When Hiram Maxim gave Stanley the latest model of his machine gun to take along on an expedition, Stanley said that the invention would be "of valuable service in helping civilisation to overcome barbarism".
That way, more countries have a better chance of raising the taxes that help build civilisation.
But the best thing a bright young person can do to help rid civilisation of fossil fuels is get an education in engineering.Oliver Morton: environment editor, The Economist; author of "Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet" (Harper/Fourth Estate).
Some have argued the effects of the black death helped "reset" European civilisation and contributed to the subsequent Renaissance and European expansionism in later centuries.
It's hard to escape reading about the Moon just lately; our only satellite, contributor to the Earth's tidal systems which helped shape our civilisation and object of human fascination from time immemorial.
Entry requirements vary, but A-levels in Latin, ancient Greek, history, English literature or classical civilisation will help your application.
Talking to a couple of young Indian crewmen out on the town in port, he comments: "I cannot help feeling that their civilisation knows mine of a foppish, effete and idle abstraction which cannot even look up its own train timetables without Indian help".
During this period has several centuries of abundant rainfall, which helped agriculture and the civilisation to flourish, but whenever the climate changed, it led to problems with the harvest, food supplies and consequent warfare, which was both political and for religious purposes.
The cross is an image that helped to hold together European civilisation for a millennium, and it has galvanised Christians into collective action on an incredible scale.
Turks pride themselves on being the most modern and democratic nation in the Islamic world, one that can serve as a bridge between East and West and help avert the "clash of civilisations".That claim was tested once again this week, when a teenager in Trabzon shouting "Allahu Akbar" shot dead an Italian Roman Catholic priest.
