World Civilizations, Single Volume Edition: The Global Experience (3rd Edition) [Hardcover]

Peter Stearns (Author), Michael Adas (Author), Stuart Schwartz (Author), Marc Jason Gilbert (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321044797 | ISBN-13: 978-0321044792 | Publication Date: August 11, 2000 | Edition: 3

The primary goal of World Civilizations: The Global Experience, Third Edition is to present a truly global history--one that both discusses the development of the world's leading civilizations and also emphasizes the major stages in the interactions among different peoples and societies. The book examines all the world's civilizations, including those in the Western tradition but also those civilizations sometimes neglected in world history texts--for example, the nomadic societies of Asia, Latin America, and the nations and states of the Pacific Rim. World Civilizations balances this discussion of independent developments in all the world's major civilizations with comparative analysis of the results of international contact. MARKET Appropriate for anyone interested in World History.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The primary goal of World Civilizations: The Global Experience, Third Edition is to present a truly global history--one that both discusses the development of the world's leading civilizations and also emphasizes the major stages in the interactions among different peoples and societies. The book examines all the world's civilizations, including those in the Western tradition but also those civilizations sometimes neglected in world history texts--for example, the nomadic societies of Asia, Latin America, and the nations and states of the Pacific Rim. World Civilizations balances this discussion of independent developments in all the world's major civilizations with comparative analysis of the results of international contact. MARKET Appropriate for anyone interested in World History.

About the Author

Peter N. Stearns

Peter N. Stearns is provost and professor of history

at George Mason University. He received his Ph.D.

from Harvard University. Before moving to George

Mason University, he taught at Rutgers University,

the University of Chicago, and Carnegie Mellon,

where he won the Robert Doherty Educational

Leadership Award and the Elliott Dunlap Smith Teaching Award. He has

taught world history for more than 15 years. He currently serves as chair

of the Advanced Placement World History Committee and also founded

and is the editor of the Journal of Social History. In addition to textbooks

and readers, he has written studies of gender and consumerism in a world

history context. Other books address modern social and cultural history

and include studies on gender, old age, work, dieting, and emotion. His

most recent book in this area is American Fear: Causes and Consequences

of High Anxiety.

 

 

 

 

Michael Adas

Michael Adas is the Abraham Voorhees Professor of

History and a board of governor’s chair at Rutgers

University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Over the

past couple of decades his teaching has focused on

patterns and processes of global and comparative

history. His courses on race and empire in the early

modern and industrial eras and on world history in the 20th century have

earned him a number of teaching prizes. In addition to texts on world

history, Adas has written mainly on the comparative history of colonialism

and its impact on the peoples and societies of Asia and Africa. His

books include Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and

Ideologies of Western Dominance, which won the Dexter Prize, and the recently

published Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and

America’s Civilizing Mission. He is currently writing a global history of the

First World War.

 

 

 

Stuart B. Schwartz

Stuart B. Schwartz was born and educated in Springfield,

Massachusetts, and then attended Middlebury

College and the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico.

He has an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University

in Latin American history. He taught for many

years at the University of Minnesota and joined the

faculty at Yale University in 1996. He has also taught in Brazil, Puerto

Rico, Spain, France, and Portugal. He is a specialist on the history of colonial

Latin America, especially Brazil, and is the author of numerous

books, notably Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society

(1985), which won the Bolton Prize for the best book in Latin American

History. He is also the author of Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels (1992), Early

Latin America(1983), and Victors and Vanquished (1999). He has held fellowships

from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Institute for Advanced

Study (Princeton). For his work on Brazil he was recently

decorated by the Brazilian government. He continues to read widely in

the history and anthropology of Latin America, Africa, and early modern

Europe.

 

 

 

Marc Jason Gilbert

Marc Jason Gilbert is the holder of an NEHsupported

Chair in World History at Hawaii Pacific

University in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is a former University

System of Georgia Distinguished Professor of

Teaching and Learning. He received his Ph.D in history

in 1978 at UCLA, where he built his own program

in world history out of a mixture of more traditional fields. He is a

founding member of the World History Association and one of its initial

elected officers.More than a decade ago, he founded and served as executive

director of the Southeastern World History Association. He has codirected

two Summer Institutes for Teaching Advanced Placement World

History. He has attempted to bring a global dimension to the study of

south and southeast Asian history in numerous articles and books, such

as Why the North Won the Vietnam War.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1152 pages
• Publisher: Pearson Education; 3 edition (August 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321044797
• ISBN-13: 978-0321044792
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #361,730 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best In Its Field, July 1, 2003

By 

Beavis (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Advanced Placement Edition - World Civilizations: The Global Experience (Hardcover)

I've been reading and comparing a few global history texts, and this one is in another class. If you're wanting a chronological narrative treading the traditional origins, greek, egyptian, indus valley . . . pattern then this text will not please you. If you're after a well written and presented text combining a good synthesis of fact with thought provoking analysis then this IS for you! I can see perhaps why lecturers might go for other more factual texts if they want to look at the global past in different terms to this one, however I think they can't go wrong with the themes Stearns and co. explore. Its got that perfect balance of fact and analysis. The boxed features and lengthy document extracts fit in well, and the lists of sources are well worthwhile.
So yes, you WILL learn a lot from this book because instead of just providing a series of events, people, terms and dates to rote learn it will get you thinking about the themes of global history, and encourage you to compare, contrast and evaluate. Its also one of the few "World History" texts that isn't a Western Civilization history with a few extra chapters thrown in. It really looks at the whole world with a fresh view, including a variety of cultures and experiences. In the Classical era you'll recieve valuable insights into nomadic peoples, providing the opportunity to understand differing means of organising society and allowing worthwhile comparisons that actually enhance understanding the more well trodden ground of Greece, Rome etc. Other fascinating coverage in this vein includes chapters about migration and the spread of peoples (Africans, Slavs and Polynesians), a whole chapter on the Mongol empire and the independence and nationhood movements of Latin America. I reiterate that these other perspectives are introduced in a way which enhances the overall understanding of world history, and are certainly not arbitary "pc" insertions. The authors do not shirk from showing the rise of the west, and the positives and negatives of imperialism. However it also allows us to see the limitations, and non-inevitability of this rise.
If you insist on reading a solely factual survey text, Traditions and Encounters by Bentley and Ziegler will do a great job, however for any student or enthusiast of World History, this book will open your eyes to new perspectives and really encourage you to engage your braincells!

29 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Serious Problems, September 13, 2003

By 

Águila (New York City, NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: World Civilizations, Single Volume Edition: The Global Experience (3rd Edition) (Hardcover)

I have this book for AP World history, and I have read Michael Adas' (one of the authors of the book) essay on the "new" world history. The "new" world history emphasizes analysis and comparison between different civilizations, unlike the "old" history which emphasizes comprehensiveness and rote. This book does indeed teach along the lines of the "new" history, and I appreciate that it does not tread into the Euro-centrism or exceptionalism of America that most World History books diverge into.

However, I have some serious problems with this book. While the authors analyze many aspects of each civilization, I find them to be excessively politically correct. And while I find the political correctness irritating, that is not my biggest problem with this book.

My biggest problem is that this textbook is laden with factual errors. After reading just two chapters, I found dozens of errors, especially in the chapter on the Aztecs. Therefore, I do not know whether I can rely on this book as a source of information.

I hope Stearns et al. fix their mistakes. It is important to look at history in an analytical way, but one cannot analyze incorrect facts.

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most comprehensive book regarding the entire world, April 15, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Advanced Placement Edition - World Civilizations: The Global Experience (Hardcover)

While some may at first find this book to be daughting, or even uninformative, they would be surprised to learn that what the book presents is one of the most unbiased accounts of World History. As a student who was taught AP World History, I found the book to be incredible. Along with incredibly factual passages, the book also includes primary sources to aid learning. In additon, the book is completely unbiased; spending as much time if not more on African, Asian, and Western roots as it does on Rome, Egypt, or the Greeks. Also, the book spends extraordinay amounts of time discussing ALL of the civilizations of the world, not just the cut and dry topics that were explored in the years before. Despite what the other reviewer has said, this book is the most incredible source of history I have ever read, and should be standard in schools around the country. Regarding the expense, with a source as good as this, the cost is minimal. I found the book so helpful I actually purchased my own copy after I finished the cource.