this third volume in the WORLD LITERATURE AND THOUGHT series contains an astonishing variety of primary reading selections. The anthology features literary, historical, and philosophical works that reflect a global diversity of all major civilizations. In the West it begins with literature of the Renaissance and ends at the dawn of the twentieth century. In the East it starts with a fifteenth-century poem by Jami, the last of the major writers of classical Persian literature, and ends with Vietnamese and Indian writers who exemplify the rising tides of nineteenth-century nationalism. Africa is also well represented in chronicles, epics, and tales. America is included with a significant number of selections.