Brian Levack received his Ph.D. from Yale and is the John Green Regents Professor in History at University of Texas at Austin. The winner of several teaching awards, Levack teaches a wide variety of courses on British and European history, legal history, and the history of witchcraft.  His books include The Civil Lawyers in England, 1603–1641: A Political Study (1973), The Formation of the British State: England, Scotland and the Union, 1603–1707 (1987), The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (3rd edition, 2006), and Witch-Hunting in Scotland: Law, Politics, and Religion (2008).

Edward Muir received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University, where he specialized in the Italian Renaissance and did archival research in Venice and Florence, Italy. He is now the Clarence L. Ver Steeg Professor in the Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University and former chair of the history department. At Northwestern he has won several teaching awards. His books include Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice (1981), Mad Blood Stirring: Vendetta in Renaissance Italy (1993 and 1998), Ritual in Early Modern Europe (1997 and 2005), and The Culture Wars of the Late Renaissance: Skeptics, Libertines, and Opera (2007).

Meredith Veldman received a Ph.D. in modern European history, with a concentration in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain, from Northwestern University. As an Associate Professor of history and award-winning instructor at Louisiana State University, she teaches courses in nineteenth- and twentieth-century British history and twentieth-century Europe, as well as the second half of “Western Civ.” Veldman is also the author of Fantasy, the Bomb, and the Greening of Britain: Romantic Protest, 1945—1980 (1994).

“What Is the West?”

The Shifting Borders of the West

Changing Identities within the West

Western Values

Asking the Right Questions

1. The Beginnings of Civilizations, 10,000-1150 B.C.E.

Defining Civilization, Defining Western Civilization

Mesopotamia: Kingdoms, Empires, and Conquests

Egypt: The Empire of the Nile

Conclusion: Civilization and the West

2. The Age of Empires: The International Bronze Age and its Aftermath, ca. 1500-550 B.C.E.

The Dynamism of the International Bronze Age

Recovery and Rebuilding: Empires and Societies in the Aftermath of the International Bronze Age

The Civilization of the Hebrews

Conclusion: International Systems, Ancient Empires, and the Roots of Western Civilization

3. Persians, Hebrews, and Greeks:  The Foundations of Western Culture, 1100-336 B.C.E.

Greece Rebuilds, 1100—479 B.C.E.

The Greek Encounter with Persia

The Classical Age of Greece, 479—336 B.C.E.

Conclusion: The Cultural Foundations of the West

4.  Hellenistic Civilization

The Impact of Alexander the Great

Hellenism in the East and West

Hellenistic Society and Culture

Hellenistic Philosophy and Science

Conclusion: Defining the West in the Hellenistic Age

5.  The Roman Republic

The Nature of the Roman Republic

Roman Territorial Expansion

The Culture of the Roman Republic

Social Life in Republican Rome

The End of the Roman Republic

Conclusion: The Roman Republic and the West

6. Enclosing the West: The Early Roman Empire and Its Neighbors: 31 B.C.E.-235 C.E.

The Imperial Center

Life in the Roman Provinces: Assimilation, Resistance, and Romanization

The Frontier and Beyond

Society and Culture in the Imperial Age

Conclusion: Rome Shapes the West

7. Late Antiquity: The Age of New Boundaries, 250-600.

Crisis and Recovery in the Third Century

Toward a Christian Empire

New Christian Communities and Identities

The Break-Up of the Roman Empire

Conclusion: The Age of New Boundaries

8. Medieval Empires and Borderlands:  Byzantium and Islam

Byzantium: The Survival of the Roman Empire

The New World of Islam

Conclusion: Three Cultural Realms

9. Medieval Empires and Borderlands: The Latin West

The Birth of Latin Christendom

The Carolingians

Invasions and Recovery in the Latin West

The West in the East:  The Crusades

Conclusion: An Emerging Unity in the Latin West

10. Medieval Civilization:  The Rise of Western Europe

Two Worlds:  Manors and Cities

The Consolidation of Roman Catholicism

Strengthening the Center of the West

Medieval Culture: The Search for Understanding

Conclusion: Asserting Western Culture

11. The Medieval West in Crisis

A Time of Death

A Cold Wind from the East

Economic Depression and Social Turmoil

An Age of Warfare

A Troubled Church and the Demand for Religious Comfort

The Culture of Loss

Conclusion: Looking Inward

12. The Italian Renaissance and Beyond: The Politics of Culture

The Cradle of the Renaissance: The Italian City-States

The Influence of Ancient Culture

The Early Modern European State System

Conclusion: The Politics of Culture

13. The West and the World: The Significance of Global Encounters, 1450-1650

Europeans in Africa

Europeans in the Americas

Europeans in Asia

The Beginnings of the Global System

Conclusion: The Significance of the Global Encounters

14. The Reformation of Religion

Causes of the Reformation

The Lutheran Reformation

The Diversity of Protestantism

The Catholic Reformation

Conclusion: Competing Understandings

15. The Age of Confessional Division

The Peoples of Early Modern Europe

Disciplining the People

Hunting Witches

The Confessional States

States and Confessions in Eastern Europe

Conclusion: The Divisions of the West

16. Absolutism and State-Building in Europe, 1618-1715

The Nature of Absolutism

The Absolutist State in France and Spain

Absolutism and State-Building in Central and Eastern Europe

Resistance to Absolutism in England and the Dutch Republic

Conclusion: The Western State in the Age of Absolutism

17. The Scientific Revolution

The Discoveries and Achievements of the Scientific Revolution

The Search for Scientific Knowledge

The Causes of the Scientific Revolution

The Intellectual Consequences of the Scientific Revolution

Humans and the Natural World

Conclusion: Science and Western Culture

18. The West and the World: Empire, Trade, and War, 1650-1815

European Empires in the Americas and Asia

Warfare in Europe, North America, and Asia

The Atlantic World

Encounters between Europeans and Asians

The Crisis of Empire and the Atlantic Revolutions

Conclusion: The Rise and Reshaping of the West

19. Eighteenth-Century Society and Culture

The Aristocracy

Challenges to Aristocratic Dominance

The Enlightenment

The Impact of the Enlightenment

Conclusion: The Enlightenment and Western Identity

20. The Age of the French Revolution, 1789-1815

The First French Revolution, 1789-1791

The French Republic, 1792-1799

Cultural Change in France During the Revolution

The Napoleonic Era, 1799-1815

The Legacy of the French Revolution

Conclusion: The French Revolution and Western Civilization

21. The Industrial Revolution

The Nature of the Industrial Revolution

Conditions Favoring Industrial Growth

The Spread of Industrialization

The Effects of Industrialization

Industry, Trade, and Empire

Conclusion: Industrialization and the West

22. Ideological Conflicts and National Unification, 1815-1871

New Ideologies in the Early Nineteenth Century

Ideological Encounters in Europe, 1815-1848

National Unification in Europe and America, 1848-1871

International Conflict and Domestic Politics, 1853-1871

Conclusion: The Ideological Transformation in the West

23. The Coming of Mass Politics: Industrialization, Emancipation, and Instability, 1870-1914

Economic Transformation

Defining the Political Nation

Broadening the Political Nation

Outside the Political Nation? The Experience of Women

Conclusion: The West in an Age of Mass Politics

24. The West and the World: Cultural Crisis and the New Imperialism, 1870-1914

Scientific Transformations

Cultural Crisis: The Fin de Siecle and the Birth of Modernism

The New Imperialism

Conclusion: Reshaping the West:  Expansion and Fragmentation

25. The First World War

The Origins of the First World War

The Experience of Total War

The Home Fronts

War and Revolution

Conclusion: The War and the West

26. Reconstruction, Reaction, and Continuing Revolution—The 1920s and 1930s

Cultural Despair and Desire

Out of the Trenches: Reconstructing Nationalism and Gender Politics in the 1920s

The Rise of the Radical Right

The Polarization of Politics in the 1930s

The West and the World:  Imperialism in the Interwar Era

Conclusion: The Kingdom of Corpses

27. World War II

The Coming of War

Europe at War, 1939-1941

The World at War, 1941-1945

From Allied Defeat to Allied Victory

The War Against the Jews

The Home Front:  The Other Wars

Conclusion: The New West: After Auschwitz and the Atom Bomb

28. Redefining the West After World War II

A Dubious Peace, 1945-1949

The West and the World:  Decolonization and the Cold War

The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the 1950s and 1960s

The West:  Consensus, Consumption, and Culture

Conclusion: New Definitions, New Divisions

29. The West in the Contemporary Era: New Encounters and Transformations

Economic Stagnation and Political Change:  The 1970s and 1980s

Revolution in the East

In the Wake of Revolution

Rethinking the West

Conclusion: Where Is the West Now?

Glossary
Index

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.