Many people in the civilized world would agree that mankind is facing a time of enormous crisis, with a situation that is unprecedented in its history. We are experiencing not only the decline of Western civilization, but possibly the end of history as we know it. What are the causes of our plight? Many historians profess to be puzzled about the events which occurred at the end of the eighteenth century, events which must be interpreted as a discontinuity with respect to previous history, and which form the gateway to the modern era. In this book an attempt is made to explain this predicament by examining Western history with regard to its Christian aspects. The narrative runs from the 'decline and fall' of the Roman Empire to the apostasy of the modern age. Its centrepiece is the thousand years of Western history from the Carolingian Renaissance of the ninth century to the French Revolution. This millennial period is compared to the thousand years described in the Book of Revelation, otherwise known as the Christian Apocalypse, and strong parallels are drawn between actual historical events and the prophecies in this Book. If the reader accepts the validity of the thesis, the inevitable conclusion must be that Providence has indeed guided history.