The Essential World History - Softcover

Duiker, William J.; Spielvogel, Jackson J.

3.51

35 ratings by Goodreads

9780495902270: The Essential World History

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0495902276 ISBN 13: 9780495902270

Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing, 2010

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Explore common challenges and experiences that unite the human past and identify key global patterns over time with THE ESSENTIAL WORLD HISTORY, 6e. This brief overview of world history covers political, economic, social, religious, intellectual, cultural, and military history integrated into a chronologically ordered synthesis to help you gain an appreciation and understanding of the distinctive character and development of individual cultures in society. You can use the book's global approach and its emphasis on analytical comparisons between cultures to link events together in a broad comparative and global framework that places the contemporary world in a more meaningful historical context.

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About the Author:

William J. Duiker is liberal arts Professor Emeritus of East Asian studies at The Pennsylvania State University. A former U.S. diplomat with service in Taiwan, South Vietnam, and Washington, D.C., he received his doctorate in Far Eastern history from Georgetown University. At Penn State, he has written extensively on the history of Vietnam and modern China, including the highly acclaimed COMMUNIST ROAD TO POWER IN VIETNAM (revised edition, Westview Press, 1996), which was selected for a Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award in 1982?1983 and 1996?1997. Other books are CHINA AND VIETNAM: THE ROOTS OF CONFLICT (Berkeley, 1987), U.S. CONTAINMENT POLICY AND THE CONFLICT IN INDOCHINA (Stanford, 1995), SACRED WAR: NATIONALISM AND REVOLUTION IN A DIVIDED VIETNAM (McGraw-Hill, 1995), and HO CHI MINH (Hyperion, 2000), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2001. While his research specialization is in the field of nationalism and Asian revolutions, his intellectual interests are considerably more diverse. He has traveled widely and has taught courses on the history of communism and non-Western civilizations at Penn State, where he was awarded a Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the spring of 1996. In 2002 the College of Liberal Arts honored him with an Emeritus Distinction Award.

Jackson J. Spielvogel is Associate Professor Emeritus of History at The Pennsylvania State University. He received his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, where he specialized in Reformation history under Harold J. Grimm. His articles and reviews have appeared in journals such as Moreana, Journal of General Education, Catholic Historical Review, Archiv f�r Reformationsgeschichte, and American Historical Review. He also has contributed chapters or articles to THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION, THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE: A DICTIONARY HANDBOOK, the SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER ANNUAL OF HOLOCAUST STUDIES, and UTOPIAN STUDIES. His work has been supported by fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation and the Foundation for Reformation Research. At Penn State, he helped inaugurate the Western Civilization course, as well as a popular course on Nazi Germany. His book HITLER AND NAZI GERMANY was published in 1987 (7th Edition, 2014). He is the author of WESTERN CIVILIZATION, first published in 1991 (9th Edition, 2015), and the coauthor (with William Duiker) of WORLD HISTORY, first published in 1994 (8th Edition, 2016). Professor Spielvogel has won five major university-wide teaching awards. During the year 1988?1989, he held the Penn State Teaching Fellowship, the university's most prestigious teaching award. In 1996, he won the Dean Arthur Ray Warnock Award for Outstanding Faculty member, and in 2000 received the Schreyer Honors College Excellence in Teaching Award.

Review:

"The book's preface and "Themes for Understanding World History" clearly lay out the authors' vision, and the authors implement it brilliantly. Duiker and Spielvogel are to be commended for their concise, crisp style and their honest interpretation of evidence. ... Duiker and Spielvogel have an innovative and original approach to world history, and the way they portray the gradual shift from isolated societies to a global society works extremely well."

"The author's approach is consistent throughout the text, and they have achieved their stated goal of adopting a 'global approach to world history while at the same time attempting to do justice to the distinctive character and development of individual civilizations and regions of the world.'"

"I like the book, it has a clear vision of the progress of world history and the combination of text, documents and illustrations is good. The up to date appearance of the later chapters is especially good. In fact, I haven't seen some of the documents and or text in other texts."

"In looking through the text, it's clear that the authors and publishers went all-out to give students as broad an exposure to the world as they possibly could, to present the material attractively, and to provide a wide array of useful study aids and supplementary material. I am particularly impressed by the unusually large amount of space devoted to non-Western subjects, particularly as compared with other texts (as above) with which I am familiar. ... This particular text comes as close to my ideal as any I have encountered, so I most likely will seriously consider adopting it when a new edition comes out."

"I was impressed by the way the text had been slimmed down. If we could work out a three-semester split, the slimmed own version would give us the ability to use more outside readings, something we like to do. The primary source documents are quite relevant to the text in this edition and I liked them."

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