Professional historians consider history to be the kingof disciplines. Synthesizing the concepts of fellow socialscientists in economics, politics, anthropology, sociology,and geography, historians create a more integrated andcomprehensive interpretation of the past. Joining withtheir colleagues in the humanities, historians delight inhearing and telling exciting stories that recall heroes andvillains, the low born and the high, the wisdom and thefolly of days gone by. This fusion of all the social sciencesand humanities gives the study of history its range,depth, significance, and pleasure. Training in historicalthinking provides an excellent introduction to under-standing change and continuity in our own day as wellas in the past.

Why World History?

Why specifically world history? Why should we teachand study world history, and what should be the contentof such a course?

First, world history is a good place to begin for it is a new field for professor and student alike. Neither its content nor its pedagogy is yet fixed. Many of the existing textbooks on the market still have their origins in the study of Western Europe, with segments added to cover the rest of the world. World history as the study of the inter-relationships of all regions of the world, seen from the many perspectives of the different peoples of the earth, is stillvirgin territory.

Second, for citizens of multicultural, multiethnicnations such as the United States, Canada, South Africa,and India, and for those of the many other countries suchas the United Kingdom and Australia which are movingin that direction, a world history course offers the opportunity to gain an appreciation of the national and cultural origins of all their diverse citizens. In this way,the study of world history may help to strengthen thebonds of national citizenship.

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Why History?

The professional historian and the student of an intro-ductory course often seem to pass each other on differenttracks. For the professional, nothing is more fascinatingthan history. For the student, particularly one in a com-pulsory course, the whole enterprise often seems a bore.This introductory text is designed to help the studentunderstand and share the fascination of the historian. Itwill also remind professors of their original attraction tohistory, before they began the specialization that hasalmost certainly marked their later careers. Furthermore,it encourages student and professor to explore togetherthe history of the world and the significance of this study.

Professional historians love their field for manyreasons. History offers perspective and guidance informing a personal view of human development. Itteaches the necessity of seeing many sides of issues. Itexplores the complexity and interrelationship of eventsand makes possible the search for patterns and meaningin human life.

Historians also love to debate. They love the challengeof demonstrating that their interpretations of the patternand significance of events are the most accurate and the most satisfying in their fit between the available data and theory. Historians also love the detective workof the profession, whether it is searching through old archives, uncovering and using new sources of information, or reinterpreting long-ignored sources. Inrecent years historians have turned, for example, to oral history, old church records, files of photographs,cave paintings, individual census records, and reinter-pretations of mythology.

Historical records are not simply lists of events,however. They are the means by which historiansdevelop their interpretations of those events. Becauseinterpretations differ, there is no single historical record,but various narrations of events each told from a differ-ent perspective. Therefore the study of history is inti-mately linked to the study of values, the values of thehistorical actors, the historians who have written aboutthem, and of the students engaged in learning about them.

Content Changes

Within each Part, materials have been updated, revised,and added. Examples of some of the more notablechanges and additions include: A discussion of thefossils of early hominids discovered in Chad; additionalmaterials on early urbanization in India and Africa; newevaluations of the decline of the Roman Empire; con-sideration of the Gnostic gospels and their significance inunderstanding early Christianity; the assimilation ofIslam into African empires in the tenth through the fifteenth centuries. The third edition Part Five, on worldtrade, and Part Six, on migration and demography, havebeen restructured. Part Five is now a single unit on themovement of goods, ideas, and people, while Part Six isdevoted to social revolutions. The Scientific Revolutionof the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuriesgets more coverage. The Industrial Revolution has beenplaced into a wider context, more clearly setting thestage for the events that began to unfold in the late eigh-teenth century around the world. As noted, the twentiethcentury is now given expanded coverage, and dividedinto two chronological periods, each with its own theme.Throughout the book increased prominence has beengiven to issues of gender, and every chapter now endswith a What Difference Does It Make? section.

In updating the book to cover the events of contempo-rary history, new materials have been added to reflectnew developments. These include: breakthroughs inapplications of genetic information; new interpretationsof the significance of gender; rapidly increasing urbanization; China’s return to world power status; theincrease in religious militancy; globalization in economics and culture; increasing sub-nationalism,guerrilla warfare, and numbers of refugees; and the continuous elaboration of the World Wide Web as ameans of communication, and containerization as ameans of transportation.

Chapter-by-Chapter Revisions

Chapter One, on human origins, has been arranged toclarify chronology, eliminate repetition, and make theinformation clearer for students. A new opener intro-duces the subject of the chapter, and the sections onHomo erectus, African palaeontology, and the earliesthuman culture have been updated.

Chapter Two includes an updated section on Achieve-ments in Literature and Law.

Preface Third, as the entire world becomes a single unit forinteraction, it becomes an increasingly appropriatesubject for historical study. The new reality of globalinteraction in communication, business, politics, reli-gion, culture, and ecology has helped to generate thenew academic subject of world history.

Organization and Approach

The text, like the year-long course, links chronology,themes, and geography in eight units, or Parts, of study.The Parts move progressively along a time line from theemergence of early humans to the present day. Each Partemphasizes a single theme—for example, urbanizationor religion or migration—and students learn to use themall to analyze historical events and to develop a grasp ofthe chronology of human development. The finalchapter employs all the themes developed in the firstseven Parts as tools for understanding the history of ourown times. Geographically, each Part covers the entireglobe, although specific topics place greater emphasis onspecific regions.

New to the Fourth Edition

Every aspect of the book’s program has been exhaustivelyreviewed and revised for this new edition. The lasttwelve chapters have been reorganized for clarity andreadability and in response to reviewer comments, andthe final two chapters dealing with the modern worldhave been extensively reorganized and rewritten.

Chapters One and Five now open with introductionsbefore the first heading, making all chapters consistent in this edition. Excessive details have been trimmed and many headings reorganized for greater clarity andconsistency. Where discussions continued from onechapter to another in the third edition, they have nowbeen consolidated: for example, the Cold War is now discussed in one chapter only, rather than in three; theSoviet Union, too, is addressed in just one chapter.

The pedagogical features were carefully examined, anda completely new and more colorful design makes it easyfor students to find Key Topics, Glossary words andspecial features, such as the “How Do We Know?” boxes.The author has rewritten several Part openers as bridgesfrom one section to the next. Two new How Do WeKnow? boxes based on the works of art help studentslearn the skills to make the most of the many illustrationsin the book.

¶PREFACE

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Chapter Twenty, now subtitled To Hell and Back, has anew introduction. It contains an expanded discussion offascism and ultra-nationalism, and improved discussion of the governments in Italy, Germany, andJapan, with clearer distinctions between the shiftingnation states in this period. The material on World War IIhas been divided for clarity. There is a new section titled“Remembering the War,” discussing the long-term aftermath of World War II and how different countrieshave recognized, and memorialized, problematic eventsin their history.

Chapter Twenty-one has a new introduction. The entireexamination of the Cold War is now located in thischapter, and it has been rewritten to more clearly demon-strate the relationship between Cold War maneuveringsand the politics of newly independent states. The chapteris now in clearer chronological order within each subsec-tion. A new section entitled “1968: Revolt AgainstAuthority,” surveys the protest movements of thisperiod around the world. Finally, the discussion of thecollapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold Warhas been moved here from later in the book.

Chapter Twenty-two shows an improved structure and chronology. There is additional material on the positionof women in Chinese society and on the Indian strugglefor independence.

Part Eight is entirely restructured to explore the applicability of the historical themes we have studied tothe understanding of contemporary history, the events through which we ourselves are living. The last two chapters revisit the seven themes. Historiansalways claim that a knowledge of the past is useful,indispensable, to understanding the present. The rewritten Part Eight tests that belief. It demonstratesways in which the seven themes developed so far can be used to understand more clearly trends in the contemporary world, from cloning, to the globalizationof economics and culture, to the significance of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, to the election of America’s firstAfrican-American president. The chapters revisit theseven themes of the book: In Chapter Twenty-three, evolution, settlements, politics, and religion; and inChapter Twenty-four, trade, revolution, and technology,plus an additional theme, identity. The chapters areupdated to the present—including the election of Barack Obama—and they encompass new material onglobalization; a new section on gender; a discussion ofmicro-finance; and new material on refugees and global culture.

Special Features

This edition retains all the pedagogical features of theprevious edition, highlighted in a new design to makeeach feature clearly identifiable immediately. The KeyTopics at the beginning of each chapter are now placed ina shaded box in the margin, rather than under the maintitle. The questions at the end of each chapter are nowcalled Asking Questions, to encourage students to consider their own reading as well as the author’s. KeyTerms are also highlighted in boxes to make them easy topick out and distinguish from picture or map captions,and there is a summary of each chapter’s Key Terms atthe end of the chapter. Each of these features is designedto make the text more accessible to students. Collectively,these materials provide a rich, comprehensive, and challenging introduction to the study of world historyand the methods and key interpretations of its historians.

● The Introduction to the book describes the key themesof the text and the methods historians use to practicetheir craft.

● The introduction to each of the eight Parts now includesmore specific key references to the chapters that follow.

● Each chapter beginswith a list of Key Topicsthat provide an overviewof the chapter.

● Key Terms in each chapter are set in bold face in thetext, with a fuller definition given in the margin. The KeyTerms are listed at the end of each chapter for easy refer-ence, and collected in the Glossary at the end of the book.

Chapter Five, on early empires, has been thoroughlyreorganized and revised for clarity and chronology; newchapter and section introductions have been written; and much internal repetition has been eliminated. Anew How Do We Know? box, “Gender Relations inAncient Greece: Voices from the Vases,” adds a feministperspective on male–female relationships as presentedthrough art. The sections on Egyptian art, the Greekpolis, and the Peloponnesian War have been expanded.

Chapter Six, on Rome, has been completely revised andrestructured to clarify chronology and generally makethe text read more clearly. A new section on Roman engineering has been added.

Chapter Nine contains a new How Do We Know? box on“The Buddha Imagined in Art,” which examines thedevelopment of Buddhist philosophy through represen-tations of the Buddha and scenes from his life.

Chapter Eleven ends with a rewritten Turning Point onReligion and Trade. This presents a smooth transitionfrom the life with religion at its core to the increasingimportance of trade in ordinary people’s lives. The textgoes into more detail about the various religions’ attitudes to trade, making a natural progression fromPart Four to Part Five.

Part Five is retitled “Global Trade: The Beginning of theModern World.” The introduction to this section hasbeen expanded and rewritten to give more attention tothe traders and navigators who went before Columbus,in enlarging global trade.

Chapter Twelve now begins in 1300, rather than 1100, toaccord with many adopters’ preferences. This makes abetter starting point for the modern world, for those students who are only studying Volume Two. Trade withChina now has its own section, rather than beingincluded in the general discussions of Asian trade, andthe section on Indian Ocean trade has been reorganizedto incorporate a discussion of Arab traders.

Chapter Thirteen has been thoroughly revised, and isnow called “The Opening of the Atlantic and thePacific,” better to connect the major regions of the world.There is a new How Do We Know? box, “EurocentricHistory?”, to introduce and analyze this idea. The sections on European exploration have been combinedfor clarity. The Renaissance is now treated in a single,unified section with all the relevant material under oneheading. There is more material on towns, trading, and

economic changes in Europe at that time, to put theRenaissance into context, and there is also a new sectionon “Economic and Social Changes in Europe.”

Chapter Fourteen has been completely revised. There is a new chapter opener, and the text now includes astronger introduction to the notions of capitalism andmercantilism. At the end of the chapter, the material ontrade systems in Asia and elsewhere has been unifiedunder one heading, including a revised section on“Russia’s Empire under Peter the Great,” with a newmap covering all of Russia.

Chapter Fifteen now includes a new section on Russianexpansion into Siberia, and the material on African slavetrade has been expanded.

Chapter Sixteen has been entirely reorganized to makethe material chronological and to create a more fluentstructure of sections and headings. There is now a dedicated section on the Scientific Revolution, while theEnlightenment material has been unified. The discussionof Hobbes and Locke now serves as a preliminary toEngland’s civil war and revolution. The sections on South America have been completely reorganized tomake clear their role in world revolution.

Chapter Seventeen now contains a unified treatment ofMarx and Engels in just one section. The structure of thechapter has been reorganized to consolidate discussionsof both labor reform and voting reform into their ownsections. In addition, the emphasis has shifted slightlyaway from the U.S. and Britain to labor movements inthe rest of Europe and worldwide.

Chapter Eighteen has a new chapter introduction andclarified, improved definitions of nationalism and imperialism, the chapter’s main theme. In particular, thesections on African nationalism have been reorganized,with Islamic revival now given due emphasis in thatsection, and the sections on European powers in Chinaand Southeast Asia rewritten. The Turning Point afterthis chapter, on “The Olympics and International Politics,” has been updated to include the 2008 BeijingGames.

Chapter Nineteen has been reorganized to eliminate repetition and to make it easier for students to follow.New chapter and section openers offer moreanalysis and discussion, with fewer details. The sectionon Technology in the Twentieth Century has been substantially revised.

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KEY TOPICS● Human Origins in

Myth and History● Fossils and Fossil

Hunters● Humans Create Culture● The Story of Prehistory:

What Difference DoesIt Make?

KEY TERM

umma The community ofbelievers in Islam, whichtranscends ethnic and political boundaries.

● Each chapter text ends with a discussion of legacies tothe future, namely, What Difference Does It Make?

● Each chapter concludes with Asking Questions to help students to re-examine the material. The questions arealso useful for classroom debates and could serve asessay topics.

New Layout and Design

Readers will notice a brighter, clearer design. There’sadded color to engage the interest, and a clearer distinc-tion between the various types of box and charts, plus aslightly squarer, more compact page size that is easier tohandle. In the Source boxes, colored type has been usedto mark the difference between the text of the historicalsource and the author’s discussion of it.

Maps and Illustrations

To aid the student, extensive, clear, and informativecharts and maps represent information graphically andgeographically. There are more than 20 new andamended maps in this edition, some quite innovative,such as a map of greenhouse gas emissions. A widerange of illustrations, most in color, supplement thewritten word. For the fourth edition we have addedmore than 80 new illustrations.

Support Materials for Instructorsand Students The World’s History comes with an extensive package ofsupplementary print and multimedia materials for bothinstructors and students, many of which are availablefree to qualified adopters.

MyHistoryLab (www.myhistorylab.com) MyHistory-Lab provides students with an online package completewith the electronic textbook and numerous study aids.With several hundred primary sources, many of whichare assignable and link to a gradebook, pre- and post-tests that link to a gradebook and result in individual-

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ized study plans, videos, and images, as well as mapactivities with gradable quizzes, the site offers students a unique, interactive experience that brings history tolife. The comprehensive site also includes a HistoryBookshelf with 100 of the most commonly assignedbooks in history classes, and a History Toolkit with tutorials and helpful links. Other features include gradable assignments and chapter review materials, aswell as a Test Item File.

Instructor’s Manual/Test Item File The Instructor’sManual contains chapter summaries, key points andvital concepts, and information on audiovisual resourcesthat can be used in developing and preparing lecturepresentations. The Test Item File includes over 1,500multiple-choice, matching, true/false, and essay testquestions. Available for download from the Instructor’sResource Center.

MyTest MyTest is a browser-based test managementprogram. The program allows instructors to select itemsfrom the Test Item File in order to create tests. It alsoallows for online testing.

The Instructor’s Resource Center (www.pearsonhighered.com) Text-specific materials, such as theinstructor’s manual/test item file, are available fordownload by adopters.

Digital Transparency Masters provide instructors withfull color PDFs of all the maps, charts, and graphs in thetext for use in the classroom. These PDFs can be printedto acetate for use with overhead projectors. Available fordownload from the Instructor’s Resource Center.

PowerPoint Presentations include key points and termsfor a lecture on the chapter, as well as full-color slides ofselected important maps, graphs, and charts within aparticular chapter. The presentations are available fordownload from the Instructor’s Resource Center.

Popular Valuepacks for The World’s History

Titles from the renowned Penguin Classicsseries can be bundled with The World’s Historyfor a nominal charge. Please contact yourPearson Arts and Sciences sales representa-tive for details.

● Turning Point essays, some completely new for thisedition, illustrate visually the connections between onepart and the next. In some cases, the Turning Points telltheir own story as well, notably in the bridge into thetwenty-first century that uses the modern OlympicGames to illustrate and introduce many of the issues thatare to follow. Turning Point Questions ask students toconsider the material that has been presented.

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● The How Do We Know? features have been placed inorange boxes. They help the student understand theprocess of how historians use evidence, both textual andvisual, to interpret the past.

● This edition also continues the emphasis on the use ofprimary sources, for these are the kinds of materials fromwhich the historical record is argued and fashioned. Theoriginal source material is presented in black text withthe author’s commentary in blue. Most chapters havetwo or more orange Source boxes.

● The Suggested Readings for each chapter have beenthoroughly revised and updated to reflect current scholarship. In addition, each item in the bibliography isnow annotated to direct students with their reading.

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Longfellow, Baylor University; Maxim Matusevich,Seton Hall University; Louis M. McDermott, CaliforniaMaritime Academy.

The author and publisher would like to thank Philip J.Ethington for supplying the map on p. 815.

About the Author

Howard Spodek received his B.A. degree from ColumbiaUniversity (1963), majoring in history and specializing inColumbia’s newly designed program in Asian Studies.He received his M.A. (1966) and Ph.D. (1972) from theUniversity of Chicago, majoring in history and specializ-ing in India. His first trip to India was on a Fulbright Fellowship, 1964–66, and he has spent a total of someseven years studying and teaching in India. He has alsotraveled widely throughout the United States, LatinAmerica, Asia, Africa, and Europe. He has been a facultymember at Temple University since 1972, appointed FullProfessor in 1984. He was awarded Temple’s GreatTeacher award in 1993.

Spodek’s work in world history began in 1988 whenhe became Academic Director of a comprehensive, innovative program working with teachers in the SchoolDistrict of Philadelphia to improve their knowledge basein world history and facilitate a rewriting of the worldhistory program in the schools. Immediately followingthis program, he became principal investigator of aprogram that brought college professors and high schoolteachers together to reconsider, revise, and, in manycases, initiate the teaching of world history in several ofthe colleges and universities in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Those projects led directly to thewriting of the first edition of the current text (1997).

Howard Spodek has published extensively on urban-ization in India, including Urban-Rural Integration inRegional Development (1976); Urban Form and Meaning inSouth-East Asia (editor, with Doris Srinivasan, 1993); anda wide array of articles, including analyses of workingwomen’s organizations. In addition he wrote and produced the documentary film, Ahmedabad (1983). Hehas written on his experiences with world history facultyat the college and high school levels in articles in TheHistory Teacher (1992, 1995). He has received funding forhis research, writing, teaching, and film from Fulbright,the National Endowment for the Humanities, theNational Science Foundation, the American Institute ofIndian Studies, and the Smithsonian Institution.

Connections: Key Themes in WorldHistory. Series Editor Alfred J. Andrea.Concise and tightly focused, the titlesin the popular Connections Series aredesigned to place the latest researchon selected topics of global signifi-cance, such as disease, trade, slavery,exploration, and modernization, into an accessible formatfor students. Available at a 50% discount when bundledwith The World’s History.

Getz/Hoffman/Rodriguez, Exchanges: A Global HistoryReader introduces students to the discipline of worldhistory. Unlike other source collections, Exchanges helpsstudents look beyond strictly delineated regionalism andchronological structures to understand history as a seriesof ongoing debates. Available at a 50% discount whenbundled with The World’s History.

Clark, A Guide to Your HistoryCourse: What Every Student Needsto Know. This concise, spiral-bound guidebook orients to theissues and problems they will facein the history classroom. Availableat a 50% discount when bundledwith The World’s History.

The Prentice Hall Atlas of World History,Second Edition includes over 100 full-color maps in world history, drawn by

Dorling Kindersley, one of the world’s most respectedcartographic publishers. Copies of the Atlas can bebundled with The World’s History for a nominal charge.Contact your Pearson Arts and Sciences sales representa-tive for details.

Acknowledgments for the Fourth EditionEach edition, each evolution of the text, brings new,indispensble colleagues who make the enterprise what itcontinues to become. This revision began once again atLaurence King Publishing in London, under the guid-ance of Lee Ripley, moved then to Kara Hattersley-Smith, and then to Clare Double and, under hersupervision, to the illustrators, designers, proofreaders,and other personnel who have added their suggestions,based on a wealth of experience, and kept the project ontask. Freelance editor Margaret Manos of New York andNew Hampshire read the text—old and new—with greatsensitivity and worked wonders in reorganizing, clarify-ing, streamlining, and improving readability. She siftedthrough the many external reviews and focused their keycomments and criticisms into improving the revisionprocess. She frequently sharpened perspectives, espe-cially on issues of feminism and European and Americanhistory. In some important cases she helped selectartwork that added insight and aesthetics to the argu-ments of the book. At Pearson, Charles Cavaliere contin-ued to exercise the quiet, overarching supervision of theentire project, with his enduring concern for accuracyand elegance of presentation, integrity of perspective,and marketability of the final product.

Kara Hattersley-Smith, Editorial Manager, assures methat this transoceanic venture has proceeded smoothly,aided by Clare Double, Senior Editor, Ian Hunt,Designer, and Claire Gouldstone, Picture Researcher.Without them, there would be no fourth edition, and I am grateful for their patient and firm guidance andwise diplomacy.

I have also benefited immensely from the kindness of the many students (especially my own students at Temple University), colleagues, and teachers who have used this book and took time to share with metheir advice and suggestions. I thank them all and hopethat they will see the benefits of their good counsel inthis edition.

One element that has not changed in this new editionis the mental image I keep before me of my own children—albeit at a younger age, since by now theirknowledge in so many fields surpasses my own—and ofmy students. I write for them.

Grateful acknowledgments are also extended to thefollowing reviewers of the fourth edition: Jeff Burson,Macon State College; Nupur Chaudhuri, Texas SouthernUniversity; Peter Dykema, Arkansas Tech University;Nancy Fitch, California State University; David L.

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Howard Spodek

Themes and Turning Points

Most readers of this textbook have probably not takenmany courses in history. Few are (thus far) planning tomajor in history, much less become professional histori-ans. A lot therefore rides on this single text. It mustpresent a general introduction to world history thatinterests, engages, and even fascinates the readerthrough its subject matter, its narrative, and its analysis.It must open the eyes, minds, and hearts of students whocome to this course believing that history is only aboutthe past, and mostly a matter of learning names, dates,and places. It must introduce them to the methods and“habits of mind” of the historian. It must demonstratehow knowledge of the contents and methods of worldhistory—and of this book in particular—will broadentheir horizons and also have practical usefulness.

“Usefulness” is not always associated with the studyof history. Indeed, in everyday conversation, the phrase“that’s history” means that an event is no longer signifi-cant. It may once have been important, but it is not now.From this point of view, “history” is a record of peopleand events that are dead and gone. For the historian,however, the opposite is true. The past has made us whowe are, and continues to influence who we are becoming.In this sense, the past is not dead, just as people whomwe have known personally and who have influenced ourlives are not “dead,” even though they may no longer bewith us. This text will highlight ways in which the pastcontinues to have profound effects on the present andfuture. It will help us understand who we have become.

History does not provide specific answers to today’sproblems, but it does provide examples and case studies

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Introduction:The World Through Historians’ Eyes

Learning about silkworms, from a book on the silk industry(gouache on paper). Chinese school, nineteenth century. Thispainting suggests some of the concerns of modern world history that have previously received less attention: Non-Western regionspresented in their own right, and not only in their relationship to theWest; daily activities and ordinary people; the human conditions ofproduction and trade; the activities of women. Also, the use of art andillustration is a powerful tool in our becoming acquainted with thepeoples of the world throughout time.

that help us improve our thinking. Generals study pastwars to understand how modern battles may be fought;economists study past periods of growth and recessionto understand how we can encourage the former andavoid the latter. Understanding the ways in which fami-lies and relationships have functioned in the past helpsus find ways to make our own families and relationshipsmore satisfying today.

World history gives us the largest possible canvas onwhich to carry out these studies. We cannot, however,study everything that ever happened. We must choosewhat to include and what to exclude. We must choosestrategies that maximize our ability to understand ourlives today in the context of the whole range of humanexperience.

In this text we choose two fundamental organizingprinciples as our framework for the study and teachingof world history. First, we choose a series of eightchronological turning points, each of which changed thepatterns of human life. Second, we explain the impor-tance of each of these changes in terms of the new themesthey introduced into human experience. These two elements—chronological turning points and interpretivethemes—go together.

This text is organized around seven turning pointsand themes. Others might also have been chosen, butthese turning points represent some of the most importanttransformations in human life. The thematic analysis ofthese turning points encourages students to grapple withthe origins and continuing presence of eight of the mostsignificant themes in life: the biological and culturalqualities that make humans the special creatures that weare; the settlements we create and live in; the politicalpower that we assemble and sometimes oppose; the religious systems through which many people findmeaning in their individual lives and communities; themovement of trade and people that has linked thepeoples of the world ever more closely, sometimes incooperation, sometimes in competition, and sometimesin conflict; the political, industrial, and social revolutions,especially of the seventeenth through the twentieth cen-turies; the continuing technological developments that

INTRODUCTION: THE WORLD THROUGH HISTORIANS’ EYESINTRODUCTION: THE WORLD THROUGH HISTORIANS’ EYES

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world, the reader will become accustomed to posinghypotheses based on general principles and to testingthem against comparative data from around the world.

This method of moving back and forth betweengeneral theory and specific case study, testing the degreeto which the general theory and the specific data fit eachother, is at the heart of the social sciences. For example,in Part Two we will explore the general characteristics ofcities, and then examine how well the generalizationshold up through case studies of various cities around theworld. In Part Three we will seek general theories of therise and fall of early empires based on comparisons ofChina, Rome, and India. In Part Four we will search forcommonalities among religious systems through a surveyof five world religions. In Part Eight we begin with ananalysis of new issues of political and cultural identityand then examine their significance in a series of briefcase studies in different regions of the world. These com-parisons enable us more clearly to think about and tounderstand the workings of cities, empires, and religionsnot only of the past, but also of our own time and place.

Multiple Perspectives

The text highlights the importance of multiple perspec-tives in studying and interpreting history. The answerswe get—the narrative histories we write—are based onthe questions we ask. Each part suggests a variety ofquestions that can be asked about the historical event thatis being studied and a variety of interpretations that canemerge in the process of answering them. Often there ismore than one “correct” way of understanding changeover time and its significance. Different questions willtrigger very different research and very differentanswers. For example, in Part Five we ask about thestages and processes by which Western commercialpower began to surpass that of Asia. This question pre-supposes the fact that at earlier times Asian power hadbeen superior and raises the additional questions why itdeclined and why European power advanced. In Part Sixwe ask how the Industrial Revolution affected andchanged relationships between men and women; thisquestion will yield different research and a different nar-rative from questions about, for example, women’s con-tributions to industrialization, which is a usefulquestion, but a different one.

Through the systematic study of the past in this the-matic, comparative framework, students will gain toolsfor understanding and making their own place in theworld. They will not only learn how the peoples of theworld have gotten to where we are, but also consider thepossibility of setting out in new directions for new goals.

continue to reshape our world; and the quest for personaland group identity, so prevalent in our own times.

Because real life does not fit neatly into exact chrono-logical periods, there will be significant overlap amongthe turning points. Readers may argue that the themesare also not limited to single chronological periods. Forexample, political regimes, religious systems, and eco-nomic organizations appear at all times in history. Thisargument is, of course, correct: “Everything is related toeverything else,” and in reality each chronological periodwill include several themes. We have chosen, however,to highlight particular themes in particular historicalperiods so that students will understand these themesmore thoroughly and learn to employ them as tools ofanalysis in forming their own understanding of our world.

Chronological Turning Points andPart Themes

PART ONE. The emergence of the first humans.Biological and early cultural evolution, to 10,000 B.C.E.THEME: Historians and anthropologists search for andinterpret artifacts and records to determine what ishuman about humans.

Turning Point: The Agricultural Village. PART TWO. Creating settlements, first agriculturalvillages and, later, cities. 10,000 B.C.E. to 1000 C.E.THEME: Settlements—villages, towns, and cities—arecreated to meet community needs.

Turning Point: From City-state to Empire. PART THREE. The creation of early empires, 2000 B.C.E.to 1100 C.E., from Sargon of Assyria through Alexanderthe Great, Qin and Han China, Republican and ImperialRome, and India of the Mauryas and Guptas.THEME: Imperial political power is generated,increased, consolidated, and resisted.

Turning Point: Politics and Religion. PART FOUR. The creation and diffusion of globalreligions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, andBuddhism. 2500 B.C.E. to 1500 C.E.THEME: Spiritual feelings are mobilized into powerfulreligious systems, some of which attain global scope.

Turning Point: Religion and Trade. PART FIVE. Global movement of goods and people, andthe linking of continents; 1300–1700.THEME: The flows of goods and people are channeled

into global networks, while trade broadened knowledgeand outlooks, changing political structures, too.

Turning Point: Comparisons Across Time. PART SIX. Revolutions, both political and industrial,1640–1914.THEME: Vast, abrupt changes in political and economicsystems create new social values and systems affectingindividuals, families, and communities.

Turning Point: The Olympics and International Politics. PART SEVEN. Technological change and its humancontrol; 1914–1991.THEME: New technological systems—both simple and complex—are instituted to improve or threatenhuman life.

Turning Point: From Past to Present to Future. PART EIGHT. The application of historical themes to anunderstanding of contemporary history.THEME: A brief review of the seven themes developeduntil now, and an exploration of their applicability tounderstanding our own times, the last 20–30 years.Includes a final consideration of ways in whichindividuals and groups form their own identities in the space between past and present.

Global Scope

The scope of this text, and of each turning point andtheme within it, is global. For example, the study of theIndustrial Revolution in Europe includes its funding—inpart—from the wealth that poured into Europe from itsNew World conquests of people, land, gold, and silver,and from African slave labor; its global extensions in theform of imperialism in Asia, Africa, Australia, and LatinAmerica; and the interactions of colonizers and colonizedin response to the new opportunities and challenges.

Social Science Methods,Comparative History, and the Study of Values

Comparative History and the Methods of theSocial Sciences

The global, interactive, and comparative format of thistext provides also an introduction to social sciencemethodology. The methods of the social sciences areembedded in the structure of the book. Because each partis built on comparisons among different regions of the

Evaluating Values

This form of analysis will also introduce a study ofvalues. In order to understand the choices made bypeople in the past, we must attempt to understand thevalues that informed their thinking and actions. Thesevalues may be similar to, or quite different from, ourown. In order to understand the interpretations intro-duced by later historians, we must understand the histo-rians’ values as well. These, too, may be similar to, ordifferent from, our own. Historians usually had personalperspectives from which they viewed the past, and theseperspectives influenced their interpretations. Finally, inorder for student-readers to form their own understand-ing of the past, and to make it more useful in their ownlives, they must also see how their own values influencetheir evaluation of past events.

For most of the past century, social scientists spoke ofcreating “value free” disciplines. Today, most scholarsbelieve that this is impossible. We cannot be “value free.”On the contrary, we must attempt to understand thevalues that have inspired historical actors, previous his-torians, and ourselves. Coming to an understanding ofthe values of others—historical actors and historianswho have studied them—will help readers to recognizeand formulate their own values, a central part of a liberalarts education.

History and Identity

History is among the most passionate and bitterly con-tentious of disciplines because most people and groupslocate a large part of their identity in their history. Amer-icans may take pride in their nationality, for example, forhaving created a representative, constitutional democ-racy that has endured for over 200 years (see Part Six).Yet they may be saddened, shamed, or perhaps incensedby the existence of 250 years of slavery followed byinequalities in race relations continuing to the present(see Part Five). Christians may take pride in 2,000 yearsof missions of compassion toward the poor and down-trodden, yet they may be saddened, shamed, or evenincensed by an almost equally long record of religiouswarfare and of persecution of those whose beliefs dif-fered from their own (see Part Four).

As various ethnic, religious, class, and gender groupsrepresent themselves in public political life, they seek notonly to understand the history that has made them whatthey are, but also to persuade others to understand thathistory in the same way, to create a new consciousness.Feminist historians, for example, find in their reading of

history that patriarchy, a system of male-created andmale-dominated institutions, has subordinated women.From available data and their interpretation of them,they attempt to weave a persuasive argument that willwin over others to their position.

Some will not be persuaded. They may not even agreethat women have been subordinated to men, but arguethat both genders have shared in a great deal of suffering(and joy) throughout history (see Parts One and Seven).The historical debates over the origins and evolution ofgender relationships evoke strong emotions becausepeople’s self-image, the image of their group, and theperceptions others hold of them are all at stake. And thestakes can be high.

Control of Historical Records

From earliest times, control over the historical recordsand their interpretation has been fundamental to controlover people’s thoughts. The first emperor of China, QinShihuang (r. 221–207 B.C.E.), the man who built theconcept of a united China that has lasted until todayattempted to destroy all knowledge of the past:

He then abolished the ways of ancient sage kings and putto the torch the writings of the Hundred Schools in anattempt to keep the people in ignorance. He demolishedthe walls of major cities and put to death men of fameand talent. (deBary, I: 229).

So wrote Jia Yi (201–168? B.C.E.), poet and statesman ofthe succeeding Han dynasty. Shihuang wished that onlyhis interpretation of China’s past, and his place in it, bepreserved. Later intellectuals condemned his actions—but the lost records were irretrievable (see Part Three).

In similar fashion, the first great historian of the Christian Church, Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260–339) inhis accounts of the early Christians in the RomanEmpire, chose carefully to include elements that he considered of “profit” to his mission, and to excludethose that were not.

It is not for us to describe their miserable vicissitudes [inpersecution] … just as it is not a part of our task to leaveon record their faction-fights and their unnatural conducttowards each other, prior to the persecution. That is whywe have decided to say no more about them than sufficesfor us to justify God’s Judgment … We shall rather setforth in our whole narrative only what may be of profit,first, to our own times, and then to later times. (MacMullen, p. 6).

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established an Index of Prohibited Books to ban writingsit considered heretical. (The Spanish Inquisition, ironi-cally, stored away many records that later scholars usedto recreate its history and the history of those it perse-cuted.) More recently, despite all the evidence of the

Historical Revision

Interpretations of events may become highly contestedand revised even after several centuries have passed.Colonial governments seeking to control subject peoplessometimes argued that the conquered people were sobackward that they benefited from the conquest. Laterhistorians, with more distance and more detachment,were often less kind to the colonizers. Some 1,900 yearsago the historian Tacitus was writing bitterly of theancient Romans in their conquest of England: “Robbery,butchery, rapine, the liars call Empire; they create a des-olation and call it peace.” (Agricola, 30)

In our own era, the many nations that have won theirfreedom from colonialism echo similar resentmentsagainst their foreign rulers and set out to revise the his-torical record in keeping with their newly won politicalfreedom. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister ofindependent India (1947–64), wrote in 1944 from theprison cell in which he had been imprisoned for his lead-ership of his country’s independence movement:

British accounts of India’s history, more especially ofwhat is called the British period, are bitterly resented.History is almost always written by the victors and con-querors and gives their viewpoint; or, at any rate, thevictors’ version is given prominence and holds the field.(Nehru, p. 289)

Philip Curtin, historian of Africa and of slavery, elabo-rates an equally critical view of European colonialaccounts of Africa’s history:

African history was seriously neglected until the 1950s …The colonial period in Africa left an intellectual legacy tobe overcome, just as it had in other parts of the world. …The colonial imprint on historical knowledge emerged inthe nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a falseperspective, a Eurocentric view of world history createdat a time of European domination … Even where Euro-peans never ruled, European knowledge was oftenaccepted as modern knowledge, including aspects of theEurocentric historiography. (Curtin, p. 54)

Instead, Curtin continues, a proper historiography must:

show the African past from an African point of view …For Africans, to know about the past of their own soci-eties is a form of self-knowledge crucial to a sense ofidentity in a diverse and rapidly changing world. Arecovery of African history has been an important part ofAfrican development over recent decades. (p. 54)

Religious and ethnic groups, too, may seek to control historical records. In 1542, the Roman Catholic Church

Holocaust, the murder of six million Jews by the Nazigovernment of Germany during World War II, a fewpeople have claimed that the murders never took place.They deny the existence of such racial and religioushatred and of its consequences, and ignore deep-seated

Lenin addressing troops inSverdlov Square, Moscow, May 5,1920. The leaders of the RussianCommunist revolution crudelyrefashioned the historical record to suit the wishes of the winners.After Lenin’s death in 1924, hissecond-in-command Leon Trotsky(pictured sitting on the podium inthe left-hand picture) lost to JosefStalin the bitter power struggle that ensued. Not only was Trotskybanished from the Soviet Union,but so was his appearance in theofficial archives (see doctoredpicture below).

problems in the relationships between majority andminority populations.

The significance of the voyages of Columbus was oncecelebrated uncritically in the United States in tributeboth to “the Admiral of the Ocean Sea” himself and tothe courage and enterprise of the European explorersand early settlers who brought their civilizations to theAmericas. In South America, however, where NativeAmerican Indians are more numerous and people ofEuropean ancestry often form a smaller proportion of thepopulation, the celebrations have been far more ambiva-lent, muted, and meditative.

In 1992, on the five hundredth anniversary of Colum-bus’ first voyage to the Americas, altogether new andmore sobering elements entered the commemoration cer-emonies, even in the United States. The negative conse-quences of Columbus’ voyages, previously ignored,were now recalled and emphasized: the death of up to 90

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official archives everywhere have 20-, 30-, or 40-yearrules governing the waiting period before certain sensi-tive records are opened to the public. These rules, whichare designed to protect living people and contemporarypolicies from excessive scrutiny, are the general ruleeverywhere.)

What Do We Know? How Do We Know It? What Difference Does It Make?So, historical records are not simply lists of events. Theyare the means by which individuals and groups developtheir interpretations of these events. All people developtheir own interpretations of past events; historians do itprofessionally. Because interpretations differ, there is nosingle historical record, but various narrations of events,each told from a different perspective. Therefore the studyof history is intimately linked to the study of values.

To construct their interpretations, historians examinethe values—the motives, wishes, desires, visions—ofpeople of the past. In interpreting those values, histori-ans must confront and engage their own values, compar-ing and contrasting these values with those of people inthe past. For example, they ask how various peopleviewed slavery, or child labor, or education, or art andmusic in societies of the past. In the back of their mindsthey compare and contrast those older values withvalues held by various people today and especially withtheir own personal values. They ask: How and why havevalues changed or remained the same through thepassage of time? Why, and in what ways, do my valuescompare and contrast with values of the past? By learn-ing to pose such questions, students will be betterequipped to discover and create their own place in thecontinuing movement of human history. This text, there-fore consistently addresses three fundamental questions:

What Do We Know?How Do We Know It?What Difference Does It Make?

Even when historians agree on which events are mostsignificant, they may differ in evaluating why the eventsare significant. One historian’s interpretation of eventsmay be diametrically opposed to another’s. For example,virtually all historians agree that part of the significanceof World War II lay in its new policies and technologiesof destruction: nuclear weapons in battle and genocidebehind the lines. In terms of interpretation, pessimistsmight stress the continuing menace of these legacies of

percent of the Native American Indian population in thecentury after the arrival of Europeans; the Atlantic slavetrade, initiated by trade in Indian slaves; and theexploitation of the natural resources of a continent untilthen little touched by humans. The ecological conse-quences, which are only now beginning to receive moreattention, were not all negative, however. They includedthe fruitful exchange of natural products between thehemispheres. Horses, wheat, and sheep were introducedto the Americas; potatoes, tomatoes, and corn to Afro-Eurasia. Unfortunately, the spread of syphilis was one ofthe consequences of the exchange; scholars disagree onwho transmitted this disease to whom (see Part Five).

Thugs sometimes gain control of national histories.George Orwell’s satirical novel Animal Farm (publishedin 1945) presented an allegory in which pigs come to rulea farm. Among their many acts of domination, the pigsseize control of the historical records of the farm animals’failed experiment in equality and impose their own offi-cial interpretation, which justifies their own rule. Therewriting of history and suppression of alternativerecords by the Communist Party of the former SovietUnion between 1917 and 1989 reveals the bitter truthunderlying Orwell’s satire (see Part Seven).

Although the American experience is much different,in the United States, too, records have been suppressed.Scholars are still trying to use the Freedom of Informa-tion Act to pry open sealed diplomatic archives. (Most

terror, while optimists might argue that the very violenceof the war and the Holocaust triggered a search for limitson nuclear arms and greater tolerance for minorities.With each success in nuclear arms limitation and in tol-eration, the optimists seem more persuasive; with eachspread of nuclear weapons and each outbreak of geno-cide, the pessimists seem to win.

The study of history is thus an interpretation of signif-icance as well as an investigation of facts. The signifi-cance of events is determined by their consequences.Sometimes we do not know what the consequences are;or the consequences may not have run their course; orwe may differ in our assessments of the consequences.This play between past events and their current conse-quences is what historian E.H. Carr had in mind in hisfamous description of history as “an unending dialoguebetween the present and the past.” (Carr, p. 30)

Tools

The study of history requires many tools, and this textincludes most of the principal ones:

● Primary sources are accounts that were produced atthe time an event occurred. Those who producedthem were eyewitnesses with direct knowledge ofwhat happened. The core of historical study is anencounter with primary materials, usually docu-ments, but including other artifacts––for example,letters, diaries, newspaper accounts, photographs,and artwork. Every chapter in this text includes repre-sentative primary materials.

● Visual images, a strong feature of this book, comple-ment the written text, offering non-verbal “texts” ofthe time. These are often central pieces of evidence.For example, in Chapter Nine we illustrate the influ-ence of Hinduism and Buddhism in Southeast Asiathrough the temple architecture of the region.

● Maps place events in space and in geographical relationship to one another.

● Chronological timelines situate events in time andsequence.

● Brief charts supply summaries as well as contextualinformation on topics such as religion, science, andtrade.

Indians giving Hernán Cortés a headband, from Diego Duran’sHistoria de las Indias, 1547. Bent on conquest and plunder, thebearded Spaniard Cortés arrived on the Atlantic coast of Mexico in1519. His forces sacked the ancient city of Tenochtitlán, decimatedthe Aztec people and imprisoned their chief, Montezuma, beforeproclaiming the Aztec Empire “New Spain.” By stark contrast, thisbland Spanish watercolor shows local tribesmen respectfully payinghomage to the invader as if he were a god; in ignoring the brutalityexercised in the colonization of South America, the artist is, in effect,“rewriting” history. (Biblioteca National, Madrid )

THE WORLD’S HISTORYFOURTH EDITION

Asking Questions

● Please review the seven themes and turning pointsselected here. From what you already know of worldhistory, do these seem well chosen? Would you selectdifferent or additional themes and turning points foryour account? If so, which ones and why?

● Examine how one of the values in which you believehas come from historical experience, either your ownexperience or that of relatives and friends, or the experience of groups to which you belong.

● When you tell other people about yourself, what“records” from your past do you highlight? Whichones do you leave out of the story, or even conceal?Are there any that you would like to destroy? Can youdestroy them? How does the audience you are speak-ing to affect your choice of “records”?

Suggested Readings

Basic, Comprehensive, Introductory MaterialsCarr, E.H. What Is History? (Harmondsworth, Middlesex:

Penguin Books, 1964). A classic introduction to thestudy of history and historiography from the point ofview of a master.

Tosh, John. The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods, and NewDirections in the Study of Modern History (London:Longman, 4th ed., 2006). Excellent, comprehensiveintroduction to the study of history, with discussionsof many different kinds of historical study, theirmethods and purposes.

Tosh, John, ed. Historians on History: Readings (Harlow,England: Pearson, 2nd ed. 2009). Excellent selection ofbrief extracts from major historians who have givennew direction to the field, mostly practicing in the lasthalf-century.

More Specialized MaterialsBennett, Judith M. “Medieval Women, Modern Women:

Across the Great Divide,” in David Aers, ed., Cultureand History, 1350–1600: Essays on English Communities,Identities, and Writing (New York: Harvester Wheat-

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sheaf, 1992), pp. 147–75. Discusses continuity, in contrast to change, in women’s history.

Curtin, Philip D. “Recent Trends in African Historiogra-phy and Their Contribution to History in General,” inJoseph Ki-Zerbo, ed., General History of Africa, Vol. I:Methodology and African Pre-History (Berkeley: Univer-sity of California Press, 1981), pp. 54–71. An excellentintroduction to this fine series commissioned by theUnited Nations.

Dunn, Ross. The New World History: A Teacher’s Compan-ion (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000). Excellentselections both on what the new world history oughtto be, and what it is as major historians write it.

deBary, William Theodore, et al., comps. Sources ofChinese Tradition, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia Univer-sity Press, 2nd ed., 1999, 2000). The anthology of mate-rials on the subject.

Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). A controversialstudy of patriarchy in ancient Mesopotamia by a distinguished historian of the United States. Lerner retooled to study this fundamental feminist question.

MacMullen, Ramsay. Christianizing the Roman Empire(A.D. 100–400) (New Haven: Yale University Press,1984). Excellent analysis of the factors leading toChristianity’s success in the Roman Empire. Givesmajor role to government support.

Manning, Patrick. Navigating World History: HistoriansCreate a Global Past (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,2003). A major historian presents a magisterial, some-what dense, survey of the field.

Nehru, Jawaharlal. The Discovery of India (Delhi: OxfordUniversity Press, 1989). A history of his country,written in jail during the freedom struggle by the manwho became India’s first prime minister.

Orwell, George. Animal Farm (New York: Harcourt,Brace, 1946). A classic satire on government by thugs;aimed at the USSR.

Tacitus, Cornelius. Tacitus’ Agricola, Germany, and Dia-logue on Orators, trans. Herbert W. Benario (Norman:University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). One of ancientRome’s great historians who understood the crueltyunderlying the power of empire.