This freshman/sophomore-level book for a two-semester course in Introduction to Humanities and Cultural Studies is richly illustrated, beautifully designed, and engaging. This text offers an integrated exploration of Western civilization's cultural heritage. Students move chronologically through major periods and styles to gain insight into the achievements and ideas in painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, philosophy, religion, and music. Divided into 24 chapters, the text provides students with a historical (political, economic, and social) framework to contextualize these achievements within a specific time and place, from prehistoric culture to 20th-Century America. Considerable attention is given to non-Western cultures and influences, making this text global in reach. Timelines, maps, four-color and two-color illustrations, and a variety of unique “interrelationship” boxes help students make important interdisciplinary and cross-cultural connections, and help them relate the richness and meaning of the past to their own lives in the present.