You make a great point. The Arab world (and, to a lesser degree, the Byzantine Empire) preserved and continued Western progress. For a long time, Baghdad and Be

You make a great point. The Arab world (and, to a lesser degree, the Byzantine Empire) preserved and continued Western progress. For a long time, Baghdad and Beijing (and, quite possibly, Alexandria) were centers of the civilized world. By the Enlightenment, the great ideas were coming from all over-- American Indian civilizations, pirate ship organizations, the Arab world, and (later) the East. The (mostly American?) idea that the bulk of progress came from a bunch of bigoted Puritans is pure credit-taking. They played a role, but a small one compared to Parisian salons. In fact, the Pilgrims had the opportunity to "live in religious freedom" in the Netherlands and left because it was too liberal.