Was it due to its move toward rationality and science during the Renaissance, or its capacity for organization, or the competitiveness of its nation-states (as opposed to the dull uniformity of Oriental empires), or its favorable geographical position, or its gunpowder revolution?

If the Caucasus becomes a burial ground of nations, he writes, "all of us will be so much the poorer, our civilization closer to a dull uniformity, our imagination less elaborate and our minds a bit more inclined toward the simplistic."

They showed a sweetness that did not seem to lend itself to long age, and there was a certain dull uniformity to too many of the St.-Emilions.

Of course, such internationalism has never resulted in a dull uniformity in European musical life.

But as on other late trains out of the city, the dull daytime uniformity of blue suits, dress skirts and rustling newspapers becomes something chattier, ruder and decidedly less staid.

There was a dull uniformity about the place.

So did the dull uniformity of the planetary surface.

A public outcry over the dull uniformity of the original renderings by the architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle had sent the development corporation back to the drawing boards, and there was a sense that something bold and important might happen.

Taken to an extreme these products are as much a cause of dull uniformity as commercialism can be.

By contrast, the argument runs, a nationally prescribed curriculum, rigidly dispensed to all, will be a force for dull uniformity in which the vitality and diversity of personal and social experience is homogenized.