Primary Sources
Online Collections of Sources about Western Civilization
Online Galleries with Pictures from the Art of Western Civilization
More information on the Primary Source Projects in the Text
More information on Sources on Familes in the Text
List of longer Suggested Readings: for each chapter, the names of relevant written works written in historical periods that can add to understanding. Some are used as selections for sources in the printed book and this website; many citations havelinks to the texts online, others should be available through your library.
Other useful short Primary Sources for issues raised in the printed book
1. History’s Story
There's Method: Research Plan
“What is Truth?”: “What is History?”
2. Wanderers and Settlers: The Ancient Middle East to 400 B.C.
The Ape’s Cousins: Middle Paleolithic Tools
Bound to the Soil: Code of Hammurabi
The Price of Civilization: The Reign of Sargon of Akkad
The Rise and all of Practically All Middle Eastern Empires: Cyrus Cylinder
3. The Chosen People: Hebrews and Jews, from 2000 B.C. to A.D. 135
An Obscure History: The Roman Sack of Jerusalem
The Ties that Bind: Selections from the Laws of Judaism
4. Trial of the Hellenes: The Ancient Greeks, from 1200 B.C. to A.D. 146
To the Sea: The Founding of Cyrene
The Political Animal: Xenophon on the Polity of the Spartans
Metamorphosis: The Funeral Oration of Pericles
The Cultural Conquest: Socrates in his own defense
5. Imperium Romanum: The Romans, from 753 B.C. to A.D. 300
World Conquest in Self-defense: Galgacus: on Roman Imperialism
The Price of Power: Suetonius on Caesar
The Absolutist Solution: Augustus’ Res Gestæ
The Roads to Knowledge: Inscriptions from Pompeii
6. The Revolutionary Rabbi: Christianity, the Roman Empire, and Islam, from 4 B.C. to A.D. 1453
The Son of Man: Gospel of Matthew
The Cultural War: Letters of Pliny and Trajan
Roma delenda est: Augustine’s City of God
The Struggle for the Realm of Submission: Tarik’s address to his soldiers
7. From Old Rome to the New West: The Early Middle Ages, from A.D. 500 to 1000
Goths in the Garden: Conversion of Clovis
Charles in Charge: Life of Charlemagne
The Cavalry to the Rescue: Oath of Homage and Fealty
8. The Medieval Mêlée: The High and Later Middle Ages, from 1000 to 1500
Return of the Kings: William “the Conqueror”
Discipline and Domination: Life of St. Bernard
Plenty of Papal Power: Pope Gregory VII’s Dictatus Papæ
The Age of Faith and Reason: Peter Abelard on Reason
A New Estate: Conversion of Peter Waldo
Not the End of the World: Living with The Black Death
9. Making the Modern World: The Renaissance and Reformation, from 1400 to 1648
The Purse of Princes: Trial of Joan of Arc
Man as the Measure: Machiavelli’s The Prince
Heaven Knows: Luther against the Peasants
Fatal Beliefs: Pope Pius V’s Bull against Elizabeth
God, Greed, and Glory: Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies
10. Liberation of Mind and Body: Early Modern Europe, from 1543 to 1815
Lost in the Stars: Abjuration by Galileo
From the Salons to the Streets: Voltaire on Tolerance
The State is He (or She): The Behavior of Louis XIV
(Prosperous) People Power: The Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen
Blood and Empires: Napoleon’s Report on the Condition of France
11. Mastery of the Machine: The Industrial Revolution, from 1764 to 1914
Facts of Factories: Observations on the Loss of Woollen Spinning
Life in the Big City: Condition of the Working Class in England
Cleaning Up the Mess: Carlsbad Decrees
For the Workers: Gotha Program
The Machinery of Nature: Darwin’s The Descent of Man
12. The Westerner’s Burden: Imperialism and Nationalism, from 1810 to 1918
“New and Improved” Imperialism: The General Act of the 1885 Congress of Berlin
From Sea to Shining Sea: The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
Nationalism’s Curse: Mazzini’s An Essay On the Duties of Man Addressed to Workingmen
The Balkan Cauldron: Report on the Plight of the Macedonian Moslems
The Great War: Account of the Struggle for Fort Douaumont, Verdun
13. Rejections of Democracy: The InterWar Years and World War II, from 1918 to 1945
Decline of the West?: Freud on Civilization
Russians in Revolt: Letter from Gorky to Stalin on Religion
Losing their Grip: Gandhi’s Speech on the Eve of the Historic Dandi March
Fascist Fury: Mussolini on What is Fascism
Hitler’s Hatreds: Hitler’s Speech of 18 September 1922
The Roads to Global War: Churchill’s War Speech
14. A World Divided: The Early Cold War, from 1945 to 1993
From Friends to Foes: The Truman Doctrine
Making Money: Elvis visits Nixon
To the Brink, again and again: Khrushchev’s Address to the UN General Assembly
Letting Go and Holding On: Kenyatta on how the Kenya African Union is not the Mau Mau
American Hegemony: JFK’s Address Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors
The Uneasy Understanding: LBJ’s Message to Congress about the Gulf of Tonkin
The Walls Come Down: Reagan’s Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate
15. Into the Future: The Contemporary Era, from 1991 to the Present
Searching for Stability: Geert Wilders’s Speech in the Dutch Parliament
An Unexpected Revival: Radio Address by President Clinton
Haves and Cannots: Globalization: Good or Bad?
Values of Violence: Jihad against Jews and Crusaders
The Walls Go Up Agan: Fight for Europe- or the wreckers will destroy it!
The Equivalent of War:
Epilogue: Why Western Civilization?
The Western Civ debate at Stanford
