It’s been a very enlightening and entertaining read. Although he says it’s about western civilization in the broadest sense, it’s more accurately a history of art. Clarke knows his art and has very strong opinions about it. There’s no post-modern revisionism here; no doubts at all that western culture is the best. I found it quite charming and refreshing. Unfortunately he’s also got strong opinions about things he doesn’t know much about at all, such as science, technology, politics, and economics, and his observations on them are all a bit “man in pub”. It’s made even more ridiculous by the book being over 55 years old, and all his pronouncements about the cultural wasteland of the late 60’s made rather comic in the light of our current appraisal; that it was something of a cultural flowering. The art is wonderful though, and his descriptions and placement of the various famous artists in their place and period makes it a very good overview of 1500 years of European culture. I learnt a lot. The beautiful Folio binding and printing made it a tactile pleasure to read