Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West

The primary-source anthology behind Columbia College’s Contemporary Civilization course — the general-education survey that has run since 1919 and is the ancestor of every “Western Civ” requirement that followed. Rather than a narrative history, it is the documents themselves, medieval and Reformation through the modern political and economic writers, arranged so that a class argues with the originals in sequence. Columbia University Press published it in two volumes across several revised editions.

Why it’s on the list: Section V is effectively a syllabus, and this is the entry that admits it: Li Lu is recommending the reader from an actual course rather than assembling his own, which also explains the section’s chronological ordering.

Where I saw it: Li Lu’s Recommended Book List, entry 24 of section V, cited as Columbia University Press with no year. Full transcription: Li Lu’s Recommended Book List.

Connections

• Li Lu’s Recommended Book List — the list this came from.
• Li Lu — the Himalaya Capital founder who assembled it.
• Approaches to the Asian Classics — the Columbia counterpart for the Asian canon, on the same list in section II.
• Education — the course this book exists to serve.
• Reading — a curriculum built on reading primary documents rather than summaries of them.