page_title: History of Western civilization
section_title: Rise of the English-speaking world: 1815–1870
hierarchical_section_title: History of Western civilization / Rise of the English-speaking world: 1815–1870
caption_attribution_description: The Young Queen Victoria
context_page_description: Western civilization traces its roots back to Europe and the Mediterranean. It is linked to ancient Greece, the Roman Empire and with Medieval Western Christendom which emerged from the Middle Ages to experience such transformative episodes as the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, scientific revolution, and the development of liberal democracy. The civilizations of Classical Greece and Ancient Rome are considered seminal periods in Western history; a few cultural contributions also emerged from the pagan peoples of pre-Christian Europe, such as the Celts and Germans, as well as some significant religious contributions derived from Judaism and Hellenistic Judaism stemming back to Second Temple Judea, Galilee, and the early Jewish diaspora; and some other Middle Eastern influences. Western Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, which throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture. Western civilization has spread to produce the dominant cultures of modern Americas and Oceania, and has had immense global influence in recent centuries in many ways.
context_section_description: The years following Britain's victory in the Napoleonic Wars were a period of expansion for the United Kingdom and its former American colonies, which now made up the United States. This period of expansion would help establish Anglicanism as the dominant religion, English as the dominant language, and English and Anglo-American culture as the dominant culture of two continents and many other lands outside the British Isles.
caption: Queen Victoria in her early twenties, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "1107", "Image ImageLength": "1500", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "78", "Image YResolution": "78", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Centimeter", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2010:12:02 02:50:51", "Image ExifOffset": "228", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "378", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4845", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1107", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1500"}