The Shaping of Western Civilization

Michael Burger is a professor of history at Auburn University at Montgomery.

List of Figures 
List of Maps 
Preface
Preface to the Third Edition
Notes on References, Further Reading, and Dates

1. Foundations: The Ancient Near East
1.1. Fundamentals: Prehistory and the Origins of Civilization
1.2. Egypt and Mesopotamia: Government and Culture
1.3. Polytheism and Monotheism
1.4. Problems of Government
1.5. The Near East and the Greeks: Mycenaean, Minoan, and Dark-Age Greece

2. The Greeks: Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic
2.0. Introduction
2.1. Fundamentals: An Agonistic Culture
2.2. The Early Polis
2.3. Polis or Hellas? And the Identity of the West
2.4. Changes in the Polis: Archaic and Classical
2.5. Athens: Archaic and Classical
2.6. Sparta: Archaic and Classical
2.7. Philosophers and Sophists
2.8. Plato’s Republic
2.9. The End of Classical Greece, and the Hellenistic World

3. Rome: From Republic to Empire
3.0. Introduction
3.1. Foundations: Rome’s Early History, Pietas, and the Mos Maiorum
3.2. The Republic: Structure and Function
3.3. Consequences of Empire I: Constituencies for Change
3.4. Consequences of Empire II: The Emergence of Graeco-Roman Civilization
3.5. Consequences of Empire III: The Republic Unravels
3.6. Principate and Empire
3.7. Rome and its Empire

4. Rome’s Fall? Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
4.1. Fundamentals: The Problem of the Fall of Rome
4.2. The Crisis of the Third Century and its Resolution
4.3. Christians and Romans
4.4. Barbarians and Romans
4.5. The Franks
4.6. Islam and the West
4.7. The Carolingian Empire
4.8. The Collapse of the Carolingian Empire and its Aftermath, ca. 850–ca. 1050
4.9. A Feudal Society? The West ca. 850–ca. 1000

5. The High and Late Middle Ages
5.0. Introduction
5.1. Fundamentals: Christendom, Economic Growth, and a Society of Orders, Estates, and Corporations
5.2. The Reform of Christendom  
5.3. The West and Its Neighbors, and Western Christians and their Neighbors, in the High (and Late) Middle Ages
5.4. The Rise of Government
5.5. Church versus Crown in the High Middle Ages
5.6. Limiting Government
5.7. Reason, Nature, and the Self
5.8. The Late Middle Ages: Demographic Shock and its Impact
5.9. A Renaissance?

6. The Early Modern West I: The Reformation, the Great Consolidation, and the End of Christendom
6.0. Introduction
6.1. Fundamentals: Protestant Doctrine and the Middle Ages
6.2. A Catholic Reformation?
6.3. The Sexes and the Family
6.4. Fragmentation and Further Reform
6.5. Complications: Political and Social
6.6. Political Results: The Consolidation of Royal Authority
6.7. A Crisis of Authority and the End of Christendom
6.8. Early Modern Western Expansion

7. Coda: The Shaping of Western Civilization

Sources
Index