[eleni121]

"...Venetians to the Franks to the Germans..."

I kinda figured you were talking about the HRE and its vestiges...not Western Civilization which after all is a creation of Christendom and Byzantium - but I wasn't sure. No argument there...they stabbed Christendom in the back and let the fellowhip rot for hundreds of years under the Muslim yoke.

[Destro]

Calling it Western civilization is a misnomer. I prefer either Christendom because it is more accurate (includes those lost to this civilization in the Middle East and in North Africa as well as including East and West Europe) or maybe a new term like Neo-Hellenistic because this culture is a continuation of Roman/Hellenistic civilization (Was not Moscow dubbed the Third Rome?).

"Western" civilization is the adoption of Classical Hellenistic and Christian culture and can be found anywhere not only in the "West" which was in fact a backwater and a cultural disgrace until the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.