I ask because it seems that there has recently been a push to revive the topic. Here in Australia a recently deceased philantropist donated $3 billion dollars in his will to establish a centre for western civilisation (http://www.ramsaycentre.org/) that will collaborate with universities to create new degrees of western civ. He said that "he was troubled that so few Australians shared his appreciation of the civilisation which has contributed so much to the success of Australia as a nation." I believe there was also a similar centre set up in the UK with Niall Ferguson to teach the subject as well. It seems to come from a belief amongst some that westerners have lost touch with what made the west great in the first place (freedom of religion, liberalism etc) and so we need to teach these courses in history departments again because at the moment its only world history and identity politics and if we don't do something about it the west will continue its decline. Anyway what are your thoughts? Any truth to this idea or its it all being blown out of proportion? Personally, I don't get it, in my undergraduate degree there was heaps of western history courses to choose from and you could study all the great western liberal thinkers in the philosophy department
Thanks
Your instincts aren't wrong. While there has been undoubted growth in course offerings on non-Western histories, they are far from dominating the syllabus. A twitter acquaintance of mine shared data from 2016 in response to concerns raised by the Institute of Public Affairs (a semi-shady conservative think tank, for those unfamiliar with Australian public life) a few weeks ago regarding this issue (https://twitter.com/benvwilkie/status/992367045097340930). As you can see, in terms of courses offered and students numbers, 'traditional' historical approach still dominates. To be fair, the way European, British or Australian history is taught has shifted markedly in the past few decades, in line with changing historical methods and approaches.
u/seemore__glass has already noted the shifting way we view colonialism impacting history, which was spot on. The history of empire and colonialism has been a key battleground of culture wars in Australia and elsewhere since the 1990s - I think that this latest move towards promoting the history of 'Western Civilisation' is an attempt to reframe the same debate as positive rather than negative. Previously, efforts focused on discrediting and attacking history criticising colonialism (in Australia, see Keith Windschuttle's career). While this is certainly still present in the discourse, with 'identity politics' thrown in as a trendy new label, there seems to be a renewed effort not just to attack mainstream historical practice, but to build something new in its place.
Here are some newpaper articles talking about it: