Sources of the West presents a well-balanced selection of constitutional documents, political theory, philosophy, imaginative literature, and social description to raise significant issues for classroom discussions or lectures. By reading the voices of the past, students can connect them to the present; learn to understand and respect other cultures; and think critically about history. An introductory essay, "How to Read a Document," explains the types and levels of questions students need to ask and answer to understand, interpret, and analyze each selection.

Table of Contents:
VOLUME I. I. THE ORIGINS OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION AND THE CLASSICAL WORLD. Creation Epics. The Epic of Gilgamesh (ca. 2000 B.C.). The Creation Epic (ca. 2000 B.C.). The Book of Genesis (10th-6th century B.C.). Hesoid, Works and Days (ca. 700 B.C.). The Ancient Near East. Code of Hammurabi (early 18th century B.C.). The Book of the Dead (ca. 16th century B.C.). The Book of Exodus(ca. 10th-6th century B.C.). The Book of Isaiah (ca. 8th-6th century B.C.). Ancient and Classical Greece. Homer, Iliad (9th-8th century B.C.). Sappho of Lesbo, Poems (ca. 600 B.C.). Herodotus, History (ca. 450 B.C.). Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (ca. 400 B.C.). Plato, Apology (399 B.C.). Plato, The Republic (ca. 327 B.C.). Aristotle, Politics (4th century B.C.). The Roman World. Cicero, The Trial of Aulus Cluentius Habitus (66 B.C.). Virgil, Aeneid (30-19 B.C.). Juvenal, Satires (ca. A.D. 116). Plutarch, The Life of Cato the Elder (ca. A.D. 116). Suetonius, The Life of Augustus (ca. A.D. 122). The Sermon on the Mount (ca. A.D. 28-35). St. Paul, Epistle to the Romans (ca. A.D. 57). II. MEDIEVAL EUROPE. The Early Middle Ages. Tacitus, Germania (98). Eusebius, In Praise of Constantine (336). Augustine of Hippo, The City of God,(413-26). Benedict of Nursia, Rule of Saint Benedict (ca. 535-540). The Burgundian Code (ca. 474). Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks (ca. 581-591). Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of England (731). Einhard, The Life of Charlemagne (ca. 829-836). Islam and the Eastern Empire. Justinian, Code (529-565). Procopius, Secret History (ca. 560). The Koran (7th century). Michael Psellus, Chronographia (ca. 1070). Ibn Al-Qalanisi, The Damascus Chronicle (ca. 1150). The High Middle Ages. Feudal Documents (11th-12th centuries). Bernard of Angers, Miracles of St. Foy (ca. 1010). The Song of Roland (ca. 1100). Magna Carta (1215). Francis of Assisi, Admonitions (ca. 1220). Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (1266-1273). Dante, The Divine Comedy (ca. 1320). Catherine of Siena, Letters (1376). Jean Froissart, Chronicles (ca. 1400). Christine de Pisan, The Book of the City of Ladies (ca. 1405). Margaret Paston, Letters (1441-1448). Witchcraft Documents (15th century). III. RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. The Renaissance. Francesco Petrarca, Letters (ca. 1372). Leon Battista Alberti, On the Family (1435-1444). Giorgio Vasari, The Life of Leonardo da Vinci (1550). Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (1513). Desiderius Erasmus, In Praise of Folly (1509). Sir Thomas More, Utopia (1516). Claude de Seyssel, The Monarchy of France (1515). The New Worlds. Christopher Columbus, Letter from the First Voyage (1493). Ludovico di Varthema, Travels (ca. 1508). Bartolomé de Las Casas, Apologetic History of the Indies (1566). Bernal Díaz, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (1552-1568). Religious Reform. Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian (1520) and Of Marriage and Celibacy (1566). John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1534) and Catechism (ca. 1540). Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises (1548). Teresa of Avila, The Life of Saint Teresa (1611). The Early Modern World. Anonymous, Lazarillo de Tormes (1554). The Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia (1524) and Martin Luther,Admonition to Peace (1525). Marguerite de Navarre, Heptameron (1558). Magdalena and Balthasar Paumgartner, Letters (1592-1596). Anonymous, The Debate About Women: Hic Mulier and Haec Vir (1620). IV. THE ANCIENT RÈGIME. The Wars of Religion. Francois Hotman, Francogallia (1573). Henry IV, The Edict of Nantes (1598). William of Orange, Apology (1580). Cardinal Richelieu, The Political Testament (1638). Hans von Grimmelshausen, Simplicissimus (1669). Subjects and Sovereigns. James I, True Law of a Free Monarchy (1598). Philippe Duplessis-Mornay, A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants (1579). Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651). Sir William Clarke, The Putney Debates (1647). Duc de Saint-Simon, Memoirs (1694-1723). Preface. How to Read a Document. IV. THE ANCIENT RÈGIME. The Wars of Religion. Francois Hotman, Francogallia (1573). Henry IV, The Edict of Nantes (1598). William of Orange, Apology (1580). Cardinal Richelieu, The Political Testament (1638). Hans von Grimmelshausen, Simplicissimus (1669). Subjects and Sovereigns. James I, True Law of a Free Monarchy (1598). Philippe Duplessis-Mornay, A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants (1579). Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651). Sir William Clarke, The Putney Debates (1647). Duc de Saint-Simon, Memoirs (1694-1723). Science and Commerce. Galileo Galilei, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615). René Descartes, Discourse on Method (1637). Thomas Mun, England's Treasure by Foreign Trade (1664). John Locke, The Second Treatise Concerning Government. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776). Enlightened Monarchy. Catherine the Great, Memoirs (ca. 1755). Maria Theresa, Testament (1749-50). Viscount Bolingbroke, The Idea of a Patriot King (1749). The Enlightenment. Voltaire, Candide (1759). Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762). Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws (1748). Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence (1776). Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments (1764). Marquis de Condorcet, The Progress of the Human Mind (1793). The French Revolution. Abbé de Sieyès, What Is the Third Estate? (1789). The Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789); Olympe de Gouges, The Declaration of the Rights of Woman (1791). Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Jakob Walter, Memoirs (ca. 1849). V. THE AGE OF REFORM. Industrialization in Britain. Arthur Young, Political Arithmetic (1774). Samuel Smiles, Self-Help (1859). Sir Edwin Chadwick, Inquiry into the Condition of the Poor (1842). Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845). Nineteenth-Century Society and Culture. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813). Henrietta-Lucy, Madame de la Tour du Pin, Memoirs (1820-43). Alexis Soyer, Modern Housewife (1850); Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861). Political Critiques. J.S. Mill, On Liberty (1859). Pierre Proudhon, What Is Property? (1840) The Great Charter (1842). William II, Letter to the Shogun (1844); Bakufu, Reply to the Government of Holland (1845). Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848). Alexander II and Prince Kropotkin, The Emancipation of the Serfs (1861). Otto von Bismarck, Reflections and Reminiscences (1898) and Speech to the Reichstag (1879). Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (The Condition of Labor) (1891). Emancipating the Mind and the Body. Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (1871). Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1886). Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1899). E. Sylvia Pankhurst, History of the Suffrage Movement (1912). Beatrice Webb, Women and the Factory Acts (1896). Thoughts on Empire. J.A. Hobson, Imperialism (1902). Cecil Rhodes, Confession of Faith (1877). Rudyard Kipling, "The White Man's Burden" (1899). George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant" (1936). VI. TWENTIETH-CENTURY EUROPE. War and Revolution. Ernst Jüunger, Storm of Steel (1920). Woodrow Wilson, The Fourteen Points (1918). V.I. Lenin, What Is to Be Done? (1902). Alexandra Kollontai, "Theses on Communist Morality in the Sphere of Marital Relations" (1921). The Second World War. J.M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919). Benito Mussolini, Fascist Doctrine (1932). Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (1923). Memories of the Holocaust (1938-45). Winston Churchill, Speeches (1940). Adolf Eichmann, Testimony (1961). The Twentieth-Century Imagination. Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929). Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962). Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism (1946). Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949). The Transformation of Eastern Europe. Winston Churchill, "The Iron Curtain" (1946). Nikita Khrushchev, Report to the Communist Party Congress (1961). Vaclav Havel, Living in Truth (1986). Lech Walesa, A Way of Hope (1987). Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika (1987). Francis Fukuyama, The End of History? (1989) Toward a New World. Charter of the United Nations (1946). The Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States (1974). Kofi Annan, Report on the Fall of Srebrenica (1999).