Customer Reviews

Across the Centuries

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I have taught history to 7th graders in Washington using this text for 5 years. Yes, it covers the history of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Mesoamerica in addition to the usual Eurocentric view of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. As with all texts for middle grade students, it probably does not get into the "negatives" of any of these civilizations in depth. True, some of Mohammad's less savory practices are not discussed, but neither is the fact that thousands of children were virtually kidnapped during the Crusades to die on the front lines of losing battles in the Holy Land or that girls in China had their feet brutally bound to help keep them subservient. My only complaint about this very thorough text is that it is on too high a reading level for some of my struggling readers, although there are good supplemental materials to help with this.

I am currently a college student in a class on reading in the content areas. In our class, we recently completed a textbook readability survey for this book (as well as several others) using the "Fry Readability Model." This model measures reading difficulty based on word syllables and sentence length. After evaluating three random passages in this book (from the beginning, middle, and end), this book rated at an 11th grade reading level. It was easily the largest disparity of all the books my class rated.

I just wanted to post this information because I found it to be very interesting, in a negative way (of course). If you are thinking of adopting this textbook for your class, please think twice. It is likely to be well over the heads of your average 7th grader.

I'm a 13 year old entering the 8th grade and having read the 8th, 7th, and 6th History book in this series I must say that for anyone of any age who is thouroughly interested in the Middle Ages and the Reformation, can enjoy this book beyond anything. It's the best basic text you could ever want to rely on. As a 13 year old who's primary vocation is to become a college professor of history I am truely begging you, even you're not interested in this particular section of historical events, to buy this book, because I beleive that if you read it, you will become interested.

I'm a 12 year-old kid, who just happens to be Jewish. I respect all religions, as I hope most people do, and I read this book at school. There ARE two book series. One we read last year in 6th grade, mostly covered Christianity and Judaism, and only covered past events. I found it somewhat interesting. This book, however boring it may be to me, is deffinetely not bias. The book teaches students about Islam, while it is the teacher's choice on how to teach it. So, basically it would be the teacher's fault if it was taught wrong and not the books.

As a student in seventh grade reading this book for history, I think this textbook gives confusing info to students like us. They use big vocabulary words and hard questions to answer that none of my classmates can answer. If you want an informative textbook, this one is the one for you. But otherwise, the textbook is very hard to understand.

This text book is extremely biased toward Islam. The entire 3rd chapter, entitled the Roots of Islam" and 4th chapter, entitled "the Empire of Islam" teach exclusively upon those subjects in a very appealing fashon. Important facts about the life of Muhammad are omitted in the textbook, such as the fact that he had 11 wives, including a 9 year old girl. At least one of his wives (a Jewish woman) was acquired after Muhammad and his warriors destroyed her tribe. Muhammad gave her the choice between becoming one of his household slaves or one of his wives. Also not mentioned is the fact that Muhammad was a military leader who advanced the spread of Islam through the power of the sword. Raiding merchant caravans traveling through the Middle East largely financed his military power. However, In student's textbook, on p.65 we read, "Muhammad's success in spreading Islam was due in large part to his strong character. His followers were attracted to his morality".
In the teacher's edition on p.67 teachers are told to "Emphasize the fact that Muslim forces enjoyed huge success and expanded the Muslim Empire with lightnig speed". On p.60 of the teachers edition teachers are told to tell students that " According to tradition, Muhammad's earthly life was filled with signs of his future greatness...
Houghton Mifflin promises in the introduction of the book to protect the private religious beliefs of the student, that no one religion will be presented as superior to any other, and that the book will teach about the religions but not seek to indoctrinate. It is interesting to note that there are no chapters devoted to Judiasm, Moses, Christianity nor Jesus. A good example of this omission can be found on pages 24-25 where there is a photo of a Byzantine container with crosses prominently on the top, however the time line directly below skips from 27 B.C. to 200 A.D without so much as a mention of the life of Jesus. If students don't know much about the history of Christianity and Judiasm and their impact upon the western world they will certainly be just as ignorant after reading this book.

I have reviwed this book thoroughly and this is the consistent treatment Houghton Mifflin gives to the other major religions.
This account of history is shockingly deceptive. As Benjamin Franklin said "half of the truth is usually a great lie"

I have used this world history textbook for several years with sixth graders and have noticed that most children find it quite difficult at the beginning of the school year, yet are comfortable with it by the end of the year. To me this is a sign that the book is successful in what it sets out to accomplish: to introduce young people to abstract concepts and to present history and geography as information that must be placed in a context (that the book provides). It is quite comprehensive, providing a detailed view of the development of Western society from the fall of Rome (the left would call it Euro-centric) while providing lots of information about indigenous American cultures, Africa, the Far East, and, in particular, the Islamic world. (More about this at the end.) The book is profusely illustrated, contains detailed and fascinating maps and charts as well as a separate glossary and atlas, and is well-organized. Yes, the writing is sophisticated; it matches the subject, and it raises the level of discussion in class. Whenever I teach from this book I learn something new. Our students score high on standardized social studies tests.

A few quibbles I have are that testing material that accompanies the text (with the teacher's edition) can be obscure, confusing, or just plain wrong; in parts the text seems not to have been closely edited, for it repeats itself; from my point of view there is too much about sub-Saharan Africa and not enough about the Indian subcontinent; and the literary supplements included in the book are not particularly compelling--rather than modern historical fiction, I would have preferred some original literature from the period being studied. Overall, however, I am grateful to my predecessor for having chosen Across the Centuries as our social studies text.

One last point concerns political perspectives on the book. Several months ago there was controversy generated by some parents in our area over the use of this textbook in one of the local public school districts. The complaint was that it was Islamist and contemptuous of Christianity. It is not. It discusses Islam and Christianity quite impartially, marking the historical conflicts that have occurred between the two while also examining the rationales for the actions of each group--highly relevant to our present day, though the book is now 10 years old. Anyone who thinks this book is anti-Christian really ought to examine his or her own definition of Christianity. By the way, I might add that I teach at a Catholic school. We don't find the book offensive at all. Perhaps our archdiocese is not Christian enough.

I was surprised to read the 1 star reviews.
Obviously they have neither read nor studied from this text.
I have used this text for two successive 7th graders. We all found it very readable, interesting and fair.

There is nothing about converting to Islam, Buddhism, Christianity or any other religion. The religious information is taught as part of understanding of the history of a particular time.

Also this is a middle school text and only refers to historically important aspects. So obviously neither the number of Muhammad's wives (one of the complaints) nor the number of slaves owned by George Washington were included (arguably more historically relevant).

If you truly want to know a little about World History, this is a good place to start.

This "text book" holds Christianity in a somewhat unfavorable light. Parents who value America's Judeo Christian heritage should insist on unbiased instrtuction.

The Pacific Justice Institute, a non-profit legal defense organization, has mounted a challenge to the textbook on behalf of a concerned parent from San Luis Obispo.Pacific Justice Institute had scholars comb through both the textbook and the teacher's version to substantiate the parent's content analysis prior to filing the administrative complaint.
"The average parent would be outraged to see this kind of bias and distortion of world history," said Brad Dacus, the group's chief counsel.
California adopted the textbook in 1991. When asked why ten years have passed without a major challenge, Dacus replied, "Parents overlooked it, thinking Islam is far away. They never saw it as having a threat to their children. [The terror attacks of Sept. 11 have] changed that and [have] created more scrutiny."