With a chronological narrative that offers a truly global context, The Making of the West: A Concise History tells the story of the cross-cultural exchanges that have shaped Western history. This author-abridged version of the parent text offers the flexibility of a brief book along with a full-color map and art program and comprehensive supplement options, including a free sourcebook. The result is a brief book that, in addition to being an excellent price, is an excellent value.
Praised for its highly readable narrative and unmatched integration of political, social and cultural history, The Making of the West: A Concise History captures the spirit of each age as it situates Europe within a global context. The rich narrative pays sustained attention to important topics and developments over time and reveals the cross-cultural interactions that have shaped today's world, presenting the history of the West as an ongoing process. The text's hallmark global perspective, broad geographic coverage, new student study aids, and handy format are combined with the best full-color art and map programs of any brief text.
Why does the West rule? In this magnum opus, eminent Stanford polymath Ian Morris answers this provocative question, drawing on 50,000 years of history, archeology, and the methods of social science, to make sense of when, how, and why the paths of development differed in the East and West — and what this portends for the 21st century. There are two broad schools of thought on why the West rules. Proponents of "Long-Term Lock-In" theories such as Jared Diamond suggest that from time immemorial, some critical factor — geography, climate, or culture perhaps — made East and West unalterably different, and determined that the industrial revolution would happen in the West and push it further ahead of the East. But the East led the West between 500 and 1600, so this development can't have been inevitable; and so proponents of "Short-Term Accident" theories argue that Western rule was a temporary aberration that is now coming to an end, with Japan, China, and India resuming their rightful places on the world stage. However, as the West led for 9,000 of the previous 10,000 years, it wasn't just a temporary aberration. So, if we want to know why the West rules, we need a whole new theory. Ian Morris, boldly entering the turf of Jared Diamond and Niall Ferguson, provides the broader approach that is necessary, combining the textual historian's focus on context, the anthropological archaeologist's awareness of the deep past, and the social scientist's comparative methods to make sense of the past, present, and future — in a way no one has ever done before.
A chronology of world history ranges from the dawn of humankind to the present day, examining important events, milestones, ideas, and personalities that occurred simultaneously in different regions of the world.
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.
Praised by instructors and students alike for its readability and attention to everyday life, the thirteenth edition of A History of Western Society includes a greater variety of tools to engage todays students and save instructors time. This edition features an enhanced primary source program, a question-driven narrative, five chapters devoted to the lives of ordinary people that make the past real and relevant, and the best and latest scholarship throughout. Available for free when packaged with the print book, the popular digital assignment options for this text bring skill building and assessment to a highly effective level. The active learning options come in LaunchPad , which combines an accessible e-book with LearningCurve, an adaptive and automatically graded learning tool that—when assigned—helps ensure students read the book; the complete companion reader with quizzes on each source; and many other study and assessment tools. For instructors who want the easiest and most affordable way to ensure students come to class prepared, Achieve Read & Practice pairs LearningCurve adaptive quizzing and our mobile, accessible Value Edition e-book, in one easy-to-use product.
The classic study of post-Cold War international relations, more relevant than ever in the post-9/11 world, with a new foreword by Zbigniew Brzezinski. Since its initial publication, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order has become a classic work of international relations and one of the most influential books ever written about foreign affairs. An insightful and powerful analysis of the forces driving global politics, it is as indispensable to our understanding of American foreign policy today as the day it was published. As former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski says in his new foreword to the book, it “has earned a place on the shelf of only about a dozen or so truly enduring works that provide the quintessential insights necessary for a broad understanding of world affairs in our time.” Samuel Huntington explains how clashes between civilizations are the greatest threat to world peace but also how an international order based on civilizations is the best safeguard against war. Events since the publication of the book have proved the wisdom of that analysis. The 9/11 attacks and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated the threat of civilizations but have also shown how vital international cross-civilization cooperation is to restoring peace. As ideological distinctions among nations have been replaced by cultural differences, world politics has been reconfigured. Across the globe, new conflicts—and new cooperation—have replaced the old order of the Cold War era. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order explains how the population explosion in Muslim countries and the economic rise of East Asia are changing global politics. These developments challenge Western dominance, promote opposition to supposedly “universal” Western ideals, and intensify intercivilization conflict over such issues as nuclear proliferation, immigration, human rights, and democracy. The Muslim population surge has led to many small wars throughout Eurasia, and the rise of China could lead to a global war of civilizations. Huntington offers a strategy for the West to preserve its unique culture and emphasizes the need for people everywhere to learn to coexist in a complex, multipolar, muliticivilizational world.
