| Chapter 1: | Mesopotamia |
| Chapter 2: | Egypt and the Kingdom of Kush |
| Chapter 3: | Early Greece |
| Chapter 4: | Classical Greece: Politics, Art, Drama |
| Chapter 5: | Classical Greece: Philosophy and Ethical Thought |
| Chapter 6: | The Culture of Rome |
| Chapter 7: | Judaism and Early Christianity |
| Chapter 8: | The Byzantine and the Islamic Empires |
| Chapter 9: | Medieval Europe: Culture and the Cathedral |
| Chapter 10: | Divine and Human Love in Medieval Europe |
| Chapter 11: | African Backgrounds |
| Chapter 12: | West African Languages and Literature: The Oral Tradition and Its Legacy |
| Chapter 13: | Visual and Musical Arts of West Africa |
| Chapter 14: | An Introduction to the Civilization of India |
| Chapter 15: | An Introduction to the Civilizations of China and Japan |
| Chapter 16: | Humanism and the Early Italian Renaissance |
| Chapter 17: | Art and Architecture in Florence |
| Chapter 18: | The End of the Florentine Renaissance: Machiavelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael |
| Chapter 19: | The Northern Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation |
| Chapter 20: | The Consolidation of Modernity |
| Chapter 21: | The Baroque Style in Art and Literature |
| Chapter 22: | Two Masters of Baroque Music: Handel and Bach |
| Chapter 23: | The Arts at the Court of Louis XIV |
| Chapter 24: | The European Enlightenment |
| Chapter 25: | The Enlightenment in the United States |
| Chapter 26: | The Classical Style in Music, the Development of Opera, and Mozart's Don Giovanni |
| Chapter 27: | From Revolution to Romanticism |
| Chapter 28: | The Industrial Revolution and New Social Thought |
| Chapter 29: | Art and Literature in the Industrial World: Realism and Beyond |
| Chapter 30: | Colonialism, the Great War, and Cultural Change |
| Chapter 31: | Modernism: Visual Arts, Music, and Dance |
| Chapter 32: | Modernism: Theater and Literature |
| Chapter 33: | Absurdity and Alienation: World War II and the Postwar Period |
| Chapter 34: | Postcolonialism, Postmodernism, and Beyond |
