The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History - Hardcover

McNeill, John Robert; McNeill, William H.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 039305179X ISBN 13: 9780393051797

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2003

Synopsis

Father and son historians (Georgetown U. and U. of Chicago, emeritus) provide an accessible, synthesizing account of human history, focusing on the webs that have drawn humans together in patterns of interaction and exchange, cooperation and competition, since earliest times. Includes a few b&w maps. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

About this title

About the Author

J. R. McNeill is professor of history in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. His father, William H. McNeill, is emeritus professor of history at the University of Chicago.

Reviews

The spread of agriculture, the growth of world religions and the rise of European civilization to world dominance are some of the themes explored in this engrossing addition to the distinctive McNeill brand of broad-brush macro-history. The motor of history this time is the growing "web" of interactions-weaving together hunter-gatherer bands, then civilizations and finally the whole world-by which people, goods, diseases and ideas spread. As it binds ever more people ever more tightly, the web both brings them into conflict and lets them share and build on each other's achievements; thus Columbus's extension of the web to the Americas led to conquest but also to the exchange of New World potatoes and maize for Old World horses and smallpox. The father-son historian duo also revisit ideas from William's previous books, discussing the co-evolution of humans and microbes, the uneasy symbiosis between warrior elites and the farmers they protect and exploit, and the social solidarity imparted by group singing and dancing. More ecological than humanistic, the McNeill outlook sees conflict and cooperation as twin outcomes of the struggle for survival that drives developments in technology, political organization, social habits and even religious beliefs. This approach can be reductionist (Europe's vibrant civil society is said to spring from its use of mold-board plows); and as impersonal historical meta-agents go, the trendy "web" conceit is less substantive and fertile than other McNeill brainstorms. Still, this concise and beautifully written synthesis brims with revealing insights that make history comprehensible and enthralling. 25 illus., maps.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

J.R. and father William, both history professors, unravel the various webs that have connected humans through time.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 039305179X
• ISBN 13: 9780393051797
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368