Designed to accompany The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures, Fourth Edition, and The Making of the West: A Concise History, Fourth Edition, Sources of The Making of the West is intended to help instructors bring the history of Western civilization to life for their students. This thoroughly revised collection parallels the major topics and themes covered in each textbook chapter and offers instructors many opportunities to promote classroom discussion of primary documents and their connection to historical analysis. Thus, the sourcebook helps reveal that the study of history is not fixed but is an ongoing process of evaluation and interpretation.

This edition contains over thirty new written and visual sources that complement the thematic and chronological framework of the textbook and highlight the intellectual, emotional, and visual landscapes of many different peoples and places. In response to the many insightful suggestions of reviewers who taught with or examined the previous edition, I selected the documents for this new edition of Sources of The Making of the West both to reflect historians’ changing understanding of Western civilization and to underscore the continued relevance of more conventional written sources. To this end, several classic sources have been added throughout the collection to provide fuller evidence of key cultural, social, political, economic, and intellectual developments, from Homer’s Odyssey (Chapter 2, Volume I) to Olympe de Gouges’s “Declaration of the Rights of Woman” (Chapter 19, Volume II). These are enhanced by sources elucidating Europe’s connection to the world beyond its borders, such as the “Decree of General Liberty” calling for the emancipation of slaves in St. Domingue in 1793, which is paired with insurgent leader Bramante Lazzary’s response (Chapter 19, Volume II), and African warrior Ndansi Kumalo’s personal account of fighting against British imperialists in the late nineteenth century (Chapter 23, Volume II).

Guided by the textbook’s integrated framework, each chapter brings together a variety of source types illuminating historical experience from many perspectives. For example, in Chapter 17, “The Atlantic System and Its Consequences, 1700–1750,” students encounter the social, cultural, political, and intellectual dimensions of the period, as well as issues of race and gender: Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography (Document 1) gives voice to the slaves whose toils fueled the Atlantic system’s economy, while the next source, an advertisement extolling the virtues of coffee (Document 2), reveals Europeans’ growing appetite for one of the many commodities produced by slave labor. The commercial, technological, and cultural transformations that inspired Russian emperor Peter I’s project of Westernization are palpable in his decrees and statutes that comprise the next document set (Document 3). The final selections by Voltaire and Mary Astell (Documents 4 and 5) reflect the intellectual products of the era’s prosperity, optimism, and contradictions.

Visual primary sources add an exciting dimension to students’ ability to see and interpret the past, and this edition includes several new images, from Myron’s statue of a discus thrower in Chapter 3 (Volume I) to a recent political cartoon on the issue of EU membership in Chapter 29 (Volume II). These sources visually enrich traditional written documents while challenging students to read the past (and present) in new ways. Along with training their minds to analyze texts for meaning, students learn to view images as an equally valuable window into the past. Furthermore, in this edition, I chose written and nonwritten sources that fit together to elucidate important events and opinions of specific historical eras. For example, Chapter 3 (Volume I) includes an overhead view of a Greek house and asks students to analyze the division of domestic space into male and female domains. It is presented in tandem with the testimony of a man on trial for murdering his wife’s lover who, according to the husband, had been sneaking into their house on a regular basis. While defending his actions, the husband brings to life the social values underlying the allocation of space evident in the overhead view. Chapter 21 (Volume II) offers another rich pairing by combining a cartoon lambasting the exploitation of English miners, especially children, with the testimony of miners themselves gathered during parliamentary hearings on working conditions in mines. Through their words, the miners inject the images in the cartoon with the flesh and blood of their own experiences living in the industrial age. These paired visual and written documents thus deepen the interpretive possibilities of the individual sources.

Each document was also selected based on its accessibility, depth in content, and appeal to students. For this reason, when necessary, I have carefully edited documents to speak to specific themes without impairing the documents’ overall sense and tone. I have also included documents of varying lengths to increase their utility for both short class exercises and outside writing assignments.

Of course asking the right questions and finding the right answers is at the heart of “doing” history. For this reason, Sources of The Making of the West, Fourth Edition, begins with an introduction on how to interpret written and visual primary sources that leads students step-by-step through the process of historical analysis. A brief overview of what this process entails is followed by an extended discussion of the process at work in the analysis of two sources drawn specifically from this collection. I adopted this integrated approach for the Introduction to help students move easily from abstract concepts to concrete examples. As a result, the Introduction does not rely on telling students what to do but rather on showing them how to do it for themselves based on the raw data of history.

To assist students with their journey into the past, each chapter opens with a summary that situates the sources within the broader historical context and addresses their relationship to one another and to the main themes in the corresponding chapter of The Making of the West and The Making of the West: A Concise History. An explanatory headnote accompanies each source to provide fundamental background information on the author or creator and the source while highlighting its significance. Revised and expanded discussion questions help students examine key points and issues in greater depth. Finally, each chapter concludes with at least four comparative questions intended to encourage students to see both the harmony and discordance among the sources. Although these editorial features intentionally strengthen the coherence of each chapter as a unit, they also allow instructors to choose sources and questions that best suit their specific goals and methods.

Acknowledgments

Many people deserve thanks for helping to bring this fourth edition to fruition. First among them are the authors of The Making of the West: Lynn Hunt, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein, and Bonnie G. Smith. Many thanks as well to reviewers of the previous edition, who provided valuable insights and suggestions: Veronica Bale, Miracosta College; Daniel F. Callahan, University of Delaware; Jason Coy, College of Charleston; Mary Duarte, Cardinal Stritch University; Meaghan Dwyer-Ryan, Boston College; Brian Elsesser, Harris-Stowe State University; Rebecca Friedman, Florida International University; James E. Higgins, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania; Shereen Ilahi, North Central College; David S. Karr, Columbia College; Matthew Laubacher, Arizona State University; Suzanne LaVere, Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne; Patrice Lewis, Montgomery County Community College; Tanis Lovercheck-Saunders, Casper College; Jeffrey Lee Meriwether, Roger Williams University; Jennifer Morris, College of Mount St. Joseph; Anthony Nardini, Rowan University; Donald S. Prudlo, Jacksonville State University; Debbie Roberts, Yavapai College; Jason L. Strandquist, Pennsylvania State University; Tim Stretton, Saint Mary’s University; Miriam Raub Vivian, California State University, Bakersfield; Jason L. Ward, Lee University; Richard Weeks, West Virginia Wesleyan College; Amy Woodson-Boulton, Loyola Marymount University; and Rick L. Woten, Simpson College.

I would also like to thank Anne Thayer, Jeannine Uzzi, Nancy Artz, and Helen Evans for their expertise and editorial assistance with sources new to this edition, as well as the team at Bedford/St. Martin’s: Mary Dougherty, Jane Knetzger, Annette Fantasia, Robin Soule, Emily DiPietro, Andrea Cava, and Kalina Ingham.