West : Encounters and Transformations

The West: Encounters & Transformations takes a new approach to telling the story of Western civilization. Rather than looking at Western civilization only as the history of Europe from ancient times to the present, this groundbreaking book examines the changing nature of the West–how the definition of the West has evolved and has been transformed throughout history. It explores the ways Western civilization has changed as a result of cultural encounters with different beliefs, ideas, technologies, and peoples, both outside the West and within it. Presenting a balanced treatment of political, social, religious, and cultural history, this text emphasizes the ever-shifting boundaries of the geographic and cultural realm of the West.

Brian Levack received his Ph.D. from Yale and is the John Green Regents Professor in History at University of Texas at Austin. The winner of several teaching awards, Levack teaches a wide variety of courses on British and European history, legal history, and the history of witchcraft.  His books include The Civil Lawyers in England, 1603–1641: A Political Study (1973), The Formation of the British State: England, Scotland and the Union, 1603–1707 (1987), The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (3rd edition, 2006), and Witch-Hunting in Scotland: Law, Politics, and Religion (2008).

 

Edward Muir received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University, where he specialized in the Italian Renaissance and did archival research in Venice and Florence, Italy. He is now the Clarence L. Ver Steeg Professor in the Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University and former chair of the history department. At Northwestern he has won several teaching awards. His books include Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice (1981), Mad Blood Stirring: Vendetta in Renaissance Italy (1993 and 1998), Ritual in Early Modern Europe (1997 and 2005), and The Culture Wars of the Late Renaissance: Skeptics, Libertines, and Opera (2007).

 

Meredith Veldman received a Ph.D. in modern European history, with a concentration in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain, from Northwestern University. As an Associate Professor of history and award-winning instructor at Louisiana State University, she teaches courses in nineteenth- and twentieth-century British history and twentieth-century Europe, as well as the second half of “Western Civ.” Veldman is also the author of Fantasy, the Bomb, and the Greening of Britain: Romantic Protest, 1945—1980 (1994).