“Judgements on History and Historians” by Jacob Burckhardt (translated by Harry Zohn)

Burckhardt was a 19th century thinker with a strong conservative bent. He was Swiss, studied art in Germany at the Universities of Berlin and Bonn, then returned to Switzerland to teach at the University of Basel. He is considered one of the founding fathers of the disciplines of art history and cultural history. His areas of expertise were the Italian Renaissance and Classical Greece. This book is a collection of his lectures and notes. It spans the breath of world history from ancient Athens to his present day. He pontificates on religion, culture, art, warfare, and the great men who molded history. He predominantly looks at the evolution of western civilization and thought, but also digresses to comment on topics beyond, such as primitive culture, Egyptian primacy, Chinese inventions, and Islam. It is an eccentric and eclectic look at the progress of culture through the ages.