本书不是“史书”，没有长篇的叙事，它只是以历史为线索突出介绍西方文化史中的重要历史时期、重大事件、重大思想流派和重要人物；重点介绍在每个特定的历史阶段中，西方社会在哲学、宗教、思想、制度、文学、艺术、科技等方面所取得的重大成就；探讨西方为什么能在15世纪后飞速发展，其物质成就中有多少是以它的文化积淀获取的。

本书从内容到形式力图做到融知识性、趣味性和可读性为一体。

本书可作为高等学校大学英语的选修课教材。本书也适合于具有一定英语水平的西方文化爱好者阅读。

Chapter One Greek Culture : Origin of Western Clvilization

 PART A Greek Culture

1.1.1 General Introduction

1.1.2 Influence of Ancient Greek Culture

 PART B Greek Literature

1.2.1 Homer's Epics in Early Greece

1.2.2 Mythology in Greece

1.2.3 Drama in Greece

 PART C Greek Philosophy

1.3.1 General Introduction

1.3.2 Famous Philusophers

 PARTD Greek Art and Science

1.4.1 Art in Greece

1.4.2 Science in Greece

Chapter Two Roman Culture

 ……

 PART A History

 PART B Culture Achievements

Chapter Three Jewish Culture and the Old Testament

 PART A Judaism and the Old Testament

 PART B The Ancestors and States of Israel

 PART C Zionism an Its Cultural Connotation

 PART D Cultural Achievements of the Jews

Chapter Four Christian Culture and the New Testament

 PART A Historical and Cultural Backgrounds

 PART B The New Testament

 PART C A Brief History of the Early Church

 PART D Beyond the New Testament Period

Chapter Five The Middle Ages

 PART A Europe and Its Politics

 PART B The Church

 PART C The Crusades

 PART D Dante and the Divine Comedy

 PART E Scholasticism: Aquinas and Anselm

 PART F The Establishment of Banking and Universities

Chapter Six Renaissance and Reformation

 PART A Renaissance

 PART B Uterature and Art

 PART C Political and Social Ideology

 PART D Science and Technology and Philosophy

 PART E The Religious Reformation

Chapter Seven Age of Enlightenment

 PART A Enlightenment: the Age of Reason

 PART B Revolutionary Era

 PART C English Literature

 PART D Art

 PART E Music

Chapter Eight Passionate Romanticism

 PART A Ceneral Introduction

 PART B The Origin of the Romantic Ideological Trend

 PART C Romantic Philosophy and Social Thought

 PART D Romantic Poems of Nature and Humanity in English

 PART E Emotion and Freedom in Romantic Music

Chapter Nine The Industrialized Realism

 PART A General Introduction

 PART B Realism in Literature

 PART C Realism in Painting

 PART D Realism in Architecture and Sculpture

Chapter Ten Modernism: New Perspective Denying Tradition

 PART A Modernist Culture: Surpassing and Innovation

 PART B Modernist Ideology and Philoeophy

 PART C Modemist Literature

 PART D Modernist Achievements

References