User Guide

As humankind progressed by fits and starts
through the ages,civilizations rose and fell,
their success or failure due to what knowl-
edge they acquired and how they
employed it.
Those who first acquire new knowledge
are often able to employ it to build a more
powerful position, but there have been
many cases when civilizations obtained
some new invention first and failed to use
it to their advantage.The pace at which a
society develops and implements new
knowledge depends on many factors,
including its social organization, eco-
nomic organization, geographic location,
leadership, and competition.
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“It is in the pursuit and study of the natural sciences that mankind provides the greatest evidence of his
nobility, of his spark of the divine.”
CIVILIZATION
ADVANCES