The World: A History, Combined Volume (2nd Edition) - Hardcover

Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe

3.61

80 ratings by Goodreads

9780136061472: The World: A History, Combined Volume (2nd Edition)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0136061478 ISBN 13: 9780136061472

Publisher: Pearson, 2009

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The World interweaves two stories—of our interactions with nature and with each other. The environment-centered story is about humans distancing themselves from the rest of nature and searching for a relationship that strikes a balance between constructive and destructive exploitation. The culture-centered story is of how human cultures have become mutually influential and yet mutually differentiating. Both stories have been going on for thousands of years. We do not know whether they will end in triumph or disaster.

There is no prospect of covering all of world history in one book. Rather, the fabric of this book is woven from selected strands. Readers will see these at every turn, twisted together into yarn, stretched into stories. Human-focused historical ecology—the environmental theme—will drive readers back, again and again, to the same concepts: sustenance, shelter, disease, energy, technology, art. (The last is a vital category for historians, not only because it is part of our interface with the rest of the world, but also because it forms a record of how we see reality and of how the way we see it changes.) In the global story of human interactions—the cultural theme—we return constantly to the ways people make contact with each another: migration, trade, war, imperialism, pilgrimage, gift exchange, diplomacy, travel—and to their social frameworks: the economic and political arenas, the human groups and groupings, the states and civilizations, the sexes and generations, the classes and clusters of identity.

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About the Author:

Felipe Fern�ndez-Armesto holds the William P. Reynolds Chair of History at the University of Notre Dame. He has master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Oxford, where he spent most of his teaching career, before taking up the Chair of Global Environmental History at Queen Mary College, University of London in 2000, and the Prince of Asturias Chair at Tufts University (2005-9). He is on editorial boards for the History of Cartography for the University of Chicago Press, Studies in Overseas History (Leiden University), Comparative Studies in Society and History, Journeys, and Journal of Global History. Recent awards include the World History Association Book Prize (2007), Spain’s Premio Nacional de GastronomIa (2005, for his work on the history of food), the Premio Nacional de Investigaci�n (Sociedad Geogr�fica Espa�ola, 2004). He has had many distinguished visiting appointments, including a Fellowship of the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and a Union Pacific Visiting Professorship at the University of Minnesota. He won the Caird Medal of the National Maritime Museum in 1995 and the John Carter Brown Medal in 1999 and has honorary doctorates from La Trobe University and the Universidad de los Andes. He has served on the Council of the Hakluyt Society, on the Committee of English PEN, and as Chairman of the PEN Literary Foundation. His work in journalism includes regular columns in the British and Spanish press, and, among many contributions to broadcasting, he is the longest-serving presenter of BBC radio’s flagship current affairs program, Analysis. He has been short-listed for the most valuable literary prize in the U.K.

Review:

Praise for The World

“Those students who read The World with the care it deserves will not only gain a rich appreciation of the astonishing trajectory of our species and the biosphere that nourished us; they will also find themselves thinking deeply about issues likely to dominate the global politics of the next few decades.”

David Christian, The Journal of Global History

“No other text does as good a job as The World in giving students an understanding of global connections, and providing them with a solid framework to compare the cultural, political and social histories of different civilizations, societies and states.”

Steve Ortega, Simmons College

My students sound Fern�ndez-Armesto’s style readable and entertaining. Several noted that it was unlike any history textbook they had ever seen. The color maps and photos are excellent, and the story at the beginning of each chapter helped draw the students into each period.

Matt Hopper, California Polytech State University

“Fern�ndez-Armesto has chosen maps and pictures that stimulate debate and questions, and which also illuminate the topics at hand.”

Chad Ross, East Carolina University

“The World’s seamless integration of social, cultural, political, economic, and geographic considerations allows for flexible pedagogy and the course emphasis to shift and unfold as desired by the instructor.”

Karen Kimball, University of Maine–Machias

“The World not only treats the appropriate issues of a comparative, global approach to world history, it does so in a style that is convincing, clearly structured, and a pleasure to read.”

Donald Abbott, San Diego Mesa College

“The World provides excellent models and examples of how the arts can be integrated into historical investigation by providing and analyzing specific artifacts in their cultural context. Moreover, it integrates nomadic peoples into the larger human experience and demonstrates the variety of human experience other texts neglect. Finally The World includes numerous sources that offer comparative, contemporary views of events and peoples that spark lively classroom discussions.”

Marie Hooper, Oklahoma City University

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