This collection of primary, secondary, and visual sources for the Western Civilization survey course provides a broad introduction to the materials historians use, the interpretations historians make, and hundreds of years of Western civilization. Its broad selection of documents, photographs, maps, and charts, and its full array of accompanying commentaries--drawn from a balanced spectrum of perspectives and approaches--offer valuable insight into the work of historians and provide the context that helps students understand the texts' full historical significance.

***Contents preliminary

Chapter Sixteen: Aristocracy and Absolutism in the Seventeenth Century

Primary Sources

Using Primary Sources: Austria Over All If She Only Will: Mercantilism

Philipp W. von Hornick, Austria Over All If She Only Will: Mercantilism

Frederick William, The Great Elector, A Secret Letter: MonarchicalAuthority in Prussia

Saint-Simon, Memoirs: The Aristocracy Undermined in France

John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government: Legislative Power

Visual Sources

Using Visual Sources: The Early Modern Chateau

The Early Modern Chateau (photo)

Pieter de Hooch, Maternal Care (illustration)

Secondary Sources

Using Secondary Sources: Absolutism: Myth and Reality

G. Durand, Absolutism: Myth and Reality

George Macaulay Trevelyan, The English Revolution, 1688-1689

Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost: The Early Modern Family

Linda A. Pollock, Childhood in Early Modern Times

Chapter Seventeen: The Scientific Revolution

Primary Sources

Rene Descartes, The Discourse on Method

Galileo Galilei, Letter to Christina of Tuscany: Science and Scripture

The Papal Inquisition of 1633: Galileo Condemned

Sir Isaac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy

Visual Sources

A Vision of the New Science (illustration)

RemlĂ,