The American who looks in reverence at the cathedrals and monuments of European civilization thinks of the thousand years that are looking down upon him. But behind the eyes that look up are the cultural traces of institutional attitudes of just as many centuries. Whatever the New World may have added to us, we are yet basically the heirs of European peoples and the modified products of European history. So much of what seems essentially European in this our heritage took shape in the ages covered by this volume, that the thoughtful student will have a growing sense that its pages are in a real sense an introduction to American history. The last chapter fairly carries him past the threshold of his own nations history.