Synopses & Reviews
Developed to meet the demand for a low-cost, high-quality history book, this text is an economically priced version of Western Civilization: The Continuing Experiment, 4/e (© 2005). The Dolphin Edition offers the high level of scholarship and engaging narrative of the full text, while limiting the number of features, images, and maps. Each volume is packaged in a paperback, two-color format that appeals to those seeking a comprehensive, trade-sized history text.Like its full-length counterpart, the Dolphin Edition of Western Civilization stresses the unpredictable and indeterminate nature of history, encompassing the full social and political story of Western Civilization within a wider definition of Europe. The text engages students and encourages them to question why and how history unfolded as it did.
About the Author
After receiving his Ph.D. from Michigan State University, Thomas Noble taught at Albion College, Michigan State University, Texas Tech University, and the University of Virginia. In 1999 he received the University of Virginia's highest award for teaching excellence and in 2008 Notre Dame's Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. In 2011 he received the Charles Sheedy, C.S.C., award for excellence in teaching and scholarship from Notre Dame's College of Arts and Letters. In 2001 he became Robert M. Conway Director of the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame and in 2008 chairperson of Notre Dame's history department. He is the author of Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians, which won the 2011 Otto Gründler Prize, and The Republic of St. Peter: The Birth of the Papal State, 680-825. He has edited six books. He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in 1994 and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in 1999-2000. He has been awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Humanities (three times) and the American Philosophical Society (twice). He was elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 2004. In 2012 he served as president of the American Catholic Historical Association. Professor of history and classics at Cornell University, Barry Strauss holds a Ph.D. from Yale. He has been awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Academy in Rome, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, The MacDowell Colony for the Arts, the Korea Foundation, and the Killam Foundation of Canada. He is the recipient of the Clark Award for excellence in teaching from Cornell. He is Chair of Cornell's Department of History, Director of Cornell's Program on Freedom and Free Societies, and Past Director of Cornell's Peace Studies Program. His many publications include Athens After the Peloponnesian War: Class, Faction, and Policy, 403-386 B.C.; Fathers and Sons in Athens: Ideology and Society in the Era of the Peloponnesian War; The Anatomy of Error: Ancient Military Disasters and Their Lessons for Modern Strategists (with Josiah Ober); Hegemonic Rivalry from Thucydides to the Nuclear Age (coedited with R. New Lebow); War and Democracy: A Comparative Study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War (coedited with David R. McCann); Rowing Against the Current: On Learning to Scull at Forty; The Battle of Salamis, the Naval Encounter That Saved Greece-and Western Civilization; The Trojan War: A New History; The Spartacus War; and Masters of Command: Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar and the Genius of War. His books have been translated into seven languages. His book The Battle of Salamis was named one of the best books of 2004 by the Washington Post. A Fellow of the American Academy in Rome with a Ph.D. in History from the University of California at Davis, Duane Osheim is professor of history at the University of Virginia. He has held fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Philosophical Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Fulbright Program. He is author and editor of A Tuscan Monastery and Its Social World; An Italian Lordship: The Bishopric of Lucca in the Late Middle Ages; Beyond Florence: The Contours of Medieval and Early Modern Italy; and Chronicling History: Chroniclers and Historians in Medieval and Renaissance Italy. After receiving her Ph.D. from Brown University, Kristen Neuschel taught at Denison University and Duke University, where she is currently associate professor of history and Director of the Thompson Writing Program. She is a specialist in early modern French history and is the author of Word of Honor: Interpreting Noble Culture in Sixteenth-Century France and articles on French social history and European women's history. She has received grants from the Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. She has also received the Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award, which is awarded annually on the basis of student nominations for excellence in teaching at Duke. William Cohen (of late) received his Ph.D. from Stanford in 1968. His scholarly research focused on French Urbanization, and he was the author of THE FRENCH ENCOUNTER WITH AFRICANS: WHITE RESPONSES TO BLACKS; EUROPEAN EMPIRE BUILDING; RULERS OF EMPIRE; and ROBER DELAVIGNETTE AND THE FRENCH EMPIRE, as well as numerous articles and reviews.
Table of Contents
1. The Ancestors of the West Origins, to ca. 3000 B.C. Mesopotamia, to ca. 1600 B.C. Egypt, to ca. 1100 B.C. Widening Horizons: The Levant and Anatolia, 2500-1150 B.C. 2. The Sword, the Book, and the Myths: Western Asia and Early Greece Assyrians, Neo-Babylonians, and Persians, ca. 1200-330 B.C. Israel, ca. 1500-400 B.C. Early Greece, to ca. 725 B.C. 3: The Age of the Polis Greece, ca. 750-350 B.C. Society and Politics in Archaic Greece, ca. 750-500 B.C. The Culture of Archaic Greece Classical Greece The Public Culture of Classical Greece 4. Alexander the Great and the Spread of Greek Civilization, ca. 350-30 B.C. Philip and Alexander The Hellenistic Kingdoms, 323-30 B.C. The Alexandrian Moment The Turn Inward: New Philosophies, New Faiths 5. Rome, From Republic to Empire, ca. 509-31 B.C. Before the Republic, 753-509 B.C. Government and Society in the Early and Middle Republics, ca. 509-133 B.C. From Italian City-State to World Empire, ca. 509-133 B.C. The Revolution from the Gracchi to the Caesars, 133-31 B.C. 6. Imperial Rome, 31 B.C.-A.D. 284 Augustus and the Principate, 31 B.C.-A.D. 68 The Roman Peace and Its Collapse, A.D. 69-284 Early Christianity 7. The World of Late Antiquity, 284-ca. 600 Rebuilding the Roman Empire, 284-395 The Catholic Church and the Roman Empire, 313-604 The Rise of Germanic Kingdoms in the West, ca. 370-530 The Roman Empire in the East, 395-565 Society and Culture in Late Antiquity 8. Early Medieval Civilizations, 600-900 The Islamic East The Byzantine Empire Catholic Kingdoms in the West The Carolingian Empire Early Medieval Economies and Societies 9. The Expansion of Europe in the High Middle Ages, 900-1300 Economic Expansion The Heirs of the Carolingian Empire: Germany, Italy, and France The British Isles The Growth of New States The Crusades, 1095-1291 10. Medieval Civilization at Its Height 900-1300 The Traditional Orders of Society Social and Religious Movements, ca. 1100-1300 Latin Culture: From Schools to Universities The Vernacular Achievement 11. Crisis and Recovery in Late Medieval Europe, 1300-1500 The Crisis of the Western Christian Church War and the Struggle over Political Power, 1300-1450 Economy and Society The Consolidation of the Late Medieval Governments, 1450-1500 12. The Renaissance Humanism and Culture in Italy, 1300-1500 The Arts in Italy, 1250-1550 The Spread of the Renaissance, 1350-1536 The Renaissance and Court Society 13. European Overseas Expansion to 1600 The European Background, 1250-1492 Portuguese Voyages of Exploration, 1350-1515 Spanish Voyages of Exploration, 1492-1522 Spain's Colonial Empire, 1492-1600 The Columbian Exchange 14. The Age of the Reformation The Reformation Movements, ca. 1517-1545 The Empire of Charles V (r. 1519-1556) The English Reformation, 1520-1603 France, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe, 1523-1560 The Late Reformation, ca. 1545-1600 15. Europe in the Age of Religious Wars, 1560-1648 Economic Change and Social Tensions Imperial Spain and the Limits of Royal Power Religious and Political Conflict in France and England Religious and Political Conflict in Central and Eastern Europe Writing, Drama, and Art in an Age of Upheaval 16. Europe in the Age of Louis XIV, ca. 1640-1715 France in the Age of Absolutism English Civil War and Its Aftermath New Powers in Central and Eastern Europe The Expansion of Overseas Trade and Settlement 17. A Revolution in World-View The Revolution in Astronomy, 1543-1632 The Scientific Revolution Generalized, ca. 1600-1700 The New Science: Society, Politics, and Religion 18. Europe on the Threshold on Modernity, ca. 1715-1789 The Enlightenment European States in the Age of Enlightenment The Widening Scope of Commerce and Warfare Economic Expansion and Social Change 19. An Age of Revolution, 1789-1815 The Beginnings of Revolution, 1775-1789 The Phases of Revolution, 1789-1799 The Napoleonic Era and the Legacy of Revolution, 1799-1815 20. The Industrial Transformation of Europe, 1750-1850 Setting the Stage for Industrialization Industrialization and European Production The Transformation of Europe and Its Environment Responses to Industrialization 21. Restoration, Reform, and Revolution, 1814-1848 The Search for Stability: The Congress of Vienna, 1814-1815 Ideological Confrontations Restoration, Reform, and Reaction The Revolutions of 1848 22. Nationalism and Political Reform, 1850-1880 The Changing Nature of International Relations Italian Unification, 1859-1870 German Unification, 1850-1871 Precarious Empires The Emergence of New Political Forms in the United States and Canada, 1840-1880 The Development of Western Democracies 23. The Age of Optimism, 1850-1880 Industrial Growth and Acceleration Changing Conditions Among Social Groups Urban Problems and Solutions Social and Political Initiatives Culture in an Age of Optimism 24. Escalating Tensions, 1880-1914 The New Imperialism and the Spread of Europe's Population From Optimism to Anxiety: Politics and Culture Vulnerable Democracies Autocracies in Crisis The Coming War 25. War and Revolution, 1914-1919 The Unforeseen Stalemate, 1914-1917 The Experience of Total War Two Revolutions in Russia: March and November 1917 The New War and the Allied Victory, 1917-1918 The Outcome and the Impact 26. The Illusion of Stability, 1919-1930 The West and the World After the Great War Communism, Fascism, and the New Political Spectrum Toward Mass Society Weimar Germany and the Trials of the New Democracies The Search for Meaning in a Disordered World 27. The Tortured Decade, 1930-1939 The Great Depression The Stalinist Revolution in the Soviet Union Hitler and Nazism in Germany Fascist Challenge and Antifascist Response, 1934-1939 The Coming of World War II, 1935-1939 28. The Era of the Second World War, 1939-1949 The Victory of Nazi Germany, 1939-1941 The Assault on the Soviet Union and the Nazi New Order A Global War, 1941-1944 The Shape of the Allied Victory, 1944-1945 Into the Postwar World 29. An Anxious Stability: The Age of the Cold War, 1949-1989 The Search for Cultural Bearings Prosperity and Democracy in Western Europe The Communist Bloc: From Consolidation to Stagnation Europe, the West, and the World The Collapse of the Soviet System, 1975-1991 30. The West and the World Since 1989 The Uncertain International Framework After the Cold War New Outcomes of the Continuing Democratic Experiment Lifestyles and Identities The West in a Global Age The Uncertain Meaning of the West Conclusion: Learning from Western Civilization in a Global Age