ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part examines culture as ethnicity, where ethnic groups were either approached as highly compact or as having a low degree of compactness. It introduces the analysis of civilizations where people will connect it with religion in particular as the promoter of secular outcomes. Linking civilization with religion is the approach used by Max Weber. Ethnicity is the culture of a people, but, ‘people’ may stand for very different kinds of groups, which explains to some extent why ethnic theory has delivered controversial results. Religion as culture is more encompassing than ethnicity as culture, although the principal world religions have stable locations or spatial homes. Another approach to the study of civilizations is to link them up with time or the lingering relevance of major historical legacies.
