Finally, it would be helpful for the authors or for instructors to divide the large pdf download into more manageable units or chapters. My students complain about this text often. The PDF format makes the interface quite easy to navigate. Cleopatra VII, the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt, is contextualized via a reference to her fame largely revolving around her love affairs with Caesar and Marcus Antonius- while it is true that that’s how she is remembered, framing her that way is dismissive and a missed opportunity on the part of the authors to talk about gender, power, and history (p 211). Each chapter is broken in sections, sub-sections, and sometimes even further than that. Some of the best world history books are presented here to day so that you can easily find and navigate through some of the coolest and most inspiring books from history. I note this not in idle critique, but to note that your position on this (or your department’s position) will impact the relevancy of the book. If not prefaced, this might impact students sense of the richness of some regions and time periods over others. The straightforward approach to the material means that it is unlikely to become obsolete in the near future. The text book is arranged chronologically and geographically as, so it is simple to start reading at any point. The authors repeated point out the texts that historians use to garner information about the past. The book is extremely affordable and has received exceptional reviews from just about every customer that has ever purchased it. The positives and negatives in terms of consistency mirror those through the rest of the categories. This text covers an impressive amount of ground in relatively short chapters, something which is always a struggle in any survey text of global history. But this is somewhat compensated by a List of Key Terms for every Chapter provided in the first few pages of each Chapter and a summary of the contents of each Chapter towards the end of the Chapter. The book is comprehensive and all-encompassing in the development of states and societies throughout the world. For instructors looking for OER resources, the text is lucid, provides a relevant introduction and has an excellent look-and-feel. Studying history can also highlight mistakes that different individuals, leaders, or groups of people made. The topics are relevant and well-chosen. However, instructors may want to supplement the text with additional readings for topics concerning... I like the way that it acknowledges scholarly controversy and the weaknesses of evidence for some periods, such as early Israel. The organization of the book made logical sense in most instances. This criticisms noted, writing world history is difficult and the textbook will likely serve well for courses where specific content coverage is mandated by department or college policy. There were no obvious errors and, aside from a tendency to focus on European events, the text does not display any strong biases. 3 India 50 Israel The book incorporates the recent researches and developments in the subject. read more. x. Reviewed by Suresh Sethuraman, Adjunct Professor, University of Mary Washington on 5/21/18, The book covers a very wide canvas in terms of time and space (World History upto 1500) , yet, it is fairly comprehensive and incorporates all the major regions, events and socio-cultural developments. No complaints here. 2 Early Civs 40 Miller I plan to adopt this text for my courses and thank authors and organizers of this initiative for their service to students and education more generally. It would also be fairly labor-intensive to copy sections of the book into a different document, although that might be easier using a full-featured PDF editor. Likewise, there are occasional references to terms, people, and concepts that many students simply do not know about: e.g., “She and hundreds of other scholars from Hobbes to Marx” (page 12). The book is not up to date in terms of current world history scholarship, as noted above. Necessary updates – as long as they stay within this geographic framework – will be easy to incorporate. India, East Asia, the Americas, Africa). Within the chapters, there is a good mix of maps and images, drawn almost entirely from Wikimedia Commons. That organization seems less helpful to me than a single chapter about the Crusades that incorporates both perspectives. It will not suit all instructors, given its pedagogical approach (different chapters for different regions), but if you share that approach it will do quite well. The framework throughout the text is consistent and very helpful in locating the information you want to find. The book does a nice job of covering the broad meta-themes of World History--for example the Agricultural Revolution, the Origins and spread of world religions such as Christianity and Islam. For instance when a two paragraph discussion of the Byzantine military reorganization abruptly halts and turns to a discussion of religious crises in the Empire, without any transition between the two. Reviewed by J.M. Reviewed by Corinne Kannenberg, Affiliate Faculty, Metropolitan State University of Denver on 5/1/20, I would have liked to see more in-depth discussion of East Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Reading the two sections side by side gives the reader a reasonable level of comprehension, but it may not be intuitive. There is only one chapter for the entire history of Africa until around 1500, for example, and all of Chinese history up until the Ming Dynasty is likewise crammed into a single chapter. An inability to easily navigate between these subunits or between the text and the table of contents might hinder this quite a bit, however. I found no grammatical errors. I may adopt this book but I will have to supplement these two areas with other readings which may be okay since there are only 12 chapters and I usually have time to cover 14 chapters in a semester. Its strengths and weaknesses are similar to any text in world history, in which choices as to structure, coverage, and emphasis are inevitable and inevitably debatable. Jan 23, 2014 - Explore Lea McLovin's board "World History Textbook" on Pinterest. Establish a ceiling and a floor, and make sure that if it's on the list then it's essential for a survey course. For example, the controversies regarding the administration, system of writing and the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization are discussed in pages 72-73. read more. The one area this text is most lacking in comparison to other texts is that it lacks a good deal of the supplementary materials for faculty, such as text banks, slides, and lecture notes. Chapter 2 has eighteen "Questions to Guide Your Reading" while chapter 7 has eight. The book is an ideal textbook as well as a reference tool. In fact, four out of the twelve chapters are on European subjects, while even China only gets a single chapter! One way that many authors can make a history book engaging is through the use of primary sources. Chapter 2, 5, 6, 7 and 12 are devoted to Mediterranean/European civilization while China, India and the Islamic world get one chapter apiece. 5 Greece 45 Williams The content is all accurate, but here I do not feel entirely certain that the approaches reflect trends in world systems theory. or .docx. It seems that some students will use their textbooks while they are “off line.” It would be nice to have these embedded in the text itself. The five books below have earned a spot on this list for a number of different reasons. Section 2: Humans Try to Control Nature. I would personally like a bit more detail on the impact of climate change and environmental history on world civilizations. Coverage on Asia is also somewhat lacking in comparison to events in Europe. It is clear that a chapter “skeleton” was used by each contributor. The summary of history that is located inside of this text book is difficult to match in terms of quality. The book provides an overview of key regional empires across the world. Given the topic, this is a text which is automatically culturally inclusive. Each chapter commences with the Dates or Chronology of the major political/dynastic periods, rulers and events described in the chapter. read more. Each of these ancient world history books does a great job at providing a unique perspective towards the depths of human and world history. Another factor is the overall value and price of these ancient world history books. I would think a web versions and a .docx/.rtf version to be in order. Customers have shown great appreciation towards this history book because of all the useful information that is located inside. The book is very well edited I noticed no errors. Authored by six USG faculty members with advance degrees in History, this textbook offers up-to-date original scholarship. Chapter-8 narrates the rise of the religion of Islam and the history of the Middle East in the Middle Ages. One problem that it deals with multiple civilizations encounter with Islam before introducing Islam itself. Historians draw conclusions from past approaches to history, but in the end, they always write in the context of their own time, current dominant ideas of how to interpret the past, and even subjective viewpoints. Within the chapters, however the modularity breaks down. The pdf version of the text does provide very useful live links to bibliographies and copies of links to primary source, which does help. The book presents very relevant information as a way of explaining the formation of state societies and the interactions between the societies/empires. It might be a little bit higher than many other similar history books, but there is a unique characteristic that this book has, that for some reason, other history books just don't seem to have. Moreover, when important individuals highlighted in the text are almost exclusively men. While it examines historical events and figures, its approach is cultural… The book approaches the subject of world history along the "regional tour" model, which is quite old fashioned for our day. ---Introduction to the major developments in the chapter Most of the chapters are dense with information and do not skip over important events, individuals, or phenomena. The author should be able to put together the pieces of the 'story' in a clear and easy to understand format. World History Textbook. It is well-edited and well-presented. If moving to this platform means leaving behind good scholarship, I find that very depressing. Likewise, “Pharaoh” was the term for the king of Egypt only during the New Kingdom. The Chapter commences with a detailed overview of the Harappan or Indus-Valley Civilization that was almost cotemporary to the Mesopotamian and Egyptian Civilizations. Sometimes the text goes over the top in correcting for the students (assumed) prejudices, as in the statement on page 370 that "our task is to admire" Pre-Columbian history. The text was well-written; I noticed no errors in grammar. I particularly liked the questions at the onset and the links to primary sources at the end. The attribution of the images and maps could use some editing; pulling material from Wikimedia Commons means that the source attributions given can vary widely, and the difference between something that is treated as a personal name and something that is defined as “user” can be awkward- just because “Locutus Borg” looks like a personal name does not mean it is (p 345). A rich and rewarding course of study that goes beyond timelines and memorizing dates, history textbooks give context to and provide documentation of the human experience, world events, and the impact of social, political, religious, cultural, and geographical interests. Some events and geographies garner more coverage and attention than others, which is understandable, but the criteria by which the authors determined the amount of coverage is a bit unclear. Leaves out Southeast Asia which is unusual for a World History textbook.