The Chinese by the way of the Tao invented gunpowder by the 9th century.
By 1240 AD the Arabs acquired the knowledge.
Irrigation and the formation of civilization occurred in Egypt roughly during the 3150 BC.
Current Hebrew year is 5771 or 2240 in common era and are the basis of all monotheistic religion known in the current era.
Civilization as we know it today may philosophically be linked to the European Renaissance and the Enlightenment which built upon Roman civility and law which were an extension from the Greeks which were influenced by their Persian counterparts; who had ties with the middle east and the northern tip of Africa.
The Mongolian Empire spread Confucian philosophy and government which were implemented sometime in the 5th century BC.
Christianity began within the disenfranchised amongst the slaves of the Roman Empire which eventually converted to Christianity.
During the 20th Century only Russia was able to compete with our version of the Roman Empire (the United States, THE SUPERPOWER OF OUR TIME however you choose to perceive the world) when it came to industry, arms race and the space race.
The Chinese used their innovation in military tactics to give America one of their first drawback in military affairs in 1951 (Korean War).
I think what you want to say is that the mass population will follow thoughts, ideas, technology and basic way of life that trickles down from a small group and eventually is embraced by the mainstream. (i.e. French Revolution was lead by Robespierre and members of the Tennis Court Oath who all were influenced by Rousseau and his counterparts who came a generation before; these people took Rousseau's ideas and implemented them so the common [mostly] illiterate worker and overthrew the MONARCHY/ Karl Lagerfeld (renown fashion designer) designs wardrobe; top of the line models like Abbey Lee, Freja Beha Erichsen, Kate Moss, etc. wear them and are advertised which leads to wealthy consumers to buy them and eventually trickles down to the lower classes to purchase in cheap stores like H&M for $10 a top.
