Publishing this third edition of Ways of the World feels to me, its original author, a little like sending a child off to college or into the world. This familiar but changed and enhanced book is, I hope, more mature than it was at its birth in the first edition or in its growing-
Over the years following its initial appearance in 2008, Ways of the World has changed, or “grown up,” in other ways as well. Most substantially, since 2010 it has become not simply a textbook but also a “docutext” or sourcebook, containing chapter-
Furthermore, the organization of the narrative has been tightened and its content enhanced by integrating both the gender and the environmental material more fully. Coverage of particular areas of the world, such as Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Pacific Oceania, has been strengthened. And the book has more often highlighted individual people and particular events, which sometimes get lost in the broad sweep of world history. Finally, Ways of the World has acquired a very substantial electronic and online presence with a considerable array of pedagogical and learning aids.
Despite these changes, Ways of the World is also recognizably the same book that it was in earlier versions—
Tools for the Digital Age
Because the teaching of history is changing rapidly, we are pleased to offer online novel interactive complements to the new edition of Ways of the World via Bedford’s learning platform, known as LaunchPad. Free when packaged with the book, LaunchPad’s course space and interactive e-
In addition to LearningCurve, we are delighted to offer 23 new online primary source projects called Thinking through Sources, one for each chapter of the book. These features, available only in LaunchPad, extend and substantially amplify the Working with Evidence source projects provided in the print book and also available in LaunchPad. They explore in greater depth a central theme from each chapter, and they integrate both documentary and visual sources. Most importantly, these LaunchPad features are uniquely surrounded by a distinctive and sophisticated pedagogy of self-
More specifically, a short quiz after each source offers students the opportunity to check their understanding of materials that often derive from quite distant times and places. Some questions focus on audience, purpose, point of view, limitations, or context, while others challenge students to draw conclusions about the source or to compare one source with another. Immediate substantive feedback for each rejoinder and the opportunity to try again create an active learning environment where students are rewarded for reaching the correct answer through their own process of exploration.
Two activities at the end of each Thinking through Sources exercise ask students to make supportable inferences and draw appropriate conclusions from sources with reference to a Guiding Question. In the Organize the Evidence activity, students identify which sources provide evidence for a topic that would potentially compose part of an answer to the guiding question. In the Draw Conclusions from the Evidence activity, students assess whether a specific piece of evidence drawn from the sources supports or challenges a conclusion related to the guiding question. Collectively these assignments create an active learning environment where reading with a purpose is reinforced by immediate feedback and support. The guiding question provides a foundation for in-
These guiding questions challenge students to assess what the sources collectively reveal, drawing on documents and images alike. The Thinking through Sources feature linked to Chapter 5, for instance, presents a range of sources dealing with expressions of patriarchy in the Mediterranean, Indian, and Chinese civilizations. Its guiding question asks students to compare them, while its Organize the Evidence activity invites students to identify in turn those sources that shed light on marriage, the confinement of women, the authority of men, and opposition to patriarchal norms. The feature related to Chapter 21 offers both written and visual sources probing the nature of the Stalinist phenomenon with a guiding question that asks students to identify various postures—
In a further set of features available only in LaunchPad, the text’s narrative is enhanced through Author Preview Videos (with Bob Strayer), which imaginatively introduce each chapter, and Another Voice Podcasts (with Eric Nelson), which enrich the treatment of particular issues and sometimes gently argue with the narrative text. Both the videos and the podcasts make extensive use of visuals.
LaunchPad also provides a simple, user-
Available with training and support, LaunchPad can help take history teaching and learning into a new era. To learn more about the benefits of LearningCurve and LaunchPad and the different versions to package with LaunchPad, visit macmillanhighered.com/
What Else Is New in the Third Edition?
In addition to the new online Thinking through Sources exercises and Eric Nelson’s Another Voice Podcasts described above, further substantive changes to this third edition include the following:
Promoting Active Learning
As all instructors know, students can often “do the assignment” or read the required chapter and yet have little understanding of it when they come to class. The problem, frequently, is passive studying—
Ways of the World seeks to promote active learning in various ways. Most obviously, the source-
Another active learning element involves motivation. A contemporary vignette opens each chapter with a story that links the past and the present to show the continuing resonance of history in the lives of contemporary people. Chapter 6, for example, begins by describing the inauguration in 2010 of Bolivian president Evo Morales at an impressive ceremony at Tiwanaku, the center of an ancient Andean empire, and emphasizing the continuing importance of this ancient civilization in Bolivian culture. At the end of each chapter, a short Reflections section raises provocative, sometimes quasi-
A further technique for encouraging active learning lies in the provision of frequent contextual markers. Student readers need to know where they are going and where they have been. Thus part-
Active learning means approaching the text with something to look for, rather than simply dutifully completing the assignment. Ways of the World provides such cues in abundance. A series of questions in the margins, labeled “change,” “comparison,” or “connection,” allows students to read the adjacent material with a clear purpose in mind. Big Picture Questions at the end of each chapter deal with matters not directly addressed in the text. Instead, they provide opportunities for integration, comparison, analysis, and sometimes speculation.
What’s in a Title?
The title of a book should evoke something of its character and outlook. The main title Ways of the World is intended to suggest at least three dimensions of the text.
The first is diversity or variation, for the “ways of the world,” or the ways of being human in the world, have been many and constantly changing. This book seeks to embrace the global experience of humankind in its vast diversity, while noticing the changing location of particular centers of innovation and wider influence.
Second, the title Ways of the World invokes major panoramas, patterns, or pathways in world history, as opposed to highly detailed narratives. Many world history instructors have found that students often feel overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of information that a course in global history can require of them. In the narrative sections of this book, the larger patterns or the “big pictures” of world history appear in the foreground on center stage, while the still-
A third implication of the book’s title lies in a certain reflective or musing quality of Ways of the World, which appears especially in the Big Picture essays that introduce each part of the book and in a Reflections section at the end of each chapter. These features of the book offer many opportunities for pondering larger questions. The Reflections section in Chapter 4, for example, explores how historians and religious believers sometimes rub each other the wrong way, while that of Chapter 12 probes the role of chance and coincidence in world history. The Chapter 21 Reflections asks whether historians should make judgments about the societies they study and whether it is possible to avoid doing so. The Big Picture introductions to Parts Three and Six raise questions about periodization, while that of Part Five explores how historians might avoid Eurocentrism when considering an era when Europe was increasingly central in world history. None of these issues can be easily or permanently resolved, but the opportunity to contemplate them is among the great gifts that the study of history offers us.
The Dilemma of World History: Inclusivity and Coherence
The great virtue of world history lies in its inclusivity, for its subject matter is the human species itself. No one is excluded, and all may find a place within the grand narrative of the human journey. But that virtue is also the source of world history’s greatest difficulty—
Less Can Be More
From the beginning, Ways of the World set out to cope with this fundamental conundrum of world history—
The Centrality of Context: Change, Comparison, Connection
A further aid to achieving coherence amid the fragmenting possibilities of inclusion lies in maintaining the centrality of context, for in world history nothing stands alone. Those of us who practice world history as teachers or textbook authors are seldom specialists in the particulars of what we study and teach. Rather, we are “specialists of the whole,” seeking to find the richest, most suggestive, and most meaningful contexts in which to embed those particulars. Our task, fundamentally, is to teach contextual thinking.
To aid in this task, Ways of the World repeatedly highlights three such contexts, what I call the “three Cs” of world history: change/continuity, comparison, and connection. The first “C” emphasizes large-
The second “C” involves frequent comparison, a technique of integration through juxtaposition, bringing several regions or cultures into our field of vision at the same time. It encourages reflection both on the common elements of the human experience and on its many variations. Such comparisons are pervasive throughout the book, informing both the chapter narratives and many of the docutext features. Ways of the World explicitly examines the difference, for example, between the Agricultural Revolution in the Eastern and Western hemispheres; between the beginnings of Buddhism and the early history of Christianity and Islam; between patriarchy in Athens and in Sparta; between European and Asian empires of the early modern era; between the Chinese and the Japanese response to European intrusion; between the Russian and Chinese revolutions; and many more. Many of the primary source features are also broadly comparative or cross-
The final “C” emphasizes connection, networks of communication and exchange that increasingly shaped the character of the societies that participated in them. For world historians, cross-
Organizing World History: Time, Place, and Theme
All historical writing occurs at the intersection of time, place, and theme. Time is the matrix in which history takes shape, allowing us to chart the changes and the continuities of human experience. Place recognizes variation and distinctiveness among societies and cultures as well as the importance of the environmental setting in which history unfolds. Theme reflects the need to write or teach about one thing at a time—
This book addresses the question of time or chronology by dividing world history into six major periods. Each of these six “parts” begins with a Big Picture essay that introduces the general patterns of a particular period and raises questions about the problems historians face in periodizing the human past.
Part One (to 500 B.C.E.) deals in two chapters with beginnings—
Part Two examines the millennium of second-
Part Three, embracing the thousand years between 500 and 1500 C.E., reflects a mix of theme and place. Chapter 7 focuses topically on commercial networks across the world, while Chapters 8, 9, and 10 deal regionally with the Chinese, Islamic, and Christian worlds respectively. Chapter 11 treats pastoral societies as a broad theme and the Mongols as the most dramatic illustration of their impact on the larger stage of world history. Chapter 12, which bridges the two volumes of the book, presents an around-
Part Four considers the early modern era (1450–
Part Five takes up the era of maximum European influence in the world, from 1750 to 1914. It charts the emergence of distinctively modern societies, devoting separate chapters to the Atlantic revolutions (Chapter 16) and the Industrial Revolution (Chapter 17). Chapters 18 and 19 focus on the growing impact of those European societies on the rest of humankind—
Part Six, which looks at the most recent century (1914–
“It Takes a Village”
In any enterprise of significance, “it takes a village,” as they say. Bringing Ways of the World to life in this new edition, it seems, has occupied the energies of several villages. Among the privileges and delights of writing and revising this book has been the opportunity to interact with our fellow villagers.
We are grateful to the community of fellow historians who contributed their expertise to this revision. Carter Findley, Humanities Distinguished Professor at Ohio State University, carefully read the sections of the book dealing with the Islamic world, offering us very useful guidance. Gregory Cushman from the University of Kansas provided us with an extraordinarily detailed analysis of places where our coverage of environmental issues might be strengthened. He also gave us a similarly comprehensive review of our Latin American and Pacific Oceania material. We also extend a special thanks to Stanley Burstein, emeritus at California State University–
The largest of these communities consists of the many people who read earlier editions and made suggestions for improvement. We offer our thanks to the following reviewers: Maria S. Arbelaez, University of Nebraska–
We extend our thanks to the contributors to the supplements: Lisa Tran, California State University–
The Bedford village has been a second community sustaining this enterprise and the one most directly responsible for the book’s third edition. It would be difficult for any author to imagine a more supportive and professional publishing team. Our chief point of contact with the Bedford village has been Leah Strauss, our development editor. She has coordinated the immensely complex task of assembling a new edition of the book and has done so with great professional care, with timely responses to our many queries, and with sensitivity to the needs and feelings of authors, even when she found it necessary to decline our suggestions.
Others on the team have also exhibited that lovely combination of personal kindness and professional competence that is so characteristic of the Bedford way. Editorial director Edwin Hill and publisher Michael Rosenberg have kept an eye on the project amid many duties. Jane Knetzger, director of development, provided overall guidance as well as the necessary resources. Christina Horn, our production editor, managed the process of turning a manuscript into a published book and did so with both grace and efficiency. Operating behind the scenes in the Bedford village, a series of highly competent and always supportive people have shepherded this revised edition along its way. Photo researcher Bruce Carson identified and acquired the many images that grace this new edition of Ways of the World and did so with a keen eye and courtesy. Copy editor Jennifer Brett Greenstein polished the prose and sorted out our many inconsistent usages with a seasoned and perceptive eye. Sandra McGuire has overseen the marketing process, while Bedford’s sales representatives have reintroduced the book to the academic world. Jen Jovin supervised the development of ancillary materials to support the book, and William Boardman ably coordinated research for the lovely covers that mark Ways of the World. Eve Lehman conducted the always-
Yet another “village” that contributed much to Ways of the World is the group of distinguished scholars and teachers who worked with Robert Strayer on an earlier world history text, The Making of the Modern World, published by St. Martin’s Press (1988, 1995). They include Sandria Freitag, Edwin Hirschmann, Donald Holsinger, James Horn, Robert Marks, Joe Moore, Lynn Parsons, and Robert Smith. That collective effort resembled participation in an extended seminar, from which I benefited immensely. Their ideas and insights have shaped my own understanding of world history in many ways and greatly enriched Ways of the World.
A final and much smaller community sustained this project and its authors. It is that most intimate of villages that we know as a marriage. Sharing that village with me (Robert Strayer) is my wife, Suzanne Sturn. It is her work to bring ideas and people to life onstage, even as I try to do so between these covers. She knows how I feel about her love and support, and no one else needs to. And across the street, I (Eric Nelson) would also like to thank two new residents of this village: my wife, Alice Victoria, and our little girl, Evelyn Rhiannon, to whom this new edition is dedicated. Without their patience and support, I could not have become part of such an interesting journey.
To all of our fellow villagers, we offer deep thanks for an immensely rewarding experience. We are grateful beyond measure.
Robert Strayer, La Selva Beach, California, Summer 2015
Eric Nelson, Springfield, Missouri, Summer 2015