Forever, the standard history course in college was called Western Civilization.  At Stanford as a freshman I wondered why they were ignoring the history of Asia.  A recent analysis was conducted by higher education critic  Stanley Kurtz .  While most most universities actually began to right this wrong in the early 60's, what actually developed was a hodgepodge of spotty courses taught by younger faculty, leading to a decline in the humanities.   Kurtz's investigation begins at Stanford University in 1987, which made an attempt to save the humanities.   Read that effort , but it itself is laced with maybe insufferable pedantic language.  The concluding paragraph, by author Robert Paquette of Hamilton College: In losing the history of Western civilization, the powers that be ended up disarming themselves.   To attract students, they no longer sell academic rigor, but a warm, mothering environment in which you will find individual happiness by developing your own course of study