By investigating the major changes in world history during the past 500 years, this book explains to what extent world forces have been responsible for shaping both the past and the present. This book tells of the rise and fall of empires and civilizations, and recounts the growing communality and interdependence of nations. It shows how so many problems of the contemporary world are the legacy of an unprecedented era of western domination - the end of which was hastened by the two world wars. In explaining how the world has come to be what it is, the book examines the implications surrounding the end of the Cold War, the unravelling of communism in Eastern Europe, and the growing challenge of the non-western world to western superiority. It is the author's belief that we have reached a transitional stage in world history in which the world will no longer be shaped by the single image of western modernism, but increasingly by the image of all cultures and civilizations. With the shift of geopolitical and geoeconomic power to Asia, and with the growing worldwide influence of religious fundamentalism and revolutionary nationalism, the need for a global perspective has become acute.
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About the Author
WILLIAM WOODRUFF is Graduate Research Professor (Emeritus) in Economic History at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He holds degrees from the universities of Oxford, London, Nottingham, and Melbourne (honorary). He has lectured extensively in Europe, Asia, America, and Australasia. He has been professor in residence at a number of universities, including the Freie Universitat, Berlin, Waseda University, Tokyo, the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and St Antony's College, Oxford. His research in world history and global development has received the support of the Houblon-Norman Committee of the Bank of England, the Fulbright Committee, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Japan Society for the Advancement of Science. Woodruff's books include Impact of Western Man, America's Impact on the World, The Struggle for World Power, The Emergence of an International Economy and a best-selling memoir The Road to Nab End. His writings have been widely translated.
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More About the Author
William Woodruff (1916-2008)
A world historian who, in his eighties, wrote two volumes of autobiography: The Road to Nab End: A Lancashire Childhood and Beyond Nab End, which became No 1 bestsellers in Britain.
Robert McCrum, writing about The Road to Nab End in the Observer, deemed the work 'A terrific story ... nostalgic, vivid and charming.'
William was born on the floor of a cotton mill in Blackburn, England during the First World War. His mother returned to work two days after his birth. His father was away fighting in France and there were four children to feed. By the time William's father came home to take up his life as a weaver, the Lancashire cotton textile industry was about to collapse. There followed years of hardship, unemployment and social unrest. From the age of six, through the years of the great depression of the early 1930s, William supplemented his family's income by delivering newspapers. He did go to school, but sometimes just to catch up on his sleep. At thirteen his education was considered complete and he became a delivery boy in a grocer's shop. His memoir, The Road to Nab End, is full of the joys of running free in a town full of unforgettable characters, it also conveys the mood of quiet desperation that eventually drove his family to a room in a derelict boarding house at Nab End.
'Once started, it is impossible to put this book down ... the author ... has the historian's gift for bringing to life a particular society at a particular time,' wrote Allan Bullock in the Times Literary Supplement.
At the age of sixteen, when he was a temporary laborer in a brickworks, he ran away to London. For two years he worked as a 'sand rat' in an iron foundry (wet sand was used in the casting process). Discovering a love of learning, he enrolled in night school. In 1936 he went to Oxford University with the aid of a London County Council Scholarship. Beyond Nab End is the totally refreshing and amusing story of the foundry worker's struggles to come to grips with the challenges and opportunities of an Oxford education.
'Hard times had bred resourcefulness and self-reliance. I knew by experience how to take setbacks. I also knew that nobody owed me a living. I was lucky to have been born and reared in Lancashire; doubly lucky to have been born poor,' he wrote.
The Second World War put William's education on hold for six years, he called them the years the locusts ate. He fought in North Africa and the Mediterranean region. His wartime experiences became the basis of his autobiographical novel Vessel of Sadness, a stark, yet poetic account of the battle for Anzio.
'Deceptively simple in language and imagery, frightening and upsetting, frank and unflinching in view, Vessel of Sadness helps us understand the nature of man in a world where there is as yet no alternative to the desolation of war' wrote Martin Blumenson in the preface to the book.
In 1946 William renewed his academic career. His research focused on world history. 'The Balkanization of the social sciences,' he wrote, 'has brought us to a state of ever-growing general ignorance and dehumanized science. Hence, I have stressed the central role, not of methods or theories or systems, but of humanity ... In seeking to understand the totality, complexity and diversity of the past, I shifted my focus from the parts to the whole; from the nation to the world.'
Impact of Western Man: A Study of Europe's Role in the World Economy, 1750-1960 was a seminal work which explored the interrelatedness of continents. In his Concise History of the Modern World: 1500 to the Present he brings together a lifetime's insights into how the present has come to be shaped by the past.
A world historian who, in his eighties, wrote two volumes of autobiography: The Road to Nab End: A Lancashire Childhood and Beyond Nab End, which became No 1 bestsellers in Britain.
Robert McCrum, writing about The Road to Nab End in the Observer, deemed the work 'A terrific story ... nostalgic, vivid and charming.'
William was born on the floor of a cotton mill in Blackburn, England during the First World War. His mother returned to work two days after his birth. His father was away fighting in France and there were four children to feed. By the time William's father came home to take up his life as a weaver, the Lancashire cotton textile industry was about to collapse. There followed years of hardship, unemployment and social unrest. From the age of six, through the years of the great depression of the early 1930s, William supplemented his family's income by delivering newspapers. He did go to school, but sometimes just to catch up on his sleep. At thirteen his education was considered complete and he became a delivery boy in a grocer's shop. His memoir, The Road to Nab End, is full of the joys of running free in a town full of unforgettable characters, it also conveys the mood of quiet desperation that eventually drove his family to a room in a derelict boarding house at Nab End.
'Once started, it is impossible to put this book down ... the author ... has the historian's gift for bringing to life a particular society at a particular time,' wrote Allan Bullock in the Times Literary Supplement.
At the age of sixteen, when he was a temporary laborer in a brickworks, he ran away to London. For two years he worked as a 'sand rat' in an iron foundry (wet sand was used in the casting process). Discovering a love of learning, he enrolled in night school. In 1936 he went to Oxford University with the aid of a London County Council Scholarship. Beyond Nab End is the totally refreshing and amusing story of the foundry worker's struggles to come to grips with the challenges and opportunities of an Oxford education.
'Hard times had bred resourcefulness and self-reliance. I knew by experience how to take setbacks. I also knew that nobody owed me a living. I was lucky to have been born and reared in Lancashire; doubly lucky to have been born poor,' he wrote.
The Second World War put William's education on hold for six years, he called them the years the locusts ate. He fought in North Africa and the Mediterranean region. His wartime experiences became the basis of his autobiographical novel Vessel of Sadness, a stark, yet poetic account of the battle for Anzio.
'Deceptively simple in language and imagery, frightening and upsetting, frank and unflinching in view, Vessel of Sadness helps us understand the nature of man in a world where there is as yet no alternative to the desolation of war' wrote Martin Blumenson in the preface to the book.
In 1946 William renewed his academic career. His research focused on world history. 'The Balkanization of the social sciences,' he wrote, 'has brought us to a state of ever-growing general ignorance and dehumanized science. Hence, I have stressed the central role, not of methods or theories or systems, but of humanity ... In seeking to understand the totality, complexity and diversity of the past, I shifted my focus from the parts to the whole; from the nation to the world.'
Impact of Western Man: A Study of Europe's Role in the World Economy, 1750-1960 was a seminal work which explored the interrelatedness of continents. In his Concise History of the Modern World: 1500 to the Present he brings together a lifetime's insights into how the present has come to be shaped by the past.
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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
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This review is from: A Concise History of the Modern World, Fourth Edition: 1500 to the Present: A Guide to World Affairs (Kindle Edition)
i found this book very helpful.exactly what i was looking for.great historical and geographical analysis.moreover kindle highlights gave me great opportunity to study.
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First Sentence:
In investigating the course of world affairs since roughly 1500, special emphasis is placed here upon the struggle for power - by which is meant the use of organized force by sovereign states to impose their will upon each other, or upon their own citizens. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Soviet Union, Latin America, United States, Middle East, First World War, New Zealand, Ottoman Empire, Great War, League of Nations, Saudi Arabia, United Nations, North Korea, South Korea, French Revolution, Gulf War, New Guinea, Sierra Leone, Common Market, Warsaw Pact, East Timor, Indian Ocean, South America, British Empire, Dominican Republic, Korean War New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
In investigating the course of world affairs since roughly 1500, special emphasis is placed here upon the struggle for power - by which is meant the use of organized force by sovereign states to impose their will upon each other, or upon their own citizens. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Soviet Union, Latin America, United States, Middle East, First World War, New Zealand, Ottoman Empire, Great War, League of Nations, Saudi Arabia, United Nations, North Korea, South Korea, French Revolution, Gulf War, New Guinea, Sierra Leone, Common Market, Warsaw Pact, East Timor, Indian Ocean, South America, British Empire, Dominican Republic, Korean War New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 67
books:
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- Peter the Great (Men in office) by M.S. Smith in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Playa Giron: Bay of Pigs : Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas by Fidel Castro on page 224, and page 267
- Second World War: Closing by Winston Churchill on page 208, and Back Matter
- on page 291, and Index
- Italy and the Approach of the First World War (The Making of the 20th Century) by R. J. B. Bosworth in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 67 books this book cites
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