The primary goal of World Civilizations is to present a TRULY GLOBAL HISTORY―one that both discusses the development of the world's leading civilizations and also emphasizes the major stages in the interactions among different peoples and societies. World Civilizations examines all the world's civilizations, including those in the Western tradition but also those civilizations sometimes neglected in world history texts―for example, the nomadic societies of Asia, Latin America, and the nations and states of the Pacific Rim. World Civilizations balances this discussion of independent developments in all the world's major civilizations with comparative analysis of the results of international contact.
World Civilizations organizes its presentation of global history into SIX COHERENT TIME PERIODS, with each period defined by the new and parallel patterns that evolved among all or most civilizations during the particular era. The six periods correspond to the six parts of the book. Within each part, the authors identify specific themes that characterize common experiences or common forces in individual societies as well as the new kinds and patterns of global contacts that emerged during the era. Thus, for example, Part I of the book discusses the developmental stage of world history, including the rise of agriculture and the development of civilization. Part II examines the classical era in global history, an era marked by the integration of large regions and diverse groups of people through overarching cultural and political systems. Subsequent parts of the book continue the emphasis on geographic shifts and the intensification of contact among civilizations.
Peter N. Stearns
Peter N. Stearns is provost and professor of history
at George Mason University. He received his Ph.D.
from Harvard University. Before moving to George
Mason University, he taught at Rutgers University,
the University of Chicago, and Carnegie Mellon,
where he won the Robert Doherty Educational
Leadership Award and the Elliott Dunlap Smith Teaching Award. He has
taught world history for more than 15 years. He currently serves as chair
of the Advanced Placement World History Committee and also founded
and is the editor of the Journal of Social History. In addition to textbooks
and readers, he has written studies of gender and consumerism in a world
history context. Other books address modern social and cultural history
and include studies on gender, old age, work, dieting, and emotion. His
most recent book in this area is American Fear: Causes and Consequences
of High Anxiety.
Michael Adas
Michael Adas is the Abraham Voorhees Professor of
History and a board of governor’s chair at Rutgers
University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Over the
past couple of decades his teaching has focused on
patterns and processes of global and comparative
history. His courses on race and empire in the early
modern and industrial eras and on world history in the 20th century have
earned him a number of teaching prizes. In addition to texts on world
history, Adas has written mainly on the comparative history of colonialism
and its impact on the peoples and societies of Asia and Africa. His
books include Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and
Ideologies of Western Dominance, which won the Dexter Prize, and the recently
published Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and
America’s Civilizing Mission. He is currently writing a global history of the
First World War.
Stuart B. Schwartz
Stuart B. Schwartz was born and educated in Springfield,
Massachusetts, and then attended Middlebury
College and the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico.
He has an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University
in Latin American history. He taught for many
years at the University of Minnesota and joined the
faculty at Yale University in 1996. He has also taught in Brazil, Puerto
Rico, Spain, France, and Portugal. He is a specialist on the history of colonial
Latin America, especially Brazil, and is the author of numerous
books, notably Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society
(1985), which won the Bolton Prize for the best book in Latin American
History. He is also the author of Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels (1992), Early
Latin America(1983), and Victors and Vanquished (1999). He has held fellowships
from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Institute for Advanced
Study (Princeton). For his work on Brazil he was recently
decorated by the Brazilian government. He continues to read widely in
the history and anthropology of Latin America, Africa, and early modern
Europe.
Marc Jason Gilbert
Marc Jason Gilbert is the holder of an NEHsupported
Chair in World History at Hawaii Pacific
University in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is a former University
System of Georgia Distinguished Professor of
Teaching and Learning. He received his Ph.D in history
in 1978 at UCLA, where he built his own program
in world history out of a mixture of more traditional fields. He is a
founding member of the World History Association and one of its initial
elected officers.More than a decade ago, he founded and served as executive
director of the Southeastern World History Association. He has codirected
two Summer Institutes for Teaching Advanced Placement World
History. He has attempted to bring a global dimension to the study of
south and southeast Asian history in numerous articles and books, such
as Why the North Won the Vietnam War.
