The intermixture in our own time of European, or Western, civilization with non-Western civilizations and cultures is producing a new, global civilization. It is the purpose of this book to tell the story of Western civilization from the "Dark Ages" when Europe emerged as a cultural entity up to the transmutation of Western civilization in the 20th century. It is not a story of continual progress. Throughout its history the European world has experienced fluctuations of fortune and circumstance, periods of harmony and periods of strife and discord. Nor does the story have a simple, obvious moral. The attentive reader, however, can learn much about his own cultural heritage and so arrive at a better understanding of the world in which he lives and his own place in it. - Preface.