Beginning with the Renaissance, the culture of the West exploded. Over the next 600 years, rapid innovations in philosophy, technology, economics, military affairs, and politics allowed what had once been a cultural backwater left by the collapse of the Roman Empire to dominate the world.

This comprehensive series of 48 lectures by an award-winning teacher and captivating lecturer will show you how - and why - this extraordinary transformation took place.

As you listen to the series, you'll begin to grasp not only the history of Western civilization, but the meaning of civilization itself, as this grand narrative of the past five centuries creates a coherent context for the period's events and trends, and offers an analysis of what these five centuries have bequeathed to us. Lecture by lecture, you'll explores the ideas, events, and characters that modeled Western political, social, religious, intellectual, cultural, scientific, technological, and economic history between the 16th and 20th centuries. You'll learn how Western civilization was shaped by the low as well as the mighty, the practical as well as the artistic. You'll gain a larger understanding of the political, social, and cultural events that shaped Europe. And you'll explore the ramifications of these epoch-making events on the rest of the world, including the United States.