The aim of this book is to offer an introduction to the culture of the West in the personal terms of those who stand out in the history of the West, considering that is it persons rather than events or forces, poets, philosophers and artists rather than rulers, that make history. Here the persons are presented in pairs, in historical order: Homer and Virgil, Plato and Aristotle, Peter and Paul, Augustine and Benedict, Francis and Thomas, Dante and Shakespeare, Leonardo and Michelangelo, Erasmus and Luther, Galileo and Descartes, Locke and Rousseau, Newman and Darwin. Above them all and behind them all stand the persons of Jesus for the Christian religion and Socrates for Greek philosophy.
Peter Milward was born in London on October 12, 1925, and educated at Wimbledon College (a Jesuit high school). He entered the Society of Jesus in 1943, and after various studies he went on to specialize in the Classics and English at Oxford University. He came to Japan in 1954 and after further studies was ordained priest in 1960. From 1962 onwards he has taught English literature at Sophia University in Tokyo. In addition to founding the Renaissance Institute, the Hopkins Society of Japan and the Chesterton Society of Japan, he has published some 400 books, mostly as textbooks for Japanese students, many of them translated into Japanese, but now most of them out of print. Several of his books, especially those on the drama of Shakespeare and the poetry of Hopkins, have been published in England and America. Even in retirement he is still teaching and writing, as he enters his 88th year (or beiju).
