Sourcebook for The Cultures of the West, Volume Two

Designed to accompany The Cultures of the West by Clifford R. Backman (OUP, 2012), the two-volume Sources for The Cultures of the West features approximately six written sources per chapter that highlight key themes in the study of Western civilization. Each of the 130 sources is accompanied by a headnote. Each volume begins with a special unit, "How to Read a Primary Source," that provides students with important advice on how to work with textual documents in studying the past.

Sources for The Cultures of the West is FREE when bundled with The Cultures of the West. Please contact your OUP representative to request a package ISBN.

Clifford R. Backman is Professor of History at Boston University. He is the author of The Worlds of Medieval Europe, Second Edition (OUP, 2008), and The Decline and Fall of Medieval Sicily: Politics, Religion, and Economy in the Reign of Frederick III, 1296-1337 (1995).

How to Read a Primary Source

Chapter 11: Renaissance and Reformations
11.1 Petrarch, Letters, 1352 and 1366/7
11.2 Erasmus, Letter to a friend, Julius excluded, and Introduction to the Gospels, first published 1522
11.3 Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, ca.1517?
11.4 From Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (Mad Orlando), published 1516
11.5 Martin Luther, "Preface to the New Testament," first published 1522
11.6 Cellini, My Life, 1558-1563
11.7 Vasari, Lives of Artists, first published in 1550, revised and added to until 1568
Chapter 12: The Last Crusades
12.1 Bartolomé de las Casas, A Short Account, written 1542; published 1552
12.2 John Foxe, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Trial of Anne Askew
12.3 From Christopher Marlowe, The Massacre at Paris, ca.1593
12.4 Johannes Junius, Letter to His Daughter and Trial Transcript, 1628
Chapter 13: Science Breaks Out and Breaks Through
13.1 Galileo Galilei, Letter to Don Benedetto Castelli, December 21, 1613
13.2 John Donne, Sermon (December 12, 1626); "To his Mistress Going to Bed" (1669)
13.3 Thomas Hobbes, "On Natural Law," Leviathan, 1651
13.4 Descartes, A Discourse on the Method, 1637
Chapter 14: From Westphalia to Paris: Regimes Old and New
14.1 Anne of France, Lessons for My Daughter (end 16th century)
14.2 Cardinal Richelieu, "The Role of the King," Political Testament, ca. 1638, first published 1688
14.3 François Fénelon, The Adventures of Telemachus, 1699
14.4 Molière, The Misanthrope, first performed 1666
Chapter 15: The Enlightened
15.1 John Locke, "Of Tyranny," Two Treatises of Government, 1689
15.2a Rousseau, "A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality," 1755
15.2b Voltaire, Letter to Rousseau on the Latter's "Discourse on the Origin of Inequality," 1755
15.3 Adam Smith, "Of the Principle of the Commercial or Mercantile System," Wealth of Nations, 1776
15.4 Cesare Beccaria, "On Torture," Of Crimes and Punishments, 1764
Chapter 16: The War against Absolutism
16.1 Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790
16.2 Robespierre, Report on Principles of Public Morality, February 5, 1794
16.3 Napoleon, Letter to his Brother Jerome, November 15, 1807
16.4 Jakob Walter, Diary of Napoleonic Foot Soldier, written 1856, first published 1932
16.5 Daniel Defoe, Journal of the Plague Year, 1722
Chapter 17: Industrialization and Its Discontents
17.1 William Wordsworth, "Tintern Abbey," 1798; "The World is Too Much With Us," 1806
17.2 Thomas Carlyle, "Signs of the Times," 1829
17.3 Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, 1851
Chapter 18: The Birth of Modern Politics
18.1 Caroline Norton, "On the Infant Custody Bill," 1839; "On Divorce," 1855
18.2 Karl Marx, "First Premises of the Materialist Method," The German Ideology, 1846, first published 1932
18.3 Lajos Kossuth's Speech of the 11th July, 1848
18.4 Isabella Beeton, Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, 1861
Chapter 19: Nationalism and Identity
19.1 Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, An Imam in Paris: Account of a Stay in Paris by an Egyptian Cleric (1826-1831)
19.2 Charles Trevelyan, The Irish Crisis, 1848
19.3 Matthew Arnold, Preamble; "On a Definition of Culture," Culture and Anarchy, 1867
19.4 Edward Augustus Freeman, Race and Language, 1879
19.5 Flora Annie Steel and Grace Gardiner, Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook, 1888
19.6 Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State, 1895
19.7 Rudyard Kipling, "The Barbarian," France at War, 1915
Chapter 20: The God Problem
20.1 Charles Lyell, from "On Extinct Quadrupeds," Principles of Geology, 1830-1833
20.2 Charles Darwin, "On Sociability," The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871
20.3 Abraham Geiger, "Moral and Legal Rules," Judaism and Islam, 1833
Chapter 21: The Modern Woman
21.1 Mary Wollstonecraft, "Dedication to Talleyrand," Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792
21.2 Caroline Norton, English Laws for Women in the Nineteenth Century, 1854
21.3 Maria Montessori, Education for a New World, 1946
21.4 Winnifred Cooley, "The Bachelor Maiden," The New Womanhood, 1904
Chapter 22: The Great LAnd Grab
22.1 Mark Twain, "King Leopold's Soliloquy," 1905
22.2 John A. Hobson, "Criticism of Imperialism," Imperialism, 1902
22.3 Winston Churchill, "The Battle of Omdurman," The River War, 1899
22.4 Presidential Address of Chitta Ranjan Das, Indian National Congress at Gaya, December 1922
Chapter 23: From Nihilism to Modernism
23.1 Oscar Wilde, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism," 1891
23.2 Joris-Karl Huysmans, Against Nature (A rebours), 1884
23.3 Charles Baudelaire, "The Painter of Modern Life," 1863
23.4 Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, 1929
23.5 Wassily Kandinski, On the Spiritual Element in Art, 1912
Chapter 24: The World at War (Part I)
24.1 Extracts from the Treaty of Versailles, 1919
24.2 Normal Angell, The Great Illusion, 1933
24.3 John Maynard Keynes, Economic Consequences of Peace, 1919
24.4 Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That, 1929
24.5 Ernst Junger, Storm of Steel, 1920
Chapter 25: Radical Realignments
25.1 Henry Ford, The International Jew, 1920
25.2 Paul Valéry, A Crisis of the Mind, 1919
25.3 Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), The Decline of the West
25.4 Friedrich Hayek, "Economic Control and Totalitarianism," 1944
Chapter 26: The World at War (Part II)
26.1 Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas, 1938
26.2 Aldous Huxley, An Encyclopedia of Pacifism, 1937
26.3 Arthur Koestler, The God that Failed, 1949
26.4 Gustave Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary, 1947
Chapter 27: The Theater of the Absurd
27.1 Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" Speech, 1968
27.2 Alexander Novikov, On Post-War American Policy, 1946
27.3 Winston Churchill, "Iron Curtain" Speech, March 5,1947
27.4 Ayatollah Khomeini, Message, 1980
27.5 Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, On Nuclear Defense, 1980s
Chapter 28: Something to Believe In
28.1 Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, 1963
28.2. Paul Tillich, Collective Guilt, 1943
28.3 Pope Paul VI, Humanae vitae, 1968
28.4 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Sermon of January 21, 1934
Chapter 29: Global Warmings
29.1 Halidé Edib Adivar, Memoirs, 1926 and 1928
29.2 Luce Irigaray, From Ethics of Sexual Difference, 1993
29.3 Francis Fukuyama, "Our Pessimism," 1992
29.4 Fatima Mernissi, "The Story of A Female Psychic," 1989
Chapter 30: Hearts and Minds Going Forward
30.1 Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, 1996
30.2 World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report, 2010
30.3 George W. Bush, Speech to Congress, September 20, 2001
30.4 Richard Rorty, Failed Prophecies, Glorious Hopes, 1998