Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics, and Society, Volume I: To 1789

Marvin Perry's WESTERN CIVILIZATION is the premier text to use for those interested in teaching intellectual history.

Chapter outlines and introductions provide comprehensive overviews of key themes and give a sense of direction and coherence to the flow of history. Most chapters contain concluding essays that treat the larger meaning of the material.

Each chapter has an integrated excerpt of a primary source-with an introductory essay and Questions for Analysis-to help students interpret and analyze primary source documents.

Five full-color illustrated art essays appear throughout the book to help students interpret and analyze visual sources.

Pedagogy (including Focus Questions at the beginning of the chapter that guide students' reading and Questions for Analysis in the features) has been updated to be more thought provoking.

Profiles, which have been revised to present a richer and broader range of significant historical figures, include more ordinary people, minorities, and women.

A new author, Professor Jonathan Daly from the University of Chicago, Illinois, has joined the team. He provides updates to Chapter 32, “Europe After World War II: Recovery and Realignment, 1945–1989,” and to half of Chapter 33, “The Troubled Present.”

New primary sources include a passage from the writings of Adelard of Bath (Ch. 11); selections from the “Oration on the Dignity of Man” by Pico della Mirandola (Ch. 13); an excerpt from the writings of Benjamin Constant, the French liberal theorist (Ch. 21); and an excerpt from Carl Schurz’s “Reminiscences” in which he recalls the expectations of German liberal-nationalists after the February Revolution in Paris (Ch. 22).

Changes in this edition, among many others, include new, revised, or expanded discussion of the significance of Greek politics for the Founding Fathers of the U.S. (Ch. 3); Alexander the Great and Hellenistic society (Ch. 5); slavery and culture (Ch. 6); the Koran, Islamic interpretations of Jihad, and Muslim science (Ch. 9); the Black Plague (Ch. 12); treatment of women in the Renaissance (Ch. 13); and international competition between states for overseas conquest and exploitation (Ch. 16).

This edition presents new or expanded discussion of the Jacobin policy of de-Christianization and statements by Napoleon illustrating his attitude toward women, religion, and his pursuit of glory (Ch. 19); anti-Semitism (Ch. 24); the revolutionary and nationalistic responses to imperialism in Latin America, Asia, and Africa (Ch. 26); Nietzsche, literary modernism, and social thought (Ch. 27); the impact of World War I on European thought and attitudes (Ch. 28); and war criminals in World War II (Ch. 31).

Chapters 32 and 33 have been heavily revised, with updated scholarship that covers new historiography surrounding the Cold War, the treatment of terrorism, the strife in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Arab Spring. A new section, “Our Global Age: Promise and Problems,” has been added to Chapter 33, and the Epilogue, “Reaffirming the Core Values of the Western Tradition,” is now the concluding section of that chapter.