36. “I think we should continue to emphasize the history and culture of the West, while encompassing the rest, because the West has in fact made the world we know. Anyone who wants to participate in the world community in the coming century had better know how and why the West has defined, and will continue to define, world civilization. Why do I say that? Because everybody wants what we have: science and technology, prosperity, and democracy—that is, our philosophy, our economics, our politics. It is the simple truth that science and technology emerge out of Western philosophy, not out of the philosophy of India, China, or the African nations. Since it is a fact that people everywhere aspire to the material advantages that flow, uniquely I think, from the modes of social organization that the West has devised—its economics, its science and technology, and also its politics and philosophy—I think it is time to stop apologizing and start analyzing what has made [the West] the world-defining power that it is.” Jacob Neusner, historian, “It is Time to Stop Apologizing for Western Civilization and to Start Analyzing Why It Defines World Culture,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 1989

The author’s point of view regarding the West was likely influenced by which of the following developments at the time he was writing?

A. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War
B. The spread of the liberation theology movement in Catholic Latin American states
C. The growing strength of environmental protest movements
D. The outbreaks of ethnic violence in Africa and Eastern Europe