Western Civilizationleads the market as the first western civilization text to include a separate chapter on Late Antiquity and the first to use the new political history--the effect of power and politics on all members of society--at the center of its narrative. Recognizing that European history was affected by factors outside the continent, this text looks at Europe by examining its place in the world. With an emphasis on the experimental nature of political and social history, the text challenges students to explore why and how history unfolded as it did. The Fourth Edition reinforces the global perspective of Europe through new scholarship and questions for critical thinking. Boxed features--"Global Encounters" and "Reading Sources"--highlight the role of primary sources in understanding historical events. Each chapter-based boxed feature, called "The Continuing Experiment," supports the major theme of the text and uses primary sources to highlight different political, social, and economic experiments throughout history. Increased coverage of events and figures based in regions not traditionally examined in Western Civilization texts includes the Viking and Norman invasions, Ivan the Terrible, and sixteenth-century Poland-Lithuania. Chapter 30 has been completely revised to include discussions of the European Union, the attacks of September 11th and the Iraq War, issues of American unilateralism, and an examination of globalization and its effects on the environment.