This brief survey of Western civilization (based on the best-selling The Western Heritage, Seventh Edition), provides an exceptionally balanced survey of the political, social, and cultural development of Western civilizationits strengths and weaknesses, and the controversies surrounding it. This brief edition condenses the central narrativewithout compromising on vocabulary or conceptual levelto make it more fully accessible to today's students, and to allow instructors greater opportunity to supplement the course with extensive outside readings, if desired. The document CD-ROM is bound into the text.