Includes bibliographical references (pages 440-459)

Foreword / Dr H. Kraemer -- Christianity and cultures -- Culture and history -- The meeting of east and west -- Israel, the West and the world -- Israel amid the nations -- The Hebrew mind and its genius -- Is the Old Testament primitive? -- Israel in the setting of the Ancient Near East -- The creation story and the Babylonian myth -- The creation story (Genesis 1:1-2:4a) -- The paradise story and Babylonian mythology -- The biblical story of the flood and the Babylonian traditions concerning the deluge -- The Tower of Babel and the mountain of the gods -- The temple at Jerusalem and the Tower of Babel -- Kingship in Israel and in Babylon -- The Torah -- Zion and Babel -- Jews, Greeks and Barbarians -- Eschatology and history -- Paul's ministry to Greeks and Barbarians -- Zion and Athens -- Christianity and the West -- The pattern of non-Western civilizations -- The Eurasian Oikoumenē -- The ontocratic pattern -- The ontocratic state -- Indian civilization -- Chinese civilization -- The West and its counterparts -- Hellens and Barbarians -- Rome and Hellas -- Western and Eastern Christianity -- The reaction of the Oriental churches and the spread of Chrisitanity in the East -- The challenge of Islam -- Europe, Occident, Orient -- The expansion of the West -- The revolutionary West -- The Roman Empire and the West -- Church and emperor in the fourth century -- Augustine's De Civitate Dei -- Pope and emperor -- Feudalism -- Cities -- Renaissance -- Germany and the Reformation -- Western Europe and Calvinism -- Capitalism -- The English Revolution -- The Industrial Revolution -- The American Revolution -- The French Revolution -- The scientific and technological revolution -- Secularization -- The Communist Revolution -- The Western impact and the 'awakening' of the non-Western world -- The virus and the disease -- The growth of Indian nationalism and Renascent Hinduism -- Chinese revolutions from the T'ai-p'ing Rebellion to communism -- The Muslim world under the Western impact -- A note on modern Japan -- Christianity in a planetary world -- The end of an era -- The gospel in a planetary world -- 'Christianization' and secularization -- Favourite concepts tested -- Ecumenical theology of history -- Israel amid the nations