ecumene

is an early greek concept meaning something similar to globalization and referring in particular to how new cultural materials and new ways of thinking were rapidly propagated like a wave or pulsation and how primitive' cultures coalesced through selective reduction'.

In 1946, Kroeber revived the concept of the Oikoumene (ecumene), which the ancient Greeks had used to designate 'the inhabited,' that 'web of culture growth' stretching from China in the east to Gibraltar in the west. Within the ecumene, 'people lived in cities in organized states, plowed their fields and raised cattle, worked iron, and knew letters.' Also within the ecumene, new 'cultural materials' and 'ways of thinking' were propagated, 'sometimes rapidly, almost like a wave or pulsation.' 'Primitive' cultures within the ecumene, moreover, coalesced through 'selective reduction,' either preserving 'old elements largely discarded elsewhere' or doing 'without elements which their retardation [made] them unable or unwilling to accept.'the term ecume designates the 'total area reached by traceable diffusion influences from the main higher centers of Eurasia.' Could the history of 'higher civilization,' he wondered, be written as 'a unitary process, as a single, large-scale, long-term event''

ecumene, n.All

ecumene