Personalities & Problems: Interpretive Essays in World Civilization, Volume II

Assuming no previous knowledge of history, Personalities and Problems is a unique collection of original essays about real people whose lives or careers demonstrate solutions to problems of their times. Each chapter focuses on a problem or issue and illustrates it by discussing the lives of two historical figures (actual or near contemporaries of each other) whose careers illustrate the richness and variety of history.

Ken Wolf is Professor of History at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, where he has taught since 1969. He received his B.A. degree from St. Ambrose College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of Notre Dame. Professor Wolf helped design Murray State's World Civilizations course and has taught it since its inception. He also teaches courses in the Development of Historical Thinking. Professor Wolf has published articles on European nationalism, historiography, intellectual history, and the teaching of history in The Journal of the History of Ideas, The International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences-Biographical Supplement, Teaching History, the Illinois Quarterly, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, and the AHA Perspectives. For five years Professor Wolf served as a dean of the Kentucky Governor's Scholars Program, and has recently helped start The Commonwealth Honors Academy at Murray State. He was selected as a Pew Faculty Fellow in International Affairs for 1993-94. He and his wife, Deanna, a social worker, have three children and four grandchildren.