ABSTRACT
The current tendency in much European thought is to consider Europe in opposition to Islam, the former being characterized by many politicians as Judaeo-Christian civilization in contrast to the Muslims. It has a long history. But there is another view altogether. We need to start by going back to the societies that emerged after what the prehistorian Gordon Childe (1964 [1942]) referred to as the Urban Revolution of the Bronze Age. That radical change involved the development of a more advanced agriculture including the plough and irrigation, together with animal traction and the wheel, as well as the associated division of labour, artisanal specialisms and the invention of writing itself that made life in the towns both so much richer and so much more complex.
