Book excerpt: This is a collection of two volumes covering the History of Art and its relationship with human development, religion and cultures. Volume One starts from the early civilisations and the origins of art in early artifacts, the kingdoms of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, Eastern Mediterranean and the empire in China. It continues onto the sixteenth century, taking in Classical Greece and Rome; Byzantine Art, the Carolingian Empire, explain to the rise of Islamic African Art and the development of India Art around the religions of Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism, as well as Chinese Art of Taoism and Confucianism. Much of art in the medieval age was influenced by the conquests, religion and faith as well as gothic and Italian City State art. The early renaissance of the fifteenth century is heavily steeped in the history of Florence and the Papacy as well as the princes and merchants of northern Europe; compassing Venetian art at the end of the sixteenth century. Volume Two continues until the twentieth century, looking at the themes of power and image in the European courts as well as the Muslim Courts. The strength of the Catholic church influences the Roman and Baroque art developments of the seventeenth century, as well as expeditions to the Americas, Spain and the Netherlands. The frivolity and extravagance dominates eighteenth century art with the arrival of Rococo and a return to neoclassicism, which moved to romanticism in the nineteenth century and the freedom of realism, impressionism, and the new materials of the industrial revolution in the twentieth century. Both volumes contain an index of names and places.