Encouraging a broad understanding of continuity, change, and innovation in human history, Patterns in World History presents the global past in a comprehensive, even-handed, and open-ended fashion. Instead of focusing on the memorization of people, places, and events, this text strives topresent important facts in context and draw meaningful connections by examining patterns that have emerged throughout global history.
Patterns of World History offers a distinct framework for understanding the global past through the study of origins, interactions, and adaptations. Authors Peter von Sivers, Charles A. Desnoyers, and George Stow--each specialists in their respective fields--examine the full range of human ingenuity over time and space in a comprehensive, even-handed, and critical fashion. The book helps students to see and understand patterns through: ORIGINS - INTERACTIONS - ADAPTATIONS These key features show the O-I-A framework in action: * Seeing Patterns, a list of key questions at the beginning of each chapter, focuses students on the 3-5 over-arching patterns, which are revisited, considered, and synthesized at the end of the chapter in Thinking Through Patterns. * Each chapter includes a Patterns Up Close case study that brings into sharp relief the O-I-A pattern using a specific idea or thing that has developed in human history (and helped, in turn, develop human history), like the innovation of the Chinese writing system or religious syncretism in India. Each case study clearly shows how an innovation originated either in one geographical center or independently in several different centers. It demonstrates how, as people in the centers interacted with their neighbors, the neighbors adapted to--and in many cases were transformed by--the idea, object, or event. Adaptations include the entire spectrum of human responses, ranging from outright rejection to creative borrowing and, at times, forced acceptance. * Concept Maps at the end of each chapter use compelling graphical representations of ideas and information to help students remember and relate the big patterns of the chapter.
Patterns of World History comes to the teaching of world history from the perspective of innovations the engine of historical change. Innovation is nothing new; so what we advocate in this book is a distinct intellectual framework for understanding innovation through its patterns of origin,interaction, and adaptation. Each small or large technical or cultural innovation originated in one geographical center, or independently in several different centers. As people in the centers interacted with their neighbors, the neighbors adapted to - and in many cases were transformed by - theinnovations. By adaptation we include the entire spectrum of human responses, ranging from outright rejection to creative borrowing and, at times, forced acceptance.What do we gain by studying world history as patterns of innovation? First, if we consider innovation to be a driving force of history, it helps satisfy an intrinsic human curiosity about origins - our own and others. Perhaps more importantly, seeing patterns of innovation in historical developmentbrings to light connections and linkages among peoples, cultures, and regions that might not otherwise present themselves. At the same time such patterns can also reveal differences among cultures that other approaches to world history tend to neglect. For example, the differences between thecivilizations of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres are generally highlighted in world history texts, but the broad commonalities of human groups creating agriculturally-based cities and states in widely separated areas also show deep parallels in their patterns of origins, interactions andadaptations: such comparisons are at the center of our approach.Second, this kind of analysis offers insights into how an individual innovation was subsequently developed and diffused across space and time-that is, the patterns by which the new eventually becomes a necessity in our daily lives. Through all of this we gain a deeper appreciation of the unfoldingof global history from its origins in small communities to the densely populated large countries in our present world.Finally, our use of a broad-based understanding of innovation allows us to restore culture in all its individual and institutionalized aspects - spiritual, artistic, intellectual, scientific - to its rightful place alongside technology, environment, politics, and socio-economic conditions. That is,understanding innovation in this way allows this text to help illuminate the full range of human ingenuity over time and space in a comprehensive, evenhanded, and open-ended fashion.
E. H. Gombrich's Little History of the World, though written in 1935, has become one of the treasures of historical writing since its first publication in English in 2005. The Yale edition alone has now sold over half a million copies, and the book is available worldwide in almost thirty languages. Gombrich was of course the best-known art historian of his time, and his text suggests illustrations on every page. This illustrated edition of the Little History brings together the pellucid humanity of his narrative with the images that may well have been in his mind's eye as he wrote the book. The two hundred illustrations—most of them in full color—are not simple embellishments, though they are beautiful. They emerge from the text, enrich the author's intention, and deepen the pleasure of reading this remarkable work. For this edition the text is reset in a spacious format, flowing around illustrations that range from paintings to line drawings, emblems, motifs, and symbols. The book incorporates freshly drawn maps, a revised preface, and a new index. Blending high-grade design, fine paper, and classic binding, this is both a sumptuous gift book and an enhanced edition of a timeless account of human history.
Frameworks of World History is a groundbreaking text that uses a clear and consistent analytical approach to studying world history. Author Stephen Morillo--an award-winning teacher with more than twenty-five years of experience teaching World History--frames the study of this vast subject around a model that shows students how to do world history and not just learn about it. While this globally organized text contains all of the essential information, it is the only book that does not just tell what happened, but also shows how and why it happened. Using a framework that examines networks, hierarchies, and culture in world history, Morillo presents a thesis and an argument that students--and instructors--can respond to.
Completely updated to include with new chapters, this is second edition is a fascinating exploration of what happens to established ideads about men and women, and their roles, when different cultural systems come into contact.
Annotation World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500 offers a comprehensive introduction to the history of humankind from prehistory to 1500. Authored by six USG faculty members with advance degrees in History, this textbook offers up-to-date original scholarship. It covers such cultures, states, and societies as Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Israel, Dynastic Egypt, India's Classical Age, the Dynasties of China, Archaic Greece, the Roman Empire, Islam, Medieval Africa, the Americas, and the Khanates of Central Asia. It includes 350 high-quality images and maps, chronologies, and learning questions to help guide student learning. Its digital nature allows students to follow links to applicable sources and videos, expanding their educational experience beyond the textbook. It provides a new and free alternative to traditional textbooks, making World History an invaluable resource in our modern age of technology and advancement.
