The importance of the West -- Geography is destiny -- Culture is destiny -- Renaissance humanism: 1350-1650 -- Renaissance princes: 1450-1600 -- The new world & the old: 1400-1650 -- The Protestant Reformation: 1500-22 -- The wars of religion: 1523-1648 -- Rational & scientific revolutions: 1450-1650 -- French absolutism: 1589-1715 -- English constitutionalism: 1603-49 -- English constitutionalism: 1649-89 -- War, trade, empire: 1688-1702 -- War, trade, empire: 1702-14 -- War, trade, empire: 1714-63 -- Life under the ancien régime: 1689-1789 -- Enlightenment & despotism -- The American Revolution -- The French Revolution: 1789-92 -- The French Revolution: 1792-1803 -- The Napoleonic Empire: 1803-15 -- Beginnings of industrialization: 1760-1850 -- Consequences of industrialization: 1760-1850 -- The liberal response--1776-1861 -- The Romantic response: 1789-1870 -- The socialist response: 1813-1905 -- Descent of man; rise of woman: 1830-90 -- Nationalism: 1815-48 -- Nationalism: 1848-71 -- Imperial rivalry: 1870-1914 -- Industrial rivalry: 1870-1914 -- The Alliance System: 1872-1914 -- Decadence & malaise, circa 1900 -- The Great War begins: 1914-16 -- Breaking the deadlock: 1915-17 -- The Russian Revolution: 1917-22 -- The end of the war: 1917-22 -- Recovery & depression in the West: 1919-36 -- Totalitarian Russia: 1918-39 -- Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany: 1922-36 -- The Holocaust: 1933-45 -- The failure of diplomacy: 1935-39 -- World War II: 1939-42 -- World War II: 1942-45 -- American hegemony, Soviet challenge: 1945-75 -- Rebuilding Europe: 1945-85 -- The new Europe: 1985-2001 -- The meaning of Western civilization.