It is a reduced entity, increasingly aware that it can no longer be the center of the world, if only because of its shrinking demographic weight. Europe accounted for 20% of the world’s population at the beginning of the eighteenth century; the population of the West as a whole will constitute slightly more than 10% in 2050.
今天的西方同历史上的西方有着巨大的差异。西方的影响力正逐渐减小，它越来越认识到自己已不再是世界的中心，同时西方非常希望这仅仅是由人口减少所引起的。18世纪初，欧洲人口占世界总人口的20%；而到20510年西方总人口将仅占世界人口的10%。