Originally published by Rand McNally in 1967 and now out-of-print, the first edition of The Traditions of the Western World, edited by J.H. Hexter with the assistance of John W. Snyder, Peter Riesenberg, Franklin L. Ford, and Klaus Epstein, provided teachers with a wide variety of historical documents to introduce the college reader to the traditions of the Western world. This shortened version of the text concentrates on Riesenberg's section. The Middle Ages, The Renaissance, and the Reformation, as well as a portion of Ford's, The Early Modern Period.