| About the book | |
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. | |
| Key features | |
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| About the author | |
Mortimer Chambers 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 Aristotle?s 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 Aristotle?s 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. Theodore Rabb Theodore K. Rabb is Emeritus 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 and The Last Days of the Renaissance & the March to Modernity. 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. Raymond Grew 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 Ecoles des Hautes Etudes 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 d?Italia 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. Isser Woloch 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). Barbara Hanawalt 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). | |
| Table of contents | |
List of Maps XXIV List of Boxes XXVII Books Related Interest XXX Preface XXXI Introduction XXXVII> 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 France II. From Unbounded War to International Crisis The Thirty years? War/The Peace of Westphalia III. The Military Revolution Weapons and Tactics/The Organization and Support of Armies/The Life of the Soldier IV. Revolution in England Pressures for Change/Parliament and Law/Rising Antagonisms/England Under Cromwell V. Revolts in France and Spain The France of Henry IV/Louis XIII/Political and Social Crisis/The Fronde/Sources of Discontent in Spain/Revolt and Secession VI. Political Change in an Age of Crisis The 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 Newton Origins of the Scientific Revolution/The Breakthroughs/The Climax of the Scientific Revolution: Isaac Newton II. The Effects of the Discoveries The New Epistemology/Bacon and Descartes/Pascal?s Protest Against New Sciences/Science Institutionalized III. The Arts and Literature Unsettling Art/Unsettling Writers/The Return of Assurance to the Arts/Stability and Restraint in the Arts V. Social Patterns and Popular Culture Popular 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 France The Rule of Louis XIV/Government/Foreign Policy/Domestic Policy/The End of an Era/France After Louis XIV II. Other Patterns of Absolutism The 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. Petersburg III. Alternatives to Absolutism Aristocracy in the United Provinces, Sweden, and Poland/The Triumph of the Gentry in England/The Growth of Stability/Contrasts in Political Thought IV. The International System Diplomacy and Warfare/Armies and Navies/The Seven Years? War Chapter 18 The Wealth of Nations I. Demographic and Economic Growth The New Demographic Era/Profit Inflation: The Movement of Prices/Protoindustrialization II. The New Shape of Industry Towards a New Economic Order/The Roots of Economic Transformation in England/Cotton: The Beginning of Industrialization III. Innovation and Tradition in Agriculture Convertible Husbandry/The Enclosure Movement in Britain/Serf and Peasants on the Continent IV. Eighteenth-Century Empires Mercantile 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 Enlightenment The Broadening Reverberations of Science/Beyond Christianity/The Philosophies/Diderot and the Encyclopedia II. Eighteenth-Century Elite Culture Cosmopolitan High Culture/Publishing and Reading/Literature, Music and Art III. Popular Culture Popular Literature/Literacy and Primary Schooling/Sociability and Recreation Chapter 20 The French Revolution I. Reform and Political Crisis Enlightened Absolutism in Central and Eastern Europe/Joseph II and the Limits of Absolutism/Constitutional Crises in the West/Upheavals in the British Empire II. 1789: The French Revolution Origins of the Revolution/Fiscal Crisis and Political Deadlock/From the Estates General to the National Assembly/The Convergence of Revolutions III. The Reconstruction of France The New Constitution/The Revolution of the Church/Counterrevolution, Radicalism, and War IV. The Second Revolution The 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 Bonoparte The Thermidorian Reaction/The Directory/The Brumaire Coup II. The Napoleonic Settlement in France The Napoleonic Style/Political and Religious Settlements/The Era of the Notables III. Napoleonic Hegemony in Europe Military Supremacy and the Reorganization of Europe/Naval War with Britain/The Napoleonic Conscription Machine IV. Opposition to Napoleon The ?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 Order The Congress of Vienna/The Pillars of the Restoration: Russia, Austria, Prussia/The Test of Restoration: Spain, Italy, and France II. The Progress of Industrialization The Technology to Support Machines/The Economic Effects of Revolution and War/Patterns of Industrialization III. The Social Effects The Division of Labor/The Family/The Standard of Living Chapter 23 Learning to Live With Change I. Ideas of Change Romanticism/Social Thought/The Early Socialists II. The Structure of Society Social Classes/The Changing Populations/Social Welfare III. The Spread of Liberal Government Great Britain/The Revolutions of 1830 Chapter 24 National States and National Cultures I. The Revolutions of 1848 The Opening Phase/The Final Dissensions/The Final Phase II. The Politics of Nationalism The 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 Empires III. Nineteenth-Century Culture The Organization of Culture/The Content of Culture Chapter 25 European Power: Wealth, Knowledge, and Imperialism I. The Economics of Growth The Second Industrial Revolution/The Demographic Transition II. The Knowledge of Nature and Society The Conquests of Science/Social Science and Ideas of Progress III. Europe and the World The Apparent Decline of colonial Empires/Europe?s Growing Engagement Overseas IV. Modern Imperialism The Meaning of Imperialism/Explanations of Imperialism/Imperialism and European Society/Conquests of the New Imperialism Chapter 26 The Age of Progress I. The Belle Epoque Popular Culture/?The Woman Question?/The Arts II. Attacks on Liberal Civilization Working Class Movements/The Christian Critique/Beyond Reason III. Domestic Politics Common 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 War Bismarck?s System of Alliances/The Shifting Balance/The Outbreak of World War/The Origins of World War II. The Course of the War The Surprises of the First Two Years/Adjustment to Total War/The Great Trials of 1917-1918/The Effects of World War 1 III. The Peace The Revolutionary Situation/The Peace Treaties IV. Postwar Democracy The New Governments/The Established Democracies/International Relations Chapter 28 The Great Twentieth- Century Crisis I. Two Successful Revolutions Revolution in Russia/Towards a Communist Society/Italian Fascism II. The Distinctive Culture of the Twentieth Century Freudian Psychology/The Humanities/The Sciences/Public Culture III. The Retreat from Democracy Authoritarian Regimes/The Great Depression IV. Nazi Germany and the USSR Hitler?s Germany/Stalin?s Soviet Union V. Democracies? Weak Response Divisive Social Change/The Argument for Liberty/Domestic Politics/The Failures of Diplomacy Chapter 29 The Nightmare: World War II I. The Years of Axis Victory The Path to War/The Course of the War, 1939-1941 II. The Global War, 1942-1945 The Turn of the Tide/Competing Political Systems/Allied Strategy/The Road to Victory III. Building on the Ruins Immediate Crises/Europe Divided IV. European Recovery Economic Growth/New Political Directions/The International Context Chapter 30 The New Europe I. The New Institutions Cautious Beginnings/Toward European Union II. Postindustrial Society Europe?s Advantage III. The Politics of Prosperity Waves of Protest/Capitalist Countries: The Challenge of Recession/Communist Rule: The Problem of Rigidity IV. The End Of an Era The Miracles of 1989/The Disintegration of the USSR/Europe Without Cold War V. Contemporary Culture Postwar Creativity/The Explosion of Popular Culture/Social Thought Epilogue | |
