This classic art history survey text has sold over 2 million copies since 1st published in 1926. An ideal text for the full-year art history course, it surveys the entire span of Western art from prehistory to the present offers overviews of significant areas of non-Western art. Heightened visual appeal superior accuracy of color results from printing at 175-line resolution. Adds new maps, timelines improved photographic views. Reorganized, expanded revised chapters in Part I reflect significant changes in the field of ancient art over the last decade. Increases attention to sociopolitical context of works of art in the ancient world. Presents more classical works of art created for non-elite patrons. Reorganized Early Christian, Islamic Byzantine material. Expands coverage of Chinese art introduction of Korean art. Expands coverage of Mayan ceramics stelae, new coverage of Peruvian textiles Colombian goldwork. Revision of African art, updated in a separate chapter with twice as many images. Reorganized chapters covering Northern Italian Renaissance. Increases coverage of women minority artists. Reorganized 18th, 19th 20th-century material. New images from 19-20th-century artists. Helen Gardner (1878–1946) was an American art historian and educator. Her Art Through the Ages remains a standard text for American art history classes. Gardner was born in Manchester, New Hampshire and attended school in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. In 1901 she graduated with a degree in classics from the University of Chicago. After an interval as a teacher, she returned to the same university to study art history, and received a master's degree in 1918. In 1920 she began lecturing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she would spend the rest of her career, with the exception of short appointments at UCLA and the University of Chicago. Her major work, Art Through the Ages, was the first single-volume textbook to cover the entire range of art history from a global perspective. Frequently revised, it remains a standard textbook at American schools and universities. In 1932 she also published Understanding the Arts, an art appreciation text directed toward educators.