The author of the book, Hammerton, John Alexander (1871~ 1949), is a famous English scholar who worked as a journalist in his early years and afterwards concentrated on writing. He wrote many books among which there are encyclopedia of the human being, an outline of the history of the world, the illustrated encyclopedia of the world history, the nations in the world, miracles in the past, etc. Moreover, he has taken part in the compilation of the huge Doubleday Encyclopedia. This book is the translation from one of his great works about history of western thoughts, Outline of Great Books. Based on the principle of being faithful to the original, it introduces 100 famous works having important influence on the history of human thoughts with the appropriate selection and the profound understanding of the original, being able to present vividly the multifarious and obscure thoughts of the original on such short length.