Customer Reviews

Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the World from the Beginnings of Humankind to the Present (Second Edition) (Vol. B: 600 to 1850)

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

 

 

I've used several different modern world history texts in my courses, and this is not only the one that I like best, but according to student course evaluations it is the one that my students at 3 different universities have liked the best. It does a great job of connecting the dots between different civilizations and showing the relationships among them, unlike the standard text that simply throws all the different civilizations into separate sections. It also is truly global, whereas too many texts are simply Western Civ. texts that add a few "non-western" chapters. After reading some dozen modern World History books I'm convinced that this one is not only the best, but is head and shoulders above its competitors.

I will admit, though, that in my experience the 2.0 student hasn't liked this book as well as the 2.8-4.0 student. But to be fair, that was also true of other books I assigned in the past (Bulliet, Palmer, Kishlansky, etc.)

Unlike the previous reviewers I found Tignor's text to be a highly lucid and comprehensive account of world history. If you have not read much history than you will have to be patient at first with the writing style as it is chock full of information and concepts that can seem disconnected an quite abstract. Yet, if you have the perseverance to stick with it, you be rewarded with a rich understanding of the themes that run through the narrative of human history. Strongly recommended.

The book is great in that it goes beyond what the black death did in EUROPE. The book is written as a text book and contains maps, pictures, and tons of useful information. The greatest part of this book is that it presents educational findings in a textbook style so that even high schoolers can read it without feeling too overwhelmed. Also, in high school most the student don't know of the mogul empire; this book sheds light on other parts of the world that most high school classes doesn't cover.

Worlds Together, Worlds Apart provides a fantastic account of world history that, while not leaving out many important details, looks past the facts and avoids the all too common Euro-centric view of world history. Instead of merely recounting the facts of world history, region by region, in chronological order, Tignor takes a much different approach. The text examines each region of the world in detail, but it also discusses the relations between various civilizations. The relations between nations the text discusses vary from actual interactions between cultures to comparisons of simultaneous but independent developments in different regions in the world.

To facilitate a more global approach to world history, the text is not ordered chronologically or by region. Rather, it is organized thematically. Each chapter explores a major theme (politics, culture, social structure, etc) in history and its development in (and among) the various civilizations of the world. As a result, Rome and Han China appear in the same chapter, while the politics of the 17th and 18th centuries and the culture of the same time period appear in different chapters. This structure is certainly a departure from the norm, but it allows for the authors to discuss global developments, trends, and interactions uninhibited by the constraints of a traditional history text's structure.

Unfortunately, the density of information forces the readability of the prose to suffer a bit in some parts, but the content of this text far surpasses that of other world history texts.

A great overview of moden history of the world that does an excellent job of pulling together all the major areas of the world in a broad overview. The only problem I had with it was the inconsistent coverage of (and a few mistakes in) the history of Muscovy/Russian Empire and Kyivan Rus/Ukraine/Belarus, although it's markedly better than previous history texts in this regard. It is also a 2001/2002 edition and as such doesn't cover 9/11, the following two American wars, recent EU/NATO expansion, the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the major destruction of human life and cultures from natural disasters in the past couple years, etc.

This book is an older edition, but by no means "old" There are no markings/highlights and the pages are nice. I also received it very quickly, thanks.

I am not usually excited about textbooks, especially history ones, but I found this book:Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the Modern World, very entertaining and useful.

I don't recommend this book to anyone unless it's required. This book is deeply lacking organization and I personally have spent hours reading and re-reading a chapter only to realize that after several reads I still have very little understanding of the content. Halfway through the semester I actually stopped reading from the text and solely used information found in the Worlds Together Worlds Apart chapter outlines that are found on the publishers website and as a result I found the outlines far easier to understand and was able to dramatically decrease study time and improve grades. The book is all over the place, within the span of five paragraphs the text will go from talking about Egyptians in 900 BCE, to talking about them in 200 BCE and back to talking about Egyptians in 600 BCE. I found this book extremely difficult to follow, even more difficult to study from and lacking the solid structure that is found in the outlines of the book. If this is required reading, I highly recommend giving the chapter a read and then using the outlines found on the website as the basis for your studies.

While this book contains valuable information it seems horribly put together in seemingly random order. Many-a-times I found that I would be reading the exact same sentence in Chapter 3 as in Chapter 4. The authors largely ignored any sort of geographical or chronological organization and just puts sections in wherever the mood struck them.

Took a long time to receive this book, almost 3 weeks but it was in decent condition overall. Still would buy from people.