Kerby Anderson

The year 1776 changed the western world in significant ways. That is the conclusion of Andrew Wilson (pastor at King’s Church in London) in his book, Remaking the World. He was on my radio program to discuss his book.

He explains, “The big idea of this book is that 1776, more than any other year in the last millennium, is the year that made us who we are.” He describes it as “a year that witnessed seven transformations taking place—globalization, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the Great Enrichment, the American Revolution, the rise of post-Christianity, and the dawn of Romanticism.”

He describes this society as one that, “relative to others past and present, is WEIRDER. Each letter is an acronym (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic, Ex-Christian, and Romantic). He concludes that “The vast majority of people in human history have not shared our views of work, family, government, religion, sex, identity, or morality.”

W stands for “western” and focuses on the issue of globalization. One key event is the voyage of Captain James Cook. His travels generated certain questions like: Why were some natives more advanced than others? Western society began to get to the deep roots of culture and wondered why Western society developed before other cultures.

E stands for “educated” and focuses on the impact of the Enlightenment. Obviously, the Enlightenment started nearly a century before, but one high point was 1776. That was the year that Immanuel Kant drafted his Critique of Pure Reason and the year that Edward Gibbon published his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Tomorrow we will look at other events in 1776 that led to the remaking our of world.