Download or read book World History written by Burton F. Beers and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A textbook history of the world focusing on the development of various civilizations.

Download or read book Why the West Rules For Now written by Ian Morris and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2011-01-14 with total page 767 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does the West rule? In this magnum opus, eminent Stanford polymath Ian Morris answers this provocative question, drawing on 50,000 years of history, archeology, and the methods of social science, to make sense of when, how, and why the paths of development differed in the East and West — and what this portends for the 21st century. There are two broad schools of thought on why the West rules. Proponents of "Long-Term Lock-In" theories such as Jared Diamond suggest that from time immemorial, some critical factor — geography, climate, or culture perhaps — made East and West unalterably different, and determined that the industrial revolution would happen in the West and push it further ahead of the East. But the East led the West between 500 and 1600, so this development can't have been inevitable; and so proponents of "Short-Term Accident" theories argue that Western rule was a temporary aberration that is now coming to an end, with Japan, China, and India resuming their rightful places on the world stage. However, as the West led for 9,000 of the previous 10,000 years, it wasn't just a temporary aberration. So, if we want to know why the West rules, we need a whole new theory. Ian Morris, boldly entering the turf of Jared Diamond and Niall Ferguson, provides the broader approach that is necessary, combining the textual historian's focus on context, the anthropological archaeologist's awareness of the deep past, and the social scientist's comparative methods to make sense of the past, present, and future — in a way no one has ever done before.

Download or read book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order written by Samuel P. Huntington and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-05-31 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic study of post-Cold War international relations, more relevant than ever in the post-9/11 world, with a new foreword by Zbigniew Brzezinski. Since its initial publication, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order has become a classic work of international relations and one of the most influential books ever written about foreign affairs. An insightful and powerful analysis of the forces driving global politics, it is as indispensable to our understanding of American foreign policy today as the day it was published. As former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski says in his new foreword to the book, it “has earned a place on the shelf of only about a dozen or so truly enduring works that provide the quintessential insights necessary for a broad understanding of world affairs in our time.” Samuel Huntington explains how clashes between civilizations are the greatest threat to world peace but also how an international order based on civilizations is the best safeguard against war. Events since the publication of the book have proved the wisdom of that analysis. The 9/11 attacks and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated the threat of civilizations but have also shown how vital international cross-civilization cooperation is to restoring peace. As ideological distinctions among nations have been replaced by cultural differences, world politics has been reconfigured. Across the globe, new conflicts—and new cooperation—have replaced the old order of the Cold War era. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order explains how the population explosion in Muslim countries and the economic rise of East Asia are changing global politics. These developments challenge Western dominance, promote opposition to supposedly “universal” Western ideals, and intensify intercivilization conflict over such issues as nuclear proliferation, immigration, human rights, and democracy. The Muslim population surge has led to many small wars throughout Eurasia, and the rise of China could lead to a global war of civilizations. Huntington offers a strategy for the West to preserve its unique culture and emphasizes the need for people everywhere to learn to coexist in a complex, multipolar, muliticivilizational world.

Download or read book The Fabric of Civilization written by Virginia Postrel and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Paleolithic flax to 3D knitting, explore the global history of textiles and the world they weave together in this enthralling and educational guide. The story of humanity is the story of textiles -- as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture. In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel synthesizes groundbreaking research from archaeology, economics, and science to reveal a surprising history. From Minoans exporting wool colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to Romans arrayed in costly Chinese silk, the cloth trade paved the crossroads of the ancient world. Textiles funded the Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; they gave us banks and bookkeeping, Michelangelo's David and the Taj Mahal. The cloth business spread the alphabet and arithmetic, propelled chemical research, and taught people to think in binary code. Assiduously researched and deftly narrated, The Fabric of Civilization tells the story of the world's most influential commodity.

Download or read book Patterns of World History written by Peter Von Sivers and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2012 with total page 1242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Patterns of World History offers a distinct framework for understanding the global past through the study of origins, interactions, and adaptations. Authors Peter von Sivers, Charles A. Desnoyers, and George Stow--each specialists in their respective fields--examine the full range of human ingenuity over time and space in a comprehensive, even-handed, and critical fashion. The book helps students to see and understand patterns through: ORIGINS - INTERACTIONS - ADAPTATIONS These key features show the O-I-A framework in action: * Seeing Patterns, a list of key questions at the beginning of each chapter, focuses students on the 3-5 over-arching patterns, which are revisited, considered, and synthesized at the end of the chapter in Thinking Through Patterns. * Each chapter includes a Patterns Up Close case study that brings into sharp relief the O-I-A pattern using a specific idea or thing that has developed in human history (and helped, in turn, develop human history), like the innovation of the Chinese writing system or religious syncretism in India. Each case study clearly shows how an innovation originated either in one geographical center or independently in several different centers. It demonstrates how, as people in the centers interacted with their neighbors, the neighbors adapted to--and in many cases were transformed by--the idea, object, or event. Adaptations include the entire spectrum of human responses, ranging from outright rejection to creative borrowing and, at times, forced acceptance. * Concept Maps at the end of each chapter use compelling graphical representations of ideas and information to help students remember and relate the big patterns of the chapter.

Download or read book Exploring the Modern written by John Jervis and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1999-03-12 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides the first comprehensive account of the social and cultural aspects of modernity over the past two centuries.

Download or read book Handbook of Middle American Indians Volume 1 written by Robert C. West and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 1964-01-01 with total page 591 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first volume of the monumental Handbook of Middle American Indians, a definitive encyclopaedia of the environment, archaeology, ethnology, social anthropology, ethnohistory, linguistics, and physical anthropology of the native peoples of Mexico and Central America. The Handbook was published in cooperation with the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University under the general editorship of Robert Wauchope (1909–1979). This volume of the Handbook was edited by Dr. Robert C. West (1913–2001), Boyd Professor of Geography at Louisiana State University, an outstanding authority on Latin America. He was formerly cultural geographer for the Smithsonian Institution. Included in this first volume are chapters written by leading authorities in various fields of the natural and social sciences that are concerned with the natural environment of Middle America, its role in the shaping of Indian cultures, the earliest primitive hunters of this area, the beginnings of agriculture, and the broad patterns of prehistoric civilizations there. There are articles on the geohistory and paleogeography of Middle America, its surface configuration and associated geology, hydrography, the American Mediterranean, oceanography and marine life along the Pacific coast, weather and climate, natural vegetation, the soils and their relation to the Indian peoples and cultures, fauna , the natural regions of Middle America, the primitive hunters, the food-gathering and incipient agricultural stage of prehistoric Middle America, origins of agriculture there, and the patterns of farming life and civilization. The Handbook of Middle American Indians was assembled and edited at the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University with the assistance of grants from the National Science Foundation and under the sponsorship of the National Research Council Committee on Latin American Anthropology.

Download or read book Patterns of Culture written by Ruth Benedict and published by HMH. This book was released on 2013-04-30 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anthropologist compares three diverse societies in this groundbreaking, “unique and important” cultural study (The New York Times). A remarkable introduction to cultural studies, Patterns of Culture made history in exploring the role of culture in shaping our lives. In it, the renowned anthropologist Ruth Benedict offers an in-depth look at three societies—the Zuñi of the southwestern United States, the Kwakiutl of western Canada, and the Dobuans of Melanesia—and demonstrates the diversity of behaviors in them. Benedict’s groundbreaking study shows that a unique configuration of traits defines each human culture and she examines the relationship between culture and the individual. Featuring prefatory remarks by Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, and Louise Lamphere, who calls it “a foundational text in teaching us the value of diversity,” this provocative work ultimately explores what it means to be human. “That today the modern world is on such easy terms with the concept of culture . . . is in very great part due to this book.” —Margaret Mead

Download or read book Civilization Before Greece and Rome written by H. W. F. Saggs and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many centuries it was accepted that civilization began with the Greeks and Romans. During the last two hundred years, however, archaeological discoveries in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete, Syria, Anatolia, Iran, and the Indus Valley have revealed that rich cultures existed in these regions some two thousand years before the Greco-Roman era. In this fascinating work, H.W.F Saggs presents a wide-ranging survey of the more notable achievements of these societies, showing how much the ancient peoples of the Near and Middle East have influenced the patterns of our daily lives. Saggs discussesthe the invention of writing, tracing it from the earliest pictograms (designed for account-keeping) to the Phoenician alphabet, the source of the Greek and all European alphabets. He investigates teh curricula, teaching methods, and values of the schools from which scribes graduated. Analyzing the provisions of some of the law codes, he illustrates the operation of international law and the international trade that it made possible. Saggs highlights the creative ways that these ancient peoples used their natural resources, describing the vast works in stone created by the Egyptians, the development of technology in bronze and iron, and the introduction of useful plants into regions outside their natural habitat. In chapters on mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, he offers interesting explanations about how modern calculations of time derive from the ancient world, how the Egyptians practiced scientific surgery, and how the Babylonians used algebra. The book concludes with a discussion of ancient religion, showing its evolution from the most primitive forms toward monotheism.

Download or read book Civilization Critical written by Darrin Qualman and published by Fernwood Publishing. This book was released on 2019-05-14T00:00:00Z with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The modern world is wondrous. Its factories produce ten thousand cars every hour and ten trillion transistors every second. We carry supercomputers in our pockets, and nearly a million people are in the air at any time. In Civilization Critical, Darrin Qualman takes readers on a tour of the wonders of the 21st century. But the great strength of our modern word is also its great weakness. Our immense powers to turn resources and nature into products and waste imperil our future. And plans to double and redouble the size of the global economy veto sustainability. So, is our civilization doomed? No. Doom is a choice. We can make different choices. Qualman demonstrates that a 19th- and 20th-century transition to linear systems and away from the circular patterns of nature (and of all previous civilizations) is the foundational error—the underlying problem, the root cause of climate change, resource depletion, ocean’s full of plastics, and a host of mega-problems now intensifying and merging, with potentially civilization-cracking results. In this sweeping work, Qualman reinterprets and re-explains the problems we face today, and charts a clear, hopeful path into the future.

Download or read book Western Civilization in Biological Perspective written by Stephen Vickers Boyden and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1987 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author explores the patterns of interplay between the biological and cultural processes in human affairs, beginning with the emergence in evolution of "homo sapiens" and carries his survey through the early farming and urban phases of human existence up to the present day.

Download or read book Patterns of World History with Sources written by Peter Von Sivers and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2017 with total page 792 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encouraging a broad understanding of continuity, change, and innovation in human history, Patterns in World History presents the global past in a comprehensive, even-handed, and open-ended fashion. Instead of focusing on the memorization of people, places, and events, this text strives topresent important facts in context and draw meaningful connections by examining patterns that have emerged throughout global history.

Download or read book Japanese Civilization written by S. N. Eisenstadt and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the world's leading social theorists provides a monumental synthesis of Japanese history, religion, culture, and social organization. Equipped with a thorough command of the subject, S. N. Eisenstadt focuses on the non-ideological character of Japanese civilization as well as its infinite capacity to recreate community through an ongoing past.

Download or read book A New History of the Humanities written by Rens Bod and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers the first overarching history of the humanities from Antiquity to the present.

Download or read book Patterns of Culture written by Ruth Benedict and published by . This book was released on 1934 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the civilizations of the Zuni Indians, the natives of Dobu, and the Kwakiutl Indians.

Download or read book Energy and Civilization written by Vaclav Smil and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society throughout history, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. "I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next 'Star Wars' movie. In his latest book, Energy and Civilization: A History, he goes deep and broad to explain how innovations in humans' ability to turn energy into heat, light, and motion have been a driving force behind our cultural and economic progress over the past 10,000 years. —Bill Gates, Gates Notes, Best Books of the Year Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.

Download or read book Five Epochs of Civilization written by William McGaughey and published by Thistlerose Publications. This book was released on 2000 with total page 630 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the idea that communication technologies are a primary shaping force of civilizations, "Five Epochs of Civilization" presents a new scheme of world history. It identifies five epochs of historical experience and associates each with a civilization focused on particular institutions. These are: -- Civilization I focused on government, ending in large political empires -- Civilization II focused on religion, ending in the three world religions -- Civilization III focused on commerce and education within the nation state -- Civilization IV focused on the media of news and entertainment -- Civilization V focused on the internet and beyond The communication technologies which triggered these changes in culture (and their approximate dates of introduction) include: ideographic writing (3100 B.C.), alphabetic writing (800 B.C.), printing (1450 A.D.), electronic recording and broadcasting (1920 A.D.), and computer networks (1990 A.D.). McGaughey includes separate narratives for each of the four civilizations that have appeared to date in a developed form plus 'imaginative and plausible speculations concerning a possible fifth, computer-based civilization'.