ABSTRACT
Civilization was finally achieved in the west in 1775-fourteen years before the French Revolution and an event, conceivably, of longer-lived significance. The date is admittedly a little arbitrary. Three years earlier that fierce conservative Dr Samuel Johnson had resisted the pressure of the more fashion-conscious Boswell to include the word in his Dictionary instead of the traditional version, civility. Johnson’s lesser-known contemporary and rival John Ash proved more open-minded, however. In his two-volume New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1775, the word was set down as meaning the ‘state of being civilized’ as well as the act of civilizing.
