Ebook: The Story of Civilization: Volume VII: The Age of Reason Begins

This book collection by Will Durant represents the most comprehensive attempt in our times to embrace the vast panorama of mans history and culture.
Durant is an excellent historian, and although much of what the books contained is now defunct, the majority is written very comprehensively, steering clear of controversy and unknowns in a manner of detached and objective scholarship (at least for the time period).