Synopses & Reviews
In an age when so many people only look forward, THE WESTERN EXPERIENCE combines new and traditional approaches to the past that, combined with an interpretive approach, challenge, stimulate, and engage students. The approach of the authors is appealing to those who want students to come away from their course with more than a grasp of the “facts”, but instead wish students to analyze assumptions and use critical thinking skills. To further this goal, the authors not only see their book as a collection of interpretive essays that can serve as an example of historical writing, but they show and exemplify how historians struggle and deal with the past, for instance by discussing various controversies in history such as the Black Athena question.
In addition, while the text presents a chronological survey of the history of Western Civilization, the narrative weaves several recurring themes that are strengthened and highlighted in new ways in this edition. The themes of social structure, the body politic, organization of production and the impact of technology, evolution of the family and changing gender roles, war, religion and cultural expression are laid out at the beginning of each chapter in the form of a color coded grid that the student and instructor will find easy to follow through the narrative.ive.
About the Author
Mortimer Chambers is a Professor of History at the University of California at Los Angeles. He was a Rhodes scholar from 1949 to 1952 and received an M.A. from Wadham College, Oxford, in 1955 after obtaining his doctorate from Harvard University in 1954. He has taught at Harvard University (1954-1955) and the University of Chicago (1955-1958). He was visiting Professor at the University of British Columbia in 1958, the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1971, The University of Freiburg (Germany) in 1974 and Vassar College in 1988. A specialist in Greek and Roman history, he is a co-author of Aristotles History of Athenian Democracy (1962), editor of a series of essays entitled The Fall of Rome (1963), and author of Georg Busolt: His Career in His Letters (1990) and of Staat der Athener, a German translation and commentary to Aristotles Constitution of the Athenians (1990). He has edited Greek texts of the latter work (1986) and of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia (1993). He has contributed articles to the American Historical Review and Classical Philology as well as other journals, both in America and in Europe.Barbara Hanawalt is a professor of history at the University of Minnesota and the author of numerous books and articles on the social and cultural history of The Middle Ages. Her publications include Of Good and Ill Repute: Gender and Social Control in Medieval England (1998), Growing Up in Medieval London: The Experience of Childhood in History (1993), The Ties That Bound: Peasant Life in Medieval England (1986), and Crime and Conflict in English Communities, 1300-1348 (1979). She received her M. A. in 1964 and her Ph.D. in 1970 from the University of Michigan. She has served as president of the Social Science History Association and has been on the Council of the American Historical Association and the Medieval Academy of America. As Director of the Center for Medieval Studies at the University of Minnesota (1990-1997) she edited five volumes on the intersection of history and literature. She was an NEH Fellow (1997-98, a Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation (1988-1989), an ACLS Fellow (1975-1976), and a fellow at the National Humanities Center (1997-1998), a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin (1990-1991), a member of the School of Historical Research at the Institute for Advanced Study (l982-1983), and senior research fellow at the Newberry Library (1979-1980).Theodore K. Rabb is Professor of History at Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton, and subsequently taught as Stanford, Northwestern, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins universities. He is the author of numerous articles and reviews, and has been editor of The Journal of Interdisciplinary History since its foundation. Among his books are The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe and Renaissance Lives. Professor Rabb has held offices in various national organizations, including the American Historical Association and The National Council for Historical Education. He was the principal historian for the PBS series, Renaissance.Isser Woloch is Professor of History at Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. (1965) from Princeton University in the field of eighteenth and nineteenth-century European history. He has taught at Indiana University and at the University of California at Los Angeles where, in 1967, he received a Distinguished Teaching Citation. He has been a fellow of the A.C.L.S., the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. His publications include Jacobin Legacy: The Democratic Movement under the Directory (1970), The Peasantry in the Old Regime: Conditions and Protests (1970), The French Veteran from the Revolution to the Restoration (1979), and Eighteenth-Century Europe: Tradition and Progress, 1715-1789 (1982), and The New Regime: Transformations of the French Civic Order, 1789-1820s (1994).Raymond Grew is Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He earned both his M.A. (1952) and Ph.D. (1957) from Harvard University in the field of modern European history. He was a Fulbright Fellow to Italy (1954-1955), and Fulbright Traveling Fellow to France (1976, 1990), Guggenheim Fellow (1968-1969), Director of Studies at the Écoles des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris (1976, 1987, 1990), and a Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities (1979). In 1962 he received the Chester Highby Prize from the American Historical Association, and in 1963 the Italian government awarded him the Unita dItalia Prize; in 1992 he received the David Pinkney Prize of the Society for French Historical Studies. He is an active member of the A.H.A.; the Society for French Historical Studies; the Society for Italian Historical Studies, of which he has been president; and the Council for European Studies, of which he has twice served as national chair. His books included A Sterner Plan for Italian Unity (1963), edited Crises of Development in Europe and the United States (1978), and with Patrick J. Harrigan, School, State, and Society: The Growth of Elementary Schooling in Nineteenth-Century France (1991); he is also the editor of Comparative Studies in Society and History and its book series. He has also written on global history and is one of the directors of the Global History Group. His articles and reviews have appeared in a number of European and American journals.
Table of Contents
List of Maps XXIIIList of Boxes XXVBooks of Related Interest XXIXPreface XXXIntroduction XXXIX
Chapter 1 The First Civilizations
I. The Earliest Humans Human Beings as Food Gatherers/Human Beings as Food Producers/Early Near Eastern Villages II.The First Civilizations in Mesopotamia The Emergence of Civilization/Sumer/The Babylonian Kingdom/Mesopotamian Culture III.Egypt The Old and Middle Kingdoms/The New Kingdom/A View of Egyptian Society IV. Palestine Canaanites and Phoenicians/Hebrew Society and the Bible/The Jewish Legacy V.*The Early Indo-Europeans The Hittite Kingdom/The Close of the Bronze Age VI. The Near Eastern States The Assyrian State/The Chaldeans and the Medes/The Persian Empire
Chapter 2 The Forming of Greek Civilizations
I.Crete and Early Greece (ca. 3000-1100 B.C.) Cretan Civilization/Crete and the Greeks/Mycenaean Civilization (ca. 1600-1100 B.C.) II.The Greek Renaissance (ca. 800-600 B.C.) Greek Religion/Public Games/Colonization (ca. 750-550 B.C.)/The Alphabet/Archaic Literature III.The Polis Organization and Government/The Economy of the Poleis (ca. 700-400 B.C.)/Sparta and Athens (ca. 700-500 B.C.) IV.The Challenge of Persia The Invasion under Darius and Marathon (490 B.C.)/The Second Persian War (480-479 B.C.)V.The Wars of the Fifth Century (479-404 B.C.) The Athenian Empire/The Age of Pericles/The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.)
Chapter 3 Classical and Hellenistic Greece
I. Classical Greek Culture (ca. 500-323 B.C.) Philosophy/Greek Tragedy/Comedy: Aristophanes/Historical Writing/The Family in Classical Greece II. The Rise of Macedonia Philip II of Macedonia/Alexander the Great III. The Hellenistic Age (323-30 B.C.) The Dissolution of Alexanders Empire/The Economic Life/Literature, Art, and Science/Philosophy and Religion
Chapter 4 The Roman Republic
I. The Unification of Italy (to 264 B.C.) The Geography of Italy/Early Rome/The Struggle of the Orders (494-287 B.C.)/Roman Society in the Republic/Early Expansion of Rome II. The Age of Mediterranean Conquest (264-133 B.C.) The Punic Wars/Expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean/The Nature of Roman ExpansionIII. The Roman Revolution (133-27 B.C.) Social Change and the Gracchi/The Years if the Warlords/The First Triumvirate/The Supremacy of Julius Caesar IV. The End of the Roman Republic The Second Triumvirate/Octavian Triumphant V. The Founding of the Roman Empire Augustus and the Principate/Augustus, the First Roman Emperor
Chapter 5 The Empire and Christianity
I. The Empire at Its HeightThe Successors of Augustus/The Five Good Emperors/Roman Imperial Civilization II. The Period of Crises The Crisis of Leadership/Weaknesses in the Institution of Slavery/The Plight of the PoorIII. The Late Roman Empire Restoration under Diocletian/Constantine and the Bureaucracy/The Decline of the Western Empire IV. Christianity and Its Early RivalsThe Mystery Religions/The Jews in the Roman Empire/Origins of Christianity/Battles within Christianity/The Fathers of the Church
Chapter 6 The Making of Western Europe
I. The New Community of Peoples The Great Migrations/Germanic Society/Germans and Romans II. The New Political Structures The Early Byzantine Empire/Justinian the Great (r. 527-650)/The Frankish Kingdom/Kingship in Italy and Spain/Anglo-Saxon England III. The New Economy, 500-900 Agricultureal Innovations/Trade and Manufacture IV. The Expansion of the Church Origins of the Papacy/Monasticism/Missionaries and Popular Religion/The Church and Classical Learning
Chapter 7 The Empires of the Early Middle Ages (800-1000): Creation and Erosion
I. The Byzantine Empire (623-1071)Strains on the Empire/Byzantine Government/The Two Churches/Byzantine Economy and Society/Byzantine Culture/Decline of the Byzantine Empire II. IslamThe Arabs/Muhammad/The Religion of Islam/Expansion of Islam/Islamic Economy and Society/Islamic Culture/Decline of Medieval Islamic Civilization III. The Carolingian, or Frankish, Empire Charlemagne/Carolingian Government/The Carolingian Renaissance/Carolingian Society and Culture/Decline of the Carolingian Empire IV. The Vikings, Kiev, and England The Vikings/The Kievan Rus Principality/Anglo-Saxon England
Chapter 8 Restoration of an Ordered Society
I. Economic and Social Changes Feudalism/Life of the Nobility/Manorialism/Peasant Life/Expansion of Europe/Commercial Expansion/Rebirth of Urban Life II. Governments of Europe 1000-1150 Norman England/Capetian France/The German Empire III. The Reform of the Western ChurchThe Church in Crisis/Monastic Reform/Papal Reform/Investiture Controversy/Consolidation on Papal Reform IV. The Crusades Origins/The Motives of the Crusaders/The First Crusade/The Kingdom of Jerusalem/The Later Crusades/Military-Religious Orders/Results of the Crusades
Chapter 9 The Flowering of Medieval Civilization
I. Cultural Developments The Rise of Universities/Scholasticism/Spiritual Approaches to Knowledge/Romanesque Architecture/The Gothic Style/Court Culture II. The States of EuropeEngland/France/The Iberian Kingdoms/Germany: The Holy EmpireIII. The ChurchThe Growth of Heresy/The Suppression of Heresy/The Franciscans/Papal Government
Chapter 10 The Urban Economy and the Consolidation of States
I. Cities, Trade, and CommerceUrban Government/The Organization of Crafts/The Guilds/Commercial Institutions/Sea Traffic/Urban LifeII. Monarchies and the Development of Representative InstitutionsEngland and the Development of Parliament/France and the Consolidation of Rule/The Holy Empire and the Fragmentation of RuleIII.Government in the EastThe Byzantine Empire/The Mongols/Muscovite RussiaIV. The Papacy and the ChurchThe Papacy/Lay Religious ObservanceV. Learning and LiteraturePhilosophy/Dante
Chapter 11 Breakdown and Renewal in an Age of Plague
I. Population CatastrophesDemographic Decline/PlagueII. Economic Depression and RecoveryAgricultural Specialization/Protectionism/Technological Advances/The Standard of LivingIII. Popular UnrestRural Revolts/Urban Revolts/The Seeds of DiscontentIV. Challenges of the Governments of EuropeRoots of Political Unrest/The Nobility and Factional Strife/England, France, and the Hundred Years War/The Tides of the Battle/The Effectors of the Hundred Years War/The States of ItalyVI. The Fall of Byzantium and the Ottoman EmpireThe Fall of Constantinople
Chapter 12 Tradition and Change in European Culture, 1300-1500
I. The New LearningThe Founding of Humanism/Humanism in the Fifteenth Century/The Florentine Neoplatonists/The Heritage of the New LearningII. Art and the Artists in the Italian RenaissanceThree Friends/The High Renaissance/Status and PerceptionIII. The Culture of the NorthChivalry and Decay/Contemporary Views of Northern Society/Art and MusicIV. Scholastic Philosophy, Religious Thought, and PietyThe “Modern Way”/Social and Scientific ThoughtV. The State of ChristendomStyles of Piety/Movements of Doctrinal Reform
Chapter 13 Reformations in Religion
I. Piety and DissentDoctrine and Reform/Causes of Discontent/Popular Religion/Piety and Protest in Literature and Art/Christian HumanismII. The Lutheran ReformationThe Conditions for Change/Martin Luther/The Break with Rome/Lutheran Doctrine and Practice/The Spread of Lutheranism/Lutheranism EstablishedIII. The Spread of ProtestantismZwingli and the Radicals/Persecution of the Radicals/John Calvin/Calvinism/The Anglican ChurchIV. The Catholic RevivalStrengths and Weaknesses/The Council of Trent/The Aftermath of Trent/Ignatius Loyola/Religion and Politics
Chapter 14 Economic Expansion and a New Politics
I. Expansion at HomePopulation Increase/Economic Growth/Social ChangeII. Expansion OverseasThe Portuguese/The Spaniards/The First Colonial EmpireIII. The Centralization of Political PowersTudor England/Louis XI and Charles VIII/The Growth of Government Powers/United Spain/Charles V, Holy Roman EmperorIV. The Splintered StatesV. The New StatecraftNew International Relations/Machiavelli and Guicciardini
Chapter 15 War and Crisis
I. Rivalry and War in the Age of Philip II Elizabeth I of England/The Dutch Revolt/Civil War in FranceII. From Unbounded War to International CrisisThe Thirty years War/The Peace of WestphaliaIII. The Military RevolutionWeapons and Tactics/The Organization and Support of Armies/The Life of the SoldierIV. Revolution in EnglandPressures for Change/Parliament and Law/Rising Antagonisms/England Under CromwellV. Revolts in France and SpainThe France of Henry IV/Louis XIII/Political and Social Crisis/The Fronde/Sources of Discontent in Spain/Revolt and SecessionVI. Political Change in an Age of CrisisThe Unites Provinces/Sweden/Eastern Europe and the Crisis
Chapter 16 Culture and Society in the Age of the Scientific Revolution
I. Scientific Advance from Copernicus to NewtonOrigins of the Scientific Revolution/The Breakthroughs/The Climax of the Scientific Revolution: Isaac NewtonII. The Effects of the DiscoveriesThe New Epistemology/Bacon and Descartes/Pascals Protest Against New Sciences/Science InstitutionalizedIII. The Arts and LiteratureUnsettling Art/Unsettling Writers/The Return of Assurance to the Arts/Stability and Restraint in the ArtsV. Social Patterns and Popular CulturePopular Trends/Social Status/Mobility and Crime/Changes in the Villages and Cities/Belief in Magic and Rituals/Forces of Restraint/Conclusion
Chapter 17 The Emergence of the European State System
I. Absolutism in FranceThe Rule of Louis XIV/Government/Foreign Policy/Domestic Policy/The End of an Era/France After Louis XIVII. Other Patterns of AbsolutismThe Habsburgs at Vienna/The Hohenzollerns at Berlin/Rivalry and State Building/The Prussia of Frederick William I/Frederick the Great/The Habsburg Empire/The Habsburgs and Bourbons at Madrid/Peter the Great at St. PetersburgIII. Alternatives to AbsolutismAristocracy in the United Provinces, Sweden, and Poland/The Triumph of the Gentry in England/The Growth of Stability/Contrasts in Political ThoughtIV. The International SystemDiplomacy and Warfare/Armies and Navies/The Seven Years War
Chapter 18 The Wealth of Nations
I. Demographic and Economic GrowthThe New Demographic Era/Profit Inflation: The Movement of Prices/ProtoindustrializationII. The New Shape of IndustryTowards a New Economic Order/The Roots of Economic Transformation in England/Cotton: The Beginning of IndustrializationIII. Innovation and Tradition in AgricultureConvertible Husbandry/The Enclosure Movement in Britain/Serf and Peasants on the Continent IV. Eighteenth-Century EmpiresMercantile and Naval Competition/The Profits of Empire/Slavery, the Foundation of Empire/Mounting Colonial Conflicts/The British Foothold in India
Chapter 19 The Age of Enlightenment
I. The EnlightenmentThe Broadening Reverberations of Science/Beyond Christianity/The Philosophies/Diderot and the EncyclopediaII. Eighteenth-Century Elite CultureCosmopolitan High Culture/Publishing and Reading/Literature, Music and ArtIII. Popular CulturePopular Literature/Literacy and Primary Schooling/Sociability and Recreation
Chapter 20 The French Revolution
I. Reform and Political CrisisEnlightened Absolutism in Central and Eastern Europe/Joseph II and the Limits of Absolutism/Constitutional Crises in the West/Upheavals in the British EmpireII. 1789: The French RevolutionOrigins of the Revolution/Fiscal Crisis and Political Deadlock/From the Estates General to the National Assembly/The Convergence of RevolutionsIII. The Reconstruction of FranceThe New Constitution/The Revolution of the Church/Counterrevolution, Radicalism, and WarIV. The Second RevolutionThe National Convention /The Revolutionary Crisis/The Jacobin Dictatorship/The Sans-culottes: Revolution From Below/The Revolutionary Wars
Chapter 21 The Age of Napoleon
I. From Robespierre to BonoparteThe Thermidorian Reaction/The Directory/The Brumaire CoupII. The Napoleonic Settlement in FranceThe Napoleonic Style/Political and Religious Settlements/The Era of the NotablesIII. Napoleonic Hegemony in EuropeMilitary Supremacy and the Reorganization of Europe/Naval War with Britain/The Napoleonic Conscription MachineIV. Opposition to NapoleonThe “Spanish Ulcer”/The Russian Debacle/German Resistance and the Last Coalition/The Napoleonic Legend
Chapter 22 Foundations of the Nineteenth Century: Politics and Social Change
I. The Politics of OrderThe Congress of Vienna/The Pillars of the Restoration: Russia, Austria, Prussia/The Test of Restoration: Spain, Italy, and FranceII. The Progress of IndustrializationThe Technology to Support Machines/The Economic Effects of Revolution and War/Patterns of IndustrializationIII. The Social EffectsThe Division of Labor/The Family/The Standard of Living
Chapter 23 Learning to Live With Change
I. Ideas of ChangeRomanticism/Social Thought/The Early SocialistsII. The Structure of SocietySocial Classes/The Changing Populations/Social WelfareIII. The Spread of Liberal GovernmentGreat Britain/The Revolutions of 1830
Chapter 24 National States and National Cultures
I. The Revolutions of 1848The Opening Phase/The Final Dissensions/The Final PhaseII. The Politics of NationalismThe Elements of Nationalism/A New Regime: The Second Empire in France/Nationalism and International Relations/A New Nation: The Unification of Italy/A New Nation: The Unification of Germany/Reshaping Old EmpiresIII. Nineteenth-Century CultureThe Organization of Culture/The Content of Culture
Chapter 25 European Power: Wealth, Knowledge, and Imperialism
I. The Economics of GrowthThe Second Industrial Revolution/The Demographic TransitionII. The Knowledge of Nature and SocietyThe Conquests of Science/Social Science and Ideas of ProgressIII. Europe and the WorldThe Apparent Decline of colonial Empires/Europes Growing Engagement OverseasIV. Modern ImperialismThe Meaning of Imperialism/Explanations of Imperialism/Imperialism and European Society/Conquests of the New Imperialism
Chapter 26 The Age of Progress
I. The Belle EpoquePopular Culture/“The Woman Question”/The ArtsII. Attacks on Liberal CivilizationWorking Class Movements/The Christian Critique/Beyond ReasonIII. Domestic PoliticsCommon Problems/France: The Third Republic/Germany: The Reich/Italy: The Liberal Monarchy/Russia: Defeat and Revolution/Austria-Hungary: The Delicate Balance/Spain: Instability and Loss of Empire/Great Britain: Heading Towards Democracy
Chapter 27 World War I and the War it Created
I. The Coming of World WarBismarcks System of Alliances/The Shifting Balance/The Outbreak of World War/The Origins of World WarII. The Course of the WarThe Surprises of the First Two Years/Adjustment to Total War/The Great Trials of 1917-1918/The Effects of World War 1III. The PeaceThe Revolutionary Situation/The Peace TreatiesIV. Postwar DemocracyThe New Governments/The Established Democracies/International Relations
Chapter 28 The Great Twentieth- Century Crisis
I. Two Successful RevolutionsRevolution in Russia/Towards a Communist Society/Italian FascismII. The Distinctive Culture of the Twentieth CenturyFreudian Psychology/The Humanities/The Sciences/Public CultureIII. The Retreat from DemocracyAuthoritarian Regimes/The Great DepressionIV. Nazi Germany and the USSRHitlers Germany/Stalins Soviet UnionV. Democracies Weak ResponseDivisive Social Change/The Argument for Liberty/Domestic Politics/The Failures of Diplomacy
Chapter 29 The Nightmare: World War II
I. The Years of Axis VictoryThe Path to War/The Course of the War, 1939-1941II. The Global War, 1942-1945The Turn of the Tide/Competing Political Systems/Allied Strategy/The Road to VictoryIII. Building on the RuinsImmediate Crises/Europe DividedIV. European RecoveryEconomic Growth/New Political Directions/The International Context
Chapter 30 The New Europe
I. The New InstitutionsCautious Beginnings/Toward European UnionII. Postindustrial SocietyEuropes AdvantageIII. The Politics of ProsperityWaves of Protest/Capitalist Countries: The Challenge of Recession/Communist Rule: The Problem of RigidityIV. The End Of an EraThe Miracles of 1989/The Disintegration of the USSR/Europe Without Cold WarV. Contemporary CulturePostwar Creativity/The Explosion of Popular Culture/Social ThoughtEpilogue