World History

Description

Noted teachers and scholars William J. Duiker and Jackson J. Spielvogel present a balanced, highly readable overview of world history that explores common challenges and experiences of the human past, and identifies key patterns over time. Thorough coverage of political, economic, social, religious, intellectual, cultural, and military history is integrated into a chronological framework to help students gain an appreciation and understanding of the distinctive character and development of individual cultures in society. This approach, with organization around seven major themes (Science and Technology, Art and Ideas, Family and Society, Politics and Government, Earth and the Environment, Religion and Philosophy, and Interaction and Exchange), helps students link events together in a broad comparative and global framework, thereby placing the contemporary world in a more meaningful historical context. Available in the following options: WORLD HISTORY, Eighth Edition (Chapters 1'30); Volume I: To 1800 (Chapters 1'18); Volume II: Since 1500 (Chapters 14'30).

Jackson J. Spielvogel is associate professor Emeritus of history at The Pennsylvania State University. He received his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, where he specialized in Reformation history under Harold J. Grimm. His articles and reviews have appeared in journals such as "Moreana," "Journal of General Education," "Catholic Historical Review," "Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte," and "American Historical Review." He also has contributed chapters or articles to "The Social History of Reformation," THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE: A DICTIONARY HANDBOOK, "Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual of Holocaust Studies," and "Utopian Studies." His work has been supported by fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation and the Foundation for Reformation Research. At Penn State, he helped inaugurate the Western civilization course, as well as a popular course on Nazi Germany. His book HITLER AND NAZI GERMANY was published in 1987 (Seventh Edition, 2013). He is the author of WESTERN CIVILIZATION, first published in 1991 (Ninth Edition, 2015). Professor Spielvogel has won five major university-wide teaching awards. During the year 1988-1989, he held the Penn State Teaching Fellowship, the university's most prestigious teaching award. In 1996, he won the Dean Arthur Ray Warnock Award for Outstanding Faculty member, and in 2000 received the Schreyer Honors College Excellence in Teaching Award. William J. Duiker is liberal arts Professor Emeritus of East Asian studies at The Pennsylvania State University. A former U.S. diplomat with service in Taiwan, South Vietnam, and Washington, D.C., he received his doctorate in Far Eastern history from Georgetown University in 1968, where his dissertation dealt with the Chinese educator and reformer Cai Yuanpei. At Penn State, he has written extensively on the history of Vietnam and modern China, including the highly acclaimed COMMUNIST ROAD TO POWER IN VIETNAM (revised edition, Westview Press, 1996), which was selected for a Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award in 1982-1983 and 1996-1997. Other recent books are CHINA AND VIETNAM: THE ROOTS OF CONFLICT (Berkeley, 1987), U.S. CONTAINMENT POLICY AND THE CONFLICT IN INDOCHINA (Stanford, 1995), SACRED WAR: NATIONALISM AND REVOLUTION IN A DIVIDED VIETNAM (McGraw-Hill, 1995), and HO CHI MINH (Hyperion, 2000), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2001. While his research specialization is in the field of nationalism and Asian revolutions, his intellectual interests are considerably more diverse. He has traveled widely and has taught courses on the history of communism and non-Western civilizations at Penn State, where he was awarded a Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the spring of 1996. In 2002, the College of Liberal Arts honored him with an Emeritus Distinction Award.

[WORLD HISTORY] reads more as a story of history that keeps [students'] interest. The text is scholarly, yet understandable to them. Many of the students are not interested in history and dread it; this text makes their experience better and stronger. I especially appreciate all of the space and attention that this textbook devotes to social history, gender, and cultural production. I find [WORLD HISTORY] to be a fun and accessible text for students. It is comprehensive in its coverage yet well organized and clearly written. I love the diversity of approaches and materials presented. The focus questions and critical thinking questions are superb. I use these questions as my discussion starters for the class. I like that the critical thinking questions are using high-level questioning according to Bloom's Taxonomy. The use of contrasting primary materials, and the attempt to integrate the best aspects of primary source readers into a general text book separate this book from other books.