Today, few people talk earnestly about western civilisation. Mahatma Gandhi’s jibe – “it would be a good idea” – has stuck. But the veteran critic Desmond Fennell believes it is a useful concept to try to understand where the world is going. He argues that we are “between two civilisations”. Not just that but he believes a tectonic shift took place in the last century when the mask of western civilisation finally fell. In fact, he traces it to a particular date: August 6th, 1945