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Much of Siedentop’s account focuses on these Christian moral and theological innovations, which permeated the teaching and actions of the Catholic church in mediaeval Europe, as well as having wider effects on the feudal society created by the Germanic barbarians (such as preventing the return of ancient slavery). But we must remember that social and political individualism, and by extension modern liberalism, could not have come into being from a spiritual doctrine alone. The Eastern Orthodox regions of Europe share the early Christian tradition with Western Europe, yet did not create individualism; Islam stresses the personal ideal of the Prophet, and has produced anti-social ‘holy fools’, yet did not create individualism. Buddhism and Sikhism were spiritually egalitarian religions that abolished caste distinctions – yet did not create individualism. What created individualism was a struggle for supremacy by Power in the West.