In this color illustrated companion volume to two episodes she wrote for the PBS series Civilizations—"How Do We Look" and "The Eye of Faith"—Mary Beard takes us from prehistoric Mexico to modern Istanbul, looking beyond the familiar canon of Western art to explore the imagery and meaning of humanity, religion, and art itself. In Olmec heads, monumental Egyptian statues, and the nudes of classical Greece, Beard explores the power, hierarchy, and gender politics of art in the ancient world, and how it came to define "civilization." She then surveys religious imagery at Angkor Wat, Ravenna, Venice, and the Holy Land, showing how all religions have struggled to visualize the divine.