Comment by mc32

The first European civilization was the Minoan. Millenia after the Egyptian or Indus or Chinese. Anyway, in Europe it was the Greeks who contrasted people in city-states vs people from the hinterlands; after that it was the Romans who came up with the concept of citizenship and public life --all of that in southern Europe. Sure, the word civilization was coined by a Frenchman, but the idea was there first in southern Europe --I'm almost certain ancient Chinese had similar contrasts between people from the ruling city vs people from the hinterlands and beyond.