History of Modern Times

In January 1687, a great debate, later known as the "Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns," erupted at the French Academy. This was, in fact, a radical transformation in the perception of the phenomenon and concept of time: gods were slowly leaving the world, and humans were beginning both to make history and to write it with a new perspective. Levent Yılmaz depicts this threshold, this rupture in Western history, with small, subtle brushstrokes: How did Western societies take their first steps into History? Into History—that is, into creating distance with the past, a sense of the fullness of the present, and the activity of planning and organizing the future? How did Western societies manage to break away from the belief that everything that happens is destiny, that the future is actually a reflection of the past, that history is merely repetition, and that tradition and proverbs are the truest guides? In short, how did the West become Modern, become Westernized?