I highly reccomend Richard Tarnas, 'The Passion of the Western Mind' as a concise and inspiring work on how humanity came to its current crisis point and why this has been important.  

    'The best intellectual history of the West in one volume I have ever seen.  No other    such overview provides, in equal compass, as clear and cogent a survey.  Its scholarship is impeccable.'' Huston Smith, author of The Worlds Religions.

''...a complete guide to Western civilisation and the philosophical ideas that have changed our world view...Richard Tarnas describes profound philosophical concepts simply, but without simplifying them.'' (back cover)

This single book has probably taught me more about philosophy and the history of ideas than a whole book-shelf of individual publications.