• 2002 Single Volume Edition ISBN 0-321-07694-X
• 2002 Volume 1 (Chapters 1-13) ISBN 0-321-07692-3
• 2002 Volume 2 Chapters 14-33) ISBN 0-321-07693-1

World history courses are becoming increasingly fundamental at the college level for several reasons. Global issues fill our newspapers, television screens, and computer monitors daily. Americans must gain perspective on the dynamics of these issues and must understand the diverse societies around the globe that help shape them and our future. History—even history that might seem rather remote—explains how the world became what it is now, including why global influences loom larger than ever before. Global issues are at work even within the United States, since it is increasingly a nation of people from different heritages all around the world. Finally, world history raises some classic issues of historical interpretation, allowing its students to sharpen their understanding of how to interpret change and historical causation and providing a rich field for comparative analysis. Some educators still prefer to concentrate on Western civilization, arguing that it lies at our origins and, sometimes, that it is measurably superior. While the Western heritage must be included in a world history approach, it is increasingly clear that a purely Western overlay cannot describe the world as we need to know it.

APPROACH

World History in Brief, now entering its fourth edition, has always had two goals. The first is to present a truly global approach to world history. This is accomplished through the focus on forces that cut across individual societies, through a balanced treatment of major societies themselves, and through invitations to comparisons on a global scale. The second goal is brevity and manageability. It is no secret that many world history texts are large and demand a major commitment from instructors and students. World History in Brief offers an alternative. Its length is compatible with a serious treatment of the major issues in world history, but it is concise enough to set aside time for careful analysis and to use other types of materials beyond the textbook.

World history demands a commitment to a global rather than a Western-centered approach. World History in Brief shows how different civilizations have encountered the various forces of life—for example, population growth, economic changes, and international currents in diplomacy and art—over the centuries. Consequently, Western civilization is included as one of the great world societies. East Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern, East European, African, and Latin American civilizations are all subjects of study in order to achieve a genuine world-wide perspective. World history also demands a balance between the examination of individual societies, within which the lives of most people are played out, and attention to the larger interactions across regional boundaries. These global interactions include trade, cultural contact, migrations, and disease. World History in Brief presents the major civilizations through a narrative overview combined with emphasis on regional and global political, cultural, social, and economic characteristics and trends. Grasp of these characteristics, in turn facilitates comparisons and assessments of change.

World History in Brief is also designed to allow additional readings and analytical exercises. World history teaching must follow the precedent of other survey history courses in reducing the emphasis on coverage and sheer memorization in favor of materials that provide facts that can be used to build larger understandings. Overwhelming detail, therefore, is not the chief goal of this book. Instead, World History in Brief presents enough data to facilitate comparison and assessment of changes and to highlight major developments in the world’s history. Students can readily refer to large reference works if they wish to follow up on themes of special interest with greater factual detail. For this purpose, a list of suggested readings and websites follows each chapter.

PERIODIZATION

Chronological divisions—the basic periods of world history—reflect successive stages of international contact, from relative isolation to regional integration to the formation of global systems. This periodization is not conveniently tidy for the whole of world history, but it captures the leading dynamics of changes at the global level. World History in Brief focuses on six major periods. The first involves the early features of human development, particularly the emergence of agriculture and civilization as a form of organization. The second deals with the great classical societies from 100 B.C.E. to 500 C.E. and their relationships with surrounding regions. The third, the postclassical period, from 500 to 1450 C.E., highlights the emergence of new contacts in trade and culture, the spread of world religions, and the development of civilizations in new as well as established centers. The early modern period, from 1450-1750 C.E., treats the new world role of Europe but also the diverse and often quite independent developments in many other societies. The fifth period emphasizes the age of European industrialization and imperialism in the "long" 19th century and again the opportunity for varied reactions. The emergence of a new world history period in the 20th century draws the text to a close. In all the periods, major themes are carefully spelled out, as a springboard for assessing the interactions of individual societies with more global forces and as a basis both for comparison and for discussions of change and continuity over time.

THEMES

Using the global focus plus the international periodization, students can follow the themes of change and continuity across time and comparative analysis. For example, we can track and compare the juxtaposition of the traditions and novel forces that have shaped the modern world; the response of China or Latin America to the issues of the modern state; or the conditions of women in developing and in industrial economies. How different societies respond to common issues and contacts, and how these issues and contacts change over time: this is the framework for grappling with world history. By focusing on these problems of comparison and assessment of change, the text uses the leading patterns of world history to provide experience in analysis that will apply to other historical studies beyond the survey.

FEATURES

World History In Brief is the most accessible, most affordable world history text available in the market. Its brevity allows instructors and students flexibility about what additional readings will be included in their study of world history. The text focuses only on big picture topics so students understand major themes and developments in world history rather than memorizing an array of unconnected facts. The text is organized chronologically by civilizations allowing for easy and orderly understanding by students. A number of features distinguish World History In Brief, and they have been carefully constructed over four editions.

• Chapter openers called Focal Points frame each chapter by raising key questions and thereby setting learning goals.
• History Debates, included in almost every chapter, offer students a brief (two paragraphs) topic about which historians are currently debating. Topics include "Is Latin America part of the West?", "Why did slavery end when it did?", "What is Western Civilization?", etc. Students get an opportunity to see that the discipline is focused on actively debating the past.

New to This Edition

• An increased number of World Profiles (formerly Biographical Portraits) provide additional emphasis on the human component of world history through biographies. These profiles explore the history of an individual and how his or her story illuminates aspects of his or her society or a particular cultural interaction.
• Understanding Culture sections help students explore specific cultural issues in world history, such as the role of cultures in causing historical changes, the nature of cultural contact, the unique cultural features of particular societies, the intertwining of social and economic forces.
• Suggested Web Links at the end of each chapter encourage students to explore further a particular topic, period, or historical figure.
• A comprehensive, full-color Timeline, free in every new copy of the text, gives students a chronological context in which to place their knowledge and compare important political and diplomatic, social and economic, and cultural and technological events as they occurred across the globe.
• A Companion Website provides students and professors with a wealth of resources, including a syllabus manager, student practice tests, web activities, chapter links, and a glossary. Also on the website are additional analytical highlights under the heading Challenges. These are ideal for organizing further classroom analysis and discussion.
• A StudyWizard CD-ROM helps students learn the major facts and concepts of world history through drill and practice exercises and diagnostic feedback. Students receive individual, self-paced review of text material using multiple-choice, short-answer, and true/false questions, and detailed feedback. Free when bundled.

And of course the text has been updated to include developments and shifts since the late 1990s. This complements the text’s longstanding emphasis on helping students see the connections between past patterns in world history and the world we live in today and tomorrow.

I must add a personal note. World history has been a late love for me. I was trained in Western history, with an education that encouraged, though it did not require (the fault was mine), a largely Western focus. I increasingly chafed against my ignorance not of current world events but of the perspective, the historical understanding, that would give such events meaning. Belatedly schooled in world history, I have found continued reading and teaching in the field an endless source of fascination, a perpetual window for contemplating the varieties and unities of the human condition. I can only wish the same pleasure for many others, colleagues and students alike.

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