A personal view of how Western Europe evolved after the collapse of the Roman Empire and produced the ideas, books, building, works of art and great individuals that make up a Civilisation. For this book the author has revised the scripts of the thirteen television programes of the TV series 'Civilisation'. As he takes us from the fall of the Roman Empire to the present day, he does not attempt to give a complete record but concentrates on crucial civilising episodes- from Iona in the ninth century to France in the twelfth, from Florence to Urbino, from Germany to Rome, England, Holland America.