《西方文化要略》不是“史书”，没有长篇的叙事，它只是以历史为线索突出介绍西方文化史中的重要历史时期、重大事件、重大思想流派和重要人物；**介绍在每个特定的历史阶段中，西方社会在哲学、宗教、思想、制度、文学、艺术、科技等方面所取得的重大成就；探讨西方为什么能在15世纪后飞速发展，其物质成就中有多少是以它的文化积淀获取的。《西方文化要略》从内容到形式力图做到融知识性、趣味性和可读性为一体。在使用《西方文化要略》的过程中，希望读者能正确地认识、理解和对待西方文

Chapter One Greek Culture : Origin of Western Clvilization
PART A Greek Culture
1.1.1 General Introduction
1.1.2 Influence of Ancient Greek Culture

PART B Greek Literature
1.2.1 Homer's Epics in Early Greece
1.2.2 Mythology in Greece
1.2.3 Drama in Greece

PART C Greek Philosophy
1.3.1 General Introduction
1.3.2 Famous Philusophers

PART D Greek Art and Science
1.4.1 Art in Greece
1.4.2 Science in Greece

Chapter Two Roman Culture
PART A History
PART B Culture Achievements

Chapter Three Jewish Culture and the Old Testament
PART A Judaism and the Old Testament
PART B The Ancestors and States of Israel
PART C Zionism an Its Cultural Connotation
PART D Cultural Achievements of the Jews

Chapter Four Christian Culture and the New Testament
PART A Historical and Cultural Backgrounds
PART B The New Testament
PART C A Brief History of the Early Church
PART D Beyond the New Testament Period

Chapter Five The Middle Ages
PART A Europe and Its Politics
PART B The Church
PART C The Crusades
PART D Dante and the Divine Comedy
PART E Scholasticism: Aquinas and Anselm
PART F The Establishment of Banking and Universities

Chapter Six Renaissance and Reformation
PART A Renaissance
PART B Uterature and Art
PART C Political and Social Ideology
PART D Science and Technology and Philosophy
PART E The Religious Reformation

Chapter Seven Age of Enlightenment
PART A Enlightenment: the Age of Reason
PART B Revolutionary Era
PART C English Literature
PART D Art
PART E Music

Chapter Eight Passionate Romanticism
PART A Ceneral Introduction
PART B The Origin of the Romantic Ideological Trend
PART C Romantic Philosophy and Social Thought
PART D Romantic Poems of Nature and Humanity in English
PART E Emotion and Freedom in Romantic Music

Chapter Nine The Industrialized Realism
PART A General Introduction
PART B Realism in Literature
PART C Realism in Painting
PART D Realism in Architecture and Sculpture

Chapter Ten Modernism: New Perspective Denying Tradition
PART A Modernist Culture: Surpassing and Innovation
PART B Modernist Ideology and Philoeophy
PART C Modemist Literature
PART D Modernist Achievements
References