Art: a new history

Painted caves and giant stones

Ancient Egypt and the origins of style

Palace art in the ancient Near East

Greek art: idealism versus realism

Rome: an art set in concrete

Monotheism: basilica, mosque and tomb

Dynamics of the Dark Age North

The climax of cathedral art

The rise of creative individualism under Christianity

Rediscovery and transformation of Graeco-Roman culture

The apotheosis of the statue

The great masters of Italian painting

The Roman climax of art and its confused aftermath

The new realism of the seventeenth century

The first great landscape paintings

The golden century of Spanish art

The Dutch attain 'the perfection of professional art'

Towns, palaces, churches, gardens

Splendours and mysteries of the eighteenth century

Classical and religious revival

The Western penetration of Asia: India, China, Japan and their art

The watercolour and its global spread

Romanticism and history

Painting the American world and its wonders

The belated arrival and sombre glories of Russian art

The internal conflicts of nineteenth-century art

Art and the realities of the industrialised world

Skyscrapers, Art Nouveau, Art Deco

The beginnings of fashion art

The resurgence of the primitive

The rule and ravages of ideological art

The dangers and opportunities of twenty-first-century art.