
My criticism is of your assumption that history has just one clear path, that the basic difference between different cultures is how far along the path they've travelled, and that it's a matter of some cultures being ahead of, or behind, others. It doesn't, it isn't, and it isn't.
( , Thu 19 Jul 2012, 13:20, Reply)

it's what I see, when I look at it. Compare the Islamists to the Puritans, the Islamic states to feudalism, think of the "French Wars of Religion" and the English Civil War, and how it all coincided with the rise of capitalism.
Mohammad's Islamisation of Arabia even looks a bit like Constantine's Christianisation of Europe.
It's an oversimplification, I admit, but the parallels are there.
( , Thu 19 Jul 2012, 13:28, Reply)