Richly illustrated, beautifully designed, and engaging, this introduction to the humanities offers a thorough yet accessible integrated exploration of Western civilization's cultural heritage -- with an emphasis on cultural achievements in the arts of literature, philosophy, religion, painting, music, sculpture, and architecture. Multi-cultural in approach and organized chronologically from prehistory to the Renaissance, it provides an historical, (political, economic, socially) and cultural framework to help students understand how cultural achievements emerged from a specific time and place and how, in some instances, they reflected non-Western influences.