecedented. Europeans and Americans had the machines and the motivation to dominate the entire planet, and they did, shaping the world civilization of the future.