Francis Schaeffer's Classic Analysis of the Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture Civilizations throughout history have built societies around their own limited value systems including rulers, finite gods, or relativism-only to fail. The absence of a Christian foundation eventually leads to breakdown, and those signs are visible in present-day culture as well. Can modern society avoid the same fate? In this latest edition of How Should We...

Plato came from a wealthy, connected Athenian family and lived a comfortable upper-class lifestyle until he met an odd little man named Socrates, who showed him a new world of ideas and ideals. Socrates taught Plato that a man must use reason to attain wisdom, and that the life of a lover of wisdom, a philosopher, was the pinnacle of achievement. Plato dedicated himself to living that ideal and went on to create a school, his famed Academy, to teach...

This course of 48 lectures explores the essential contours of the human experience in what has come to be called "Western civilization." From its humble beginnings in the ancient Near East to the dawn of the modern world, these presentations cover developments from about 3000 B.C. to A.D. 1600.

The West, says author Tony Blankley, is down to its last chance. Within our lifetimes, Europe could become Eurabia, a continent overwhelmed by militant Islam that poses a greater threat to the United States than Nazi Germany did. In The West's Last Chance, Blankley shows how that could happen and how we can prevent it.

Traces three thousand years of Western history to profile influential ideas and setbacks that have shaped the modern world, from the spread of monotheism and the invention of the printing press to the U.S. metric campaign and the smart drink trend.

In Great Books, Denby lives the common adult fantasy of returning to school with some worldly knowledge and experience of life. A gifted story-teller, he leads us on a glorious tour - by turns eloquent, witty, and moving - through the works themselves and through his experiences as a middle-aged man among freshmen. He recounts his failures and triumphs as a reader and student (taking an exam led to a hilarious near-breakdown). He celebrates his rediscovery...

Views rise and fall of ancient Greece through the eyes of prominent figures of the times, including Cleisthenes, Themistocles, Pericles, and Socrates.