this western world , this legacy of hellenism , infused with ever evolving judaism and christianity , had flourished most dramatically in northern climes of the planet both in europe and in america , harnessing somehow the tenacity and the ferocity of those taller , shaggier , and often fairer dwellers of the woodlands and the steppes , who did not learn to be humans in eden , but rather in lands where summer was always followed by the brutality of cold and snow .