From the Introduction : "I am attempting to cover a vast panorama, and have to subdivide it into a number of subtopics of more manageable size. Where he began with "Time," I will explore various aspects of the calendar. For his vast coverage of geography, I will substitute a more modest synopsis of cartography. For the science of nature, I have litde to offer. By contrast, for the study of society, I will look into the essentials of all civilization, its secondary aspects, and some of its specific manifestations, like kingship and the special role of women. Beyond these parallels, I will explore some areas left entirely out of account in Boorstin's presentation. In the first place there is the whole realm of religion, both the cult and the language of prayer, agenda and dicenda as it were. Secondly, I will seek to accord a proper place to the practice and study of creative literature. In a lighter vein, I will delve into the earliest documented evidence for some of our popular games, and even have something to say about the first cookbooks. In all these areas, my object will be to show how ancient Near Eastern innovations or their consequences have survived into our own day and age."

Hellenisme in Venice by A.Firmin Dido, 1875 (Google English trans.) Firmin Didot recounts the career of Alde Manuce, a Venetian scholar who also was an entrepreneur of the late Italian Renaissance. His design for typefonts (including italics for the first time) are the basis for most modern typefonts. But he is most famous for locating, then translating, and finally printing for the first time many influential Greek texts, including those of Plato and Aristotle. His achievements made an incalculable contribution to Western civilization. Use a good text editor to view the large file you download. (I use UltraEdit.) To read the occasional Greek letter not displayed with Ariel Unicode font, use a specialized Greek font like New Athena Unicode, which is free but is not a kerned typefont (so it appears a bit jagged). http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~pinax/greekkeys/fonts/NAU5_004.zip