Synopses & Reviews
The end of the Cold War did not, as some might have hoped, simplify the issues facing world leaders. Civil war, famine, overpopulation, chronic unemployment, and an exploding refugee problem continue to plague the world economy, to the point where we begin to wonder whether national boundaries can contain such crises, or whether the challenges that face the world are beyond the reach of the leaders we have elected. Has the increasing disparity between the haves and the have nots, between the knows and don't knows led to an unbridgeable gap between rich and poor peoples and rich and poor countries?
Overcoming Indifference offers contributions from Nobel Prize winners, statesmen, scholars and university professors, and chief executive officers of major industrial corporations. The contributors include such well-known and disparate thinkers as Elie Wiesel, Samuel P. Huntington, Michael Hammer, and Carl Sagan. Highlighting subjects as diverse as the new information society, methods of creating sufficient employment, the disintegration of previously held value systems, and the maintenance of global security in the post-Cold War world, the contributors, propose the best possible courses of action.
Review
"This remarkable volume challenges political leaders to identify, analyze, and thereby begin to manage the transformations of a new era." -Bill Bradley,United States Senator from New Jersey
Synopsis
While world history materials date back to prehistoric times, the field itself is relatively young. Indeed, when the first edition of Peter Stearns's best-selling
World History in Documents was published in 1998, world history was poised for explosive growth, with the College Board approving the AP world history curriculum in 2000, and the exam shortly thereafter. At the university level, survey world history courses are increasingly required for history majors, and graduate programs in world history are multiplying in the U.S. and overseas.
World events have changed as rapidly as the field of world history itself, making the long-awaited second edition of World History in Documents especially timely. In addition to including a new preface, focusing on current trends in the field, Stearns has updated forty percent of the textbook, paying particular attention to global processes throughout history. The book also covers key events that have altered world history since the publication of the first edition, including terrorism, global consumerism, and environmental issues.
About the Author
Peter N. Stearns is Provost and Professor of History at George Mason University. His publications include The Encyclopedia of World History; Western Civilizations in World History; World Civilizations, Volume II: 1450 to the Present; and World History in Brief: Major Patterns of Change and Continuity.