Includes bibliographical references and index.

Table of Contents

1: The ancestors of the west;
2: The, the sword, and the book: western Africa;
3:The Greeks in the in the polis to ca. 350 B.C.;
4: Alexander the great and the spread of Greek ca. 350-30B.C.;
5: Rome, from republic to empire;
6: Imperial Rome, 31 B.c.- A.D. 284;
7: The world of late antiquity, 284-ca. 600;
8: Earlier medieval civilizations, 600-900;
9: The explanation of Europe in the high middle ages, 900-1300;
10: Medieval civilization at its height, 900-1300;
11: Crisis and recovery in late medieval Europe, 1300-1500;
12: The renaissance;
13: European overseas expansion to 1600;
14: the age of the reformation;
15: Europe in the age of religious wars, 1560-1648;
16: Europe in the age of Louis XIV, ca 1640-1715;
17: A revolution in the worldview;