Brings the study of Western Civilization with balanced coverage of an array of historical figures and events. Including integrated coverage of social - as well as economic, religious, and cultural history within a traditional, political framework, it explores everyday events and ordinary people as well as momentous affairs and powerful elites.
Best-selling text, WESTERN CIVILIZATION has helped over one million students learn about the present by exploring the past. Jack Spielvogel's engaging, chronological narrative weaves the political, economic, social, religious, intellectual, cultural, and military aspects of history into a gripping story that is as memorable as it is instructive. Each chapter offers a substantial introduction and conclusion, providing students a context for these disparate themes. The clear narrative of a single gifted author makes it easy for students to follow the story of Western civilization. Spielvogel gives the book depth by including over 150 maps and excerpts of over 200 primary sources--including official documents, poems, and songs--that enliven the past while introducing students to source material that forms the basis of historical scholarship. Available in many split options: WESTERN CIVILIZATION, Comprehensive, 6th Edition (Chapters 1-29), ISBN: 0534646026; WESTERN CIVILIZATION, Volume I, To 1715, 6th Edition (Chapters 1-16), ISBN:0534646034; WESTERN CIVILIZATION, Volume II, Since 1500, 6th Edition (Chapters 13-29), ISBN:0534646042; WESTERN CIVILIZATION, Volume A: To 1500, 6th Edition (Chapters 1-12), ISBN: 0534646050; WESTERN CIVILIZATION, Volume B: 1300-1815, 6th Edition (Chapters 11-19), ISBN:0534646069; WESTERN CIVILIZATION, Volume C: Since 1789, 6th Edition (Chapters 19-29), ISBN: 0534646077; WESTERN CIVILIZATION, Since 1300, 6th Edition (Chapters 11-29), ISBN:0534646085.
This engaging text offers a brief, readable description of our common Western heritage as it began in the first human societies and developed in ancient Greece and Rome, then through the Middle Ages. Providing a tightly focused narrative and interpretive structure, Brian A. Pavlac covers the basic historical information that all educated adults should know. His joined terms "supremacies and diversities" develop major themes of conflict and creativity throughout history. The text is also informed by five other topical themes: technological innovation, migration and conquest, political and economic decision-making, church and state, and disputes about the meaning of life. Written with flair, this easily accessible yet deeply knowledgeable text provides all the essentials for a course on Western civilization.
A comprehensive yet concise introduction to Western Civilization, designed to interest and engage contemporary students Western Civilization: A Brief History is a concise one-volume survey that covers the subject’s ancient origins through to the early 21st century. Stressing social and intellectual history, rather than merely listing names and dates, this stimulating resource offers a more consistent and reader-friendly narrative than traditional textbooks. The author, with 40 years’ experience teaching college-level Western Civilization and World History courses, emphasizes topics that stimulate student interest and encourage classroom participation. A mixture of Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman, Germanic traditions, Western Civilization first appeared in Europe following the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. The text explores key events, figures, themes, and characteristics in the history of Western Civilization. Grouped into six parts, chapters include brief chronologies of events, maps, and illustrations. Topics include Europe in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and Reformation, the rise of medieval Christianity, Darwin and the Theory of Evolution, the Industrial Revolution, imperialism, the World Wars of the 20th century, the Cold War, and many others. Written with the needs of today’s students in mind, this textbook: Offers accessible and straightforward coverage of the history of Western Civilization Provides a consistent style of writing and organizational theme Includes chronological overviews of ancient Greece, Rome, and the Near East Western Civilization: A Brief History is an ideal introductory textbook for both traditional and non-traditional programs and Western Civilization courses at universities and colleges, as well as for those in dual enrollment and home school settings.
The year is 2393, and the world is almost unrecognizable. Clear warnings of climate catastrophe went ignored for decades, leading to soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, widespread drought and—finally—the disaster now known as the Great Collapse of 2093, when the disintegration of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet led to mass migration and a complete reshuffling of the global order. Writing from the Second People's Republic of China on the 300th anniversary of the Great Collapse, a senior scholar presents a gripping and deeply disturbing account of how the children of the Enlightenment—the political and economic elites of the so-called advanced industrial societies—failed to act, and so brought about the collapse of Western civilization. In this haunting, provocative work of science-based fiction, Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway imagine a world devastated by climate change. Dramatizing the science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, the book reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do and reveals the self-serving interests of the so called "carbon combustion complex" that have turned the practice of science into political fodder. Based on sound scholarship and yet unafraid to speak boldly, this book provides a welcome moment of clarity amid the cacophony of climate change literature.
"Gregg's book is the closet thing I've encountered in a long time to a one-volume user's manual for operating Western Civilization." —The Stream "Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization offers a concise intellectual history of the West through the prism of the relationship between faith and reason." —Free Beacon The genius of Western civilization is its unique synthesis of reason and faith. But today that synthesis is under attack—from the East by radical Islam (faith without reason) and from within the West itself by aggressive secularism (reason without faith). The stakes are incalculably high. The naïve and increasingly common assumption that reason and faith are incompatible is simply at odds with the facts of history. The revelation in the Hebrew Scriptures of a reasonable Creator imbued Judaism and Christianity with a conviction that the world is intelligible, leading to the flowering of reason and the invention of science in the West. It was no accident that the Enlightenment took place in the culture formed by the Jewish and Christian faiths. We can all see that faith without reason is benighted at best, fanatical and violent at worst. But too many forget that reason, stripped of faith, is subject to its own pathologies. A supposedly autonomous reason easily sinks into fanaticism, stifling dissent as bigoted and irrational and devouring the humane civilization fostered by the integration of reason and faith. The blood-soaked history of the twentieth century attests to the totalitarian forces unleashed by corrupted reason. But Samuel Gregg does more than lament the intellectual and spiritual ruin caused by the divorce of reason and faith. He shows that each of these foundational principles corrects the other’s excesses and enhances our comprehension of the truth in a continuous renewal of civilization. By recovering this balance, we can avoid a suicidal winner-take-all conflict between reason and faith and a future that will respect neither.
After challenging the multicultural effort to “provincialize” the history of Western civilization, this book argues that the roots of the West’s exceptional creativity should be traced back to the uniquely aristocratic warlike culture of Indo-European speakers.
Western civilization and world history are often seen as different, or even mutually exclusive, routes into historical studies. This volume shows that they can be successfully linked, providing a tool to see each subject in the context of the other, identifying influences and connections. Western Civilization in World History takes up the recent debates about the merits of the well-established 'Western civ' approach versus the newer field of world history. Peter N. Stearns outlines key aspects of Western civilization - often assumed rather than analyzed - and reviews them in a global context.
