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There are different ways of dividing history.  A common way of dividing western history, for example, is to say there are three basic periods: ancient, medieval and modern. Another is to say pagan, Christian and post Christian. Another is BC/AD (more often now, BCE and CE.) Whatever the labels, however, the usual overview of Western culture has been optimistic. Age by age, century by century, the world was becoming a better place. 

The high point for the optimists was the Enlightenment, a movement centered in France during the 17th and 18th centuries. The Enlightenment downplayed, even cast out, religion and promoted reason. It had great effect. Our own revolution, in fact, stirred up by Thomas Paine who in turn was influenced by French philosophers*, was as much an endorsement of enlightenment philosophy as a rejection of English royalty. In the 19th century the West became industrialized, science and technology flourished and a new vision inspired people.

There were setbacks, of course. WW1 did not seem to be an example of progress, though various settlements after the war were reassuring. Then WW11 dimmed the glow of progress.

But the triumph of optimism was the end of WW11. The good guys had won. The bad guys had lost. The United Nations Charter was promising.  Science and technology had greatly contributed to the  victory of democracy and doubtless would continue their beneficial influence. We did have to keep an eye on Russia, but China was just a lot of people, hardly industrialized. No one gave a thought to the environment. Why? Oceans don’t change. Antarctica won’t melt. There was a loosening of restrictive and unsupportable social conventions. Doubtless all the other countries would want to be like the USA, and a better world was certainly ahead.  

That was 1945. The future does not look quite so bright today.

*Some famous Enlightenment quotations:

• "Reason is natural revelation."  John Locke
• "Man was born free, and everywhere is in chains." Rousseau
• "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." Diderot