The Essential World History, Enhanced Edition, Volume 2 - Softcover

Duiker, William J.; Spielvogel, Jackson J.

3.05

42 ratings by Goodreads

9780495566281: The Essential World History, Enhanced Edition, Volume 2

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0495566284 ISBN 13: 9780495566281

Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing, 2008

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THE ESSENTIAL WORLD HISTORY, Enhanced Third Edition, shows you how to use the maps, images, and documents in the book to give you an edge in your study of history. A brief introduction to the text -- "Studying from Primary Source Materials" -- reveals some of the tricks to uncovering the past that your instructor wants you to know. "Discovery" sections, at the end of every chapter, assist you in practicing these skills, which will help you connect the text's seven themes of world history and excel in your course. This bestselling text presents a balanced, highly readable overview of world history that explores common challenges and experiences uniting the human past and informing key global patterns over time. Thorough coverage of political, economic, social, religious, intellectual, cultural, and military history has been integrated into a chronologically ordered synthesis to help you gain an appreciation and understanding of the distinctive character and development of individual cultures. The text takes a global approach to world history, helping you link events together in a broad comparative framework and place the contemporary world in a more meaningful historical context.

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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.

Review:

"The book's preface and "Themes for Understanding World History" clearly lay out the authors' vision, and the authors implement it brilliantly. Duiker and Spielvogel are to be commended for their concise, crisp style and their honest interpretation of evidence. ... Duiker and Spielvogel have an innovative and original approach to world history, and the way they portray the gradual shift from isolated societies to a global society works extremely well."

"The author's approach is consistent throughout the text, and they have achieved their stated goal of adopting a 'global approach to world history while at the same time attempting to do justice to the distinctive character and development of individual civilizations and regions of the world.'"

"I like the book, it has a clear vision of the progress of world history and the combination of text, documents and illustrations is good. The up to date appearance of the later chapters is especially good. In fact, I haven't seen some of the documents and or text in other texts."

"In looking through the text, it's clear that the authors and publishers went all-out to give students as broad an exposure to the world as they possibly could, to present the material attractively, and to provide a wide array of useful study aids and supplementary material. I am particularly impressed by the unusually large amount of space devoted to non-Western subjects, particularly as compared with other texts (as above) with which I am familiar. ... This particular text comes as close to my ideal as any I have encountered, so I most likely will seriously consider adopting it when a new edition comes out."

"I was impressed by the way the text had been slimmed down. If we could work out a three-semester split, the slimmed own version would give us the ability to use more outside readings, something we like to do. The primary source documents are quite relevant to the text in this edition and I liked them."

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