Synopses & Reviews
Noted teachers and scholars William J. Duiker and Jackson J. Spielvogel present a balanced, highly readable overview of world history that explores common challenges and experiences that unite the human past and identify key global patterns over time. Thorough coverage of political, economic, social, religious, intellectual, cultural, and military history is integrated into a chronological framework to help students gain an appreciation and understanding of the distinctive character and development of individual cultures in society. This edition of WORLD HISTORY continues to take a global approach to world history, with an emphasis on analytical comparisons between and among cultures throughout history. This approach helps students link events together in a broad comparative and global framework, thereby placing the contemporary world in a more meaningful historical context.
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"A comprehensive and thorough world history text complete with comparative history, documents, graphics--a one-stop world history curriculum."
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"This is one of the best World History textbooks ever published...."
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"Duiker and Spielvogel is a very engaging, accessible, complete and up-to-date text. Students will take away from this book the idea that history does not consist of facts to be memorized but interpretations to be discussed and debated."
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"This is a well organized text that offers an integrated global perspective. I recommend it because of its concise summations, readability, useful sidebars, and enticing visuals."
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"The Duiker/Spielvogel book is a wonderful chronological survey of world history that employs a comparative approach to help students see across time and space to better understand world cultures. The book is well written and it has a set of resources within the text that allows it to stand alone without many ancillaries."
About the Author
William J. Duiker is liberal arts Professor Emeritus of East Asian studies at The Pennsylvania State University. A former U.S. diplomat with service in Taiwan, South Vietnam, and Washington, D.C., he received his doctorate in Far Eastern history from Georgetown University in 1968, where his dissertation dealt with the Chinese educator and reformer Cai Yuanpei. At Penn State, he has written extensively on the history of Vietnam and modern China, including the highly acclaimed COMMUNIST ROAD TO POWER IN VIETNAM (revised edition, Westview Press, 1996), which was selected for a Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award in 1982--1983 and 1996-1997. Other recent books are CHINA AND VIETNAM: THE ROOTS OF CONFLICT (Berkeley, 1987), U.S. CONTAINMENT POLICY AND THE CONFLICT IN INDOCHINA (Stanford, 1995), SACRED WAR: NATIONALISM AND REVOLUTION IN A DIVIDED VIETNAM (McGraw-Hill, 1995), and HO CHI MINH (Hyperion, 2000), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2001. While his research specialization is in the field of nationalism and Asian revolutions, his intellectual interests are considerably more diverse. He has traveled widely and has taught courses on the history of communism and non-Western civilizations at Penn State, where he was awarded a Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the spring of 1996. In 2002, the College of Liberal Arts honored him with an Emeritus Distinction Award. Jackson J. Spielvogel is associate professor Emeritus of history at The Pennsylvania State University. He received his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, where he specialized in Reformation history under Harold J. Grimm. His articles and reviews have appeared in journals such as "Moreana," "Journal of General Education," "Catholic Historical Review," "Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte," and "American Historical Review." He also has contributed chapters or articles to "The Social History of Reformation," THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE: A DICTIONARY HANDBOOK, "Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual of Holocaust Studies," and "Utopian Studies." His work has been supported by fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation and the Foundation for Reformation Research. At Penn State, he helped inaugurate the Western civilization course, as well as a popular course on Nazi Germany. His book HITLER AND NAZI GERMANY was published in 1987 (Seventh Edition, 2013). He is the author of WESTERN CIVILIZATION, first published in 1991 (Ninth Edition, 2015). Professor Spielvogel has won five major university-wide teaching awards. During the year 1988--1989, he held the Penn State Teaching Fellowship, the university's most prestigious teaching award. In 1996, he won the Dean Arthur Ray Warnock Award for Outstanding Faculty member, and in 2000 received the Schreyer Honors College Excellence in Teaching Award.
Table of Contents
"I think the key strength of the Duiker/Spielvogel text these days is its strong organization, a very helpful characteristic to students. Its pictures and timelines are quite helpful as well. The Duiker volume is very thorough, too ? academics appreciate this far more than students ever do. ? Again, Duiker and Spielvogel continue to provide a strong product year after year. Its hallmarks include superior organization and design.""The strengths of Duiker/Spielvogel include its writing style, which is clear, concise, and readable; its incorporation of primary source documents throughout the text; and the use of maps, chronologies, and visuals.""Why do we stick with D and S year after year? D and S has a good full narrative of historic events and key figures much of the time. ? D and S is still ? the best of the lot in this respect. D and S is written in a straightforward style, very accessible to our undergraduates. There is also a good balance of Western and non-Western material most of the time. The color prints and other art work are of good quality and illustrate cultures and periods effectively.""Duiker/Spielvogel is concise, well-balanced, and includes an even treatment of many non-Western cultures. ? This text?s commitment to presenting world history in a truly global framework is its most singular quality.""Duiker and Spielvogel have done a superlative job of balancing Western and non-Western history and intermixing political, economic, intellectual, and social history. Effective graphics and student learning features augment a well-written, polished text. ? Perhaps the single best thing about this volume: it?s global enough in focus, especially so regarding Asia, for all but the most idiosyncratic professor?s tastes. Instructors who emphasize Western, non-Western, or a truly global model should find this text appropriate to their purposes."