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This two-volume reader documents the history of the West, from the second millennium BC through the twentieth century. Drawing from the well known and the less obvious, Sources for the History of Western Civilization reflects the ongoing reassessment of the canonical texts of Western history. The volumes include generous selections of literature, letters, laws, records, biographical writings, and illustrations that collectively create a rich portrait of the West's intellectual, social, political, and material development.

Unlike other readers, Sources for the History of Western Civilization uses complete texts whenever feasible, including those of a number of longer works, such as The Symposium; Einhard's Life of Charlemagne and The Communist Manifesto. Women are well represented and Western Civilization is placed within world history by the inclusion of materials from the Near East, the Americas and Asia. The selections have been newly annotated and the translations have in many cases been modernized. The headnotes introducing each author's work leave room for readers to conduct their own analyses.