William A. Graham is the Albertson professor of Middle Eastern studies in the faculty of arts and sciences and the O’Brian professor of divinity and dean in the faculty of divinity at Harvard University, where he has taught for 34 years. He has directed the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and chaired the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, the Committee on the Study of Religion and the Core Curriculum Committee on Foreign Cultures. He received his B.A. in comparative literature from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and an A.M. and Ph.D. in history of religion from Harvard. He also studied in Göttingen, Tübingen, Lebanon and London. He is the former chair of the Council on Graduate Studies in Religion (U.S. and Canada). In 2000 he received the quinquennial Award for Excellence in Research in Islamic History and Culture from the Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA) of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. He has held John Simon Guggenheim and Alexander von Humboldt research fellowships and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among his publications are Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion (1987); Divine Word and Prophetic Word in Early Islam (1977—ACLS History of Religions Prize, 1978) and Three Faiths, One God (co-authored, 2003).

Donald Kagan is the Sterling professor of history and classics at Yale University, where he has taught since 1969. He received an A.B. degree in history from Brooklyn College, an M.A. in classics from Brown University and a Ph.D. in history from Ohio State University. Between 1958 and 1959 he studied at the American School of Classical Studies as a Fulbright scholar. He has received three awards for undergraduate teaching at Cornell and Yale. He is the author of a history of Greek political thought, The Great Dialogue (1965); a four-volume history of the Peloponnesian war, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (1969); The Archidamian War (1974); The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition (1981); The Fall of the Athenian Empire (1987); a biography of Pericles, Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy (1991); On the Origins of War (1995) and The Peloponnesian War (2003). He is co-author, with Frederick W. Kagan, of While America Sleeps (2000). With Brian Tierney and L. Pearce Williams, he is the editor of Great Issues in Western Civilization, a collection of readings. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal for 2002 and was chosen by the National Endowment for the Humanities to deliver the Jefferson Lecture in 2004.

Steven Ozment is the McLean professor of ancient and modern history at Harvard University. He has taught western civilization at Yale, Stanford and Harvard. He is the author of 11 books. The Age of Reform, 1250–1550 (1980) won the Schaff Prize and was nominated for the 1981 National Book Award. Five of his books have been selections of the History Book Club: Magdalena and Balthasar: An Intimate Portrait of Life in Sixteenth Century Europe (1986), Three Behaim Boys: Growing Up in Early Modern Germany (1990), Protestants: The Birth of A Revolution (1992), The Burgermeister’s Daughter: Scandal in a Sixteenth Century German Town (1996) and Flesh and Spirit: Private Life in Early Modern Germany (1999). His most recent publications are Ancestors: The Loving Family of Old Europe (2001), A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People (2004) and “Why We Study Western Civ,” The Public Interest 158 (2005).

Frank M. Turner was the John Hay Whitney professor of history at Yale University and director of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, where he served as university provost from 1988 to 1992. He received his B.A. degree at the College of William and Mary and his Ph.D. from Yale. He received the Yale College Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching. He directed a national endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute. His scholarly research received the support of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Center. He is the author of Between Science and Religion: The Reaction to Scientific Naturalism in Late Victorian England (1974), The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain (1981), which received the British Council Prize of the Conference on British Studies and the Yale Press Governors Award, Contesting Cultural Authority: Essays in Victorian Intellectual Life (1993) and  John Henry Newman: The Challenge to Evangelical Religion  (2002). He has also contributed numerous articles to journals and has served on the editorial advisory boards of The Journal of Modern History, Isis and Victorian Studies. He edited The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman (1996), Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke (2003) and Apologia Pro Vita Sua and Six Sermons by John Henry Newman (2008). Between l996 and 2006 he served as a trustee of Connecticut College and between 2004 and 2008 as a member of the Connecticut Humanities Council.

Maps

Preface

Part I : Human Origins and Early Civilizations to 500 B.C.E.

Chapter 1: The Birth of a Civilization

Early Humans and Their Culture

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Civilizations

Early Civilizations in the Middle East to About 1000 B.C.E.

A CLOSER LOOK Babylonian World Map

Ancient Near Eastern Empires

Early Indian Civilization

Early Chinese Civilization

The Rise of Civilization in the Americas

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

Chapter 2: Four Great Revolutions in Thought and Religion

Comparing the Four Great Revolutions

Philosophy in China

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Philosophy and Religion

Religion in India

A CLOSER LOOK Statue of Siddhartha Gotama asFasting Ascetic (2nd Century C.E.)

The Religion of the Israelites

Greek Philosophy

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD Judaism

Part II: Empires and Cultures of the Ancient World, 1000 B.C.E. to 500 C.E.

Chapter 3: Greek and Hellenistic Civilization

The Bronze Age on Crete and on the Mainland to ca. 1150 B.C.E.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE The Achievement of Greek and Hellenistic Civilization

Greek “Middle Age” to ca. 750 B.C.E.

The Polis

Expansion of the Greek World

Life in Archaic Greece

Major City-States

The Persian Wars

A CLOSER LOOK The Trireme

Classical Greece

Emergence of the Hellenistic World

Hellenistic Culture

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

Chapter 4: West Asia, Inner Asia, and South Asia to  1000 C.E.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Indo-Iranian Roles in the Eurasian World before Islam

West and Inner Asia

The Ancient Background

The First Persian Empire in the Iranian Plateau (550—330 B.C.E.)

The Seleucid Successors to Alexander in the East (ca. 312—63 B.C.E.)

The Parthian Arsacid Empire (ca. 247 B.C.E.—223 C.E.)

The Sasanid Empire (224—651 C.E.)

South Asia to 1000 C.E.

The First Indian Empire: The Mauryas (321—185 B.C.E.)

The Consolidation of Indian Civilization (ca. 200 B.C.E.—300 C.E.)

A CLOSER LOOK Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath

The Golden Age of the Guptas (ca. 320—550 C.E.)

The Development of “Classical” Indian Civilization (ca. 300—1000 C.E.)

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD Hinduism

Chapter 5: Africa: Early History to  1000 C.E.

Issues of Interpretation, Sources, and Disciplines

Physical Description of the Continent

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE “Traditional” Peoples and Nontraditional Histories

African Peoples

The Sahara and the Sudan to the Beginning of the Common Era

Nilotic Africa and the Ethiopian Highlands

The Western and Central Sudan

Central, Southern, and East Africa

A CLOSER LOOK Four Rock Art Paintings from Tassili n-Ajjer (4000—2000 B.C.E.)

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

Chapter 6: Republican and Imperial Rome

Prehistoric Italy

The Etruscans

Royal Rome

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Republican and Imperial Rome

The Republic

A CLOSER LOOK Lictors

Civilization in the Early Roman Republic:

Greek Influence

Roman Imperialism

The Fall of the Republic

The Augustan Principate

Civilization of the Ciceronian and Augustan Ages

Peace and Prosperity: Imperial Rome (14—180 C.E.)

The Rise of Christianity

The Crisis of the Third Century

The Late Empire

Arts and Letters in the Late Empire

The Problem of the Decline and Fall of the Empire in the West

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

Chapter 7: China's First Empire,  221 B.C.E.—589 C.E.

Qin Unification of China

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE China’s First Empire

Former Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E.—8 C.E.)

A CLOSER LOOK The Terra-Cotta Army of the First Qin Emperor

Later Han (25—220 C.E.) and Its Aftermath

Han Thought and Religion

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

Part III: Consolidation and Interaction of World Civilizations, 500 C.E. to 1500 C.E.

Chapter 8: Imperial China,  589—1368

Reestablishment of Empire: Sui (589—618) and Tang (618—907) Dynasties

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Imperial China

A CLOSER LOOK A Tang Painting of the Goddess of Mercy

Transition to Late Imperial China: The Song Dynasty (960—1279)

China in the Mongol World Empire: The Yuan Dynasty (1279—1368)

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

Chapter 9: Early Japanese History

Japanese Origins

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE East Asia

Nara and Heian Japan

Japan’s Early Feudal Age

A CLOSER LOOK The East Meets the East

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

RELIGIONS OF THE World Buddhism

Chapter 10: The Formation of Islamic Civilization,  622—100

Origins and Early Development

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE The Early Islamic Worlds of Arab and Persian Cultures

Women in Early Islamic Society

Early Islamic Conquests

The New Islamic World Order

A CLOSER LOOK The Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem (Interior)

The High Caliphate

Islamic Culture in the Classical Era

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

Chapter 11: The Byzantine Empire and Western Europe to  1000

The End of the Western Roman Empire

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE The Early Middle Ages

The Impact of Islam on East and West

The Developing Roman Church

The Kingdom of the Franks

A CLOSER LOOK A Multicultural Book Cover

Feudal Society

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

Chapter 12: The Islamic World, 1000—1500

the islamic heartlands

Religion and Society

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE The Expansion of Islamic Civilization, 1000—1500

Regional Developments

A CLOSER LOOK Al-Hariri, Assemblies (Maqamat)

The Spread of Islam beyond the Heartlands

Islamic India and Southeast Asia

The Spread of Islam to South Asia

Muslim—Hindu Encounter

Islamic States and Dynasties

Religious and Cultural Accommodation

Hindu and Other Indian Traditions

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

Chapter 13: Ancient Civilizations of the Americas

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Ancient Civilizations of the Americas

Problems in Reconstructing the History of Native American Civilization

Mesoamerica

The Formative Period and the Emergence of Mesoamerican Civilization

The Classic Period in Mesoamerica

A CLOSER LOOK The Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán

The Post-Classic Period

Andean South America

The Preceramic and the Initial Periods

Chavín de Huantar and the Early Horizon

The Early Intermediate Period

The Middle Horizon through the Late

Intermediate Period

The Inca Empire

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

Chapter 14: Africa CA.  1000—1700

North Africa and Egypt

The Spread of Islam South of the Sahara

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Africa, 1000—1700

Sahelian Empires of the Western and Central Sudan

The Eastern Sudan

The Forestlands–Coastal West and

Central Africa

A CLOSER LOOK Benin Bronze Plaque with Chief and Two Attendants

East Africa

Southern Africa

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

Chapter 15: Europe to the Early 1500s: Revival, Decline, and Renaissance

Revival of Empire, Church, and Towns

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE The High Middle Ages in Western Europe

A CLOSER LOOK European Embrace of a Black Saint

Society

Growth of National Monarchies

Political and Social Breakdown

Ecclesiastical Breakdown and Revival:

The Late Medieval Church

The Renaissance in Italy (1375—1527)

Revival of Monarchy: Nation Building in the Fifteenth Century

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

Part IV: The World in Transition, 1500 to 1850

Chapter 16: Europe,  1500—1650: Expansion, Reformation, and Religious Wars

The Discovery of a New World

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE European Expansion

The Reformation

The Reformation’s Achievements

A CLOSER LOOK A Contemporary Commentary on the Sexes

The Wars of Religion

Superstition and Enlightenment: The Battle Within

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD Christianity

Chapter 17: Conquest and Exploitation: The Development of the Transatlantic Economy

Periods of European Overseas Expansion

Mercantilist Theory of Economic Exploitation

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE The Atlantic World

Establishment of the Spanish Empire in America

Economies of Exploitation in the Spanish Empire

Colonial Brazil

French and British Colonies in North America

The Columbian Exchange: Disease, Animals, and Agriculture

Slavery in the Americas

Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

A CLOSER LOOK The Slave Ship Brookes

SUMMARY

KEY TERMS

REVIEW QUESTIONS

Suggested Readings

Credits

Index

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