How has the nature of ideas evolved over time? How have they been influenced and received by different social and cultural conditions? In a work that spans 2,800 years, these ambitious questions are addressed by 61 experts, each contributing their overview of a theme applied to a period in history. The volumes explore the development of ideas throughout Western society from a range of interdisciplinary angles, as well as their receptions and contexts. Individual volume editors ensure the cohesion of the whole and, to make it easy to navigate, chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the choice of reading about a specific period in one of the volumes, or following a theme across history by reading the relevant chapter in each of the 6. The 6 volumes cover: 1. - Classical Antiquity (800 BCE - 500 CE); 2. - Medieval Age (500 - 1450); 3. - Renaissance (1450 - 1650) ; 4. - Age of Enlightenment (1650 - 1800); 5. - Age of Empire (1800 - 1920); 6. - Modern Age (1920 - 2000+). Themes (and chapter titles) are: Knowledge; The Human Self; Ethics and Social Relations; Politics and Economies; Nature; Religion and the Divine; Language, Poetry and Rhetoric; The Arts; History The page extent is approximately 1,728pp with c. 240 illustrations. Each volume opens with Notes on Contributors, Series Preface and Introduction, and concludes with Notes, Bibliography and an Index.