The Essential World History, Volume I: To 1800,
9th Edition

Part I: THE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS AND THE RISE OF EMPIRES (PREHISTORY TO 500 C.E.).
1. Early Humans and the First Civilizations.
2. Ancient India.
3. China in Antiquity.
4. The Civilization of the Greeks.
5. The Roman World Empire.
Part II: NEW PATTERNS OF CIVILIZATION (500 – 1500 C.E.).
6. The Americas.
7. Ferment in the Middle East: The Rise of Islam.
8. Early Civilizations in Africa.
9. The Expansion of Civilization in South and Southeast Asia.
10. The Flowering of Traditional China.
11. The East Asian Rimlands: Early Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.
12. The Making of Europe.
13. The Byzantine Empire and Crisis and Recovery in the West.
Part III: THE EMERGENCE OF NEW WORLD PATTERNS (1500 – 1800).
14. New Encounters: The Creation of a World Market.
15. Europe Transformed: Reform and State Building.
16. The Muslim Empires.
17. The East Asian World.
18. The West on the Eve of a New World Order.

• William J. Duiker

  William J. Duiker is liberal arts Professor Emeritus of East Asian studies at The Pennsylvania State University and a former U.S. diplomat with service in Taiwan, South Vietnam and Washington, D.C. At Penn State, he served as director of International Programs in the College of Liberal Arts and as chairman of the East Asian Studies Committee. He has written extensively on the history of Vietnam and modern China, including the highly acclaimed COMMUNIST ROAD TO POWER IN VIETNAM (revised edition, Westview Press, 1996), which was selected for a Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award in 1982-1983 and 1996-1997. He is also the author of CHINA AND VIETNAM: THE ROOTS OF CONFLICT (Berkeley, 1987), U.S. CONTAINMENT POLICY AND THE CONFLICT IN INDOCHINA (Stanford, 1995), SACRED WAR: NATIONALISM AND REVOLUTION IN A DIVIDED VIETNAM (McGraw-Hill, 1995) and HO CHI MINH (Hyperion, 2000), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2001. While Dr. Duiker's research specialization is in the field of nationalism and Asian revolutions, his intellectual interests are considerably more diverse. He has traveled widely and has taught courses on the history of communism and non-Western civilizations at Penn State, where he was awarded a Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in 1996. The College of Liberal Arts honored him with an Emeritus Distinction Award in 2002. Dr. Duiker received his doctorate in Far Eastern history from Georgetown University.

• Jackson J. Spielvogel

  Jackson J. Spielvogel is Associate Professor Emeritus of History at The Pennsylvania State University. He received his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, where he specialized in Reformation History under Harold J. Grimm. His articles and reviews have appeared in journals such as MOREANA, JOURNAL OF GENERAL EDUCATION, CATHOLIC HISTORICAL REVIEW, ARCHIV FÜR REFORMATIONSGESCHICHTE and AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW. He also has contributed chapters or articles to THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF REFORMATION, THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE: A DICTIONARY HANDBOOK, the SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER ANNUAL OF HOLOCAUST STUDIES and UTOPIAN STUDIES. His work has been supported by fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation and the Foundation for Reformation Research. At Penn State, he helped inaugurate the Western Civilization course, as well as a popular course on Nazi Germany. His book HITLER AND NAZI GERMANY was first published in 1987 (7th Edition, 2014). In addition, he is the author of WESTERN CIVILIZATION, first published in 1991 (10th Edition, 2018), and co-author (with William Duiker) of WORLD HISTORY, first published in 1994 (9th Edition, 2019). Professor Spielvogel has won five major university-wide teaching awards. During the 1988-1989 year, he held the Penn State Teaching Fellowship, the university's most prestigious teaching award. He won the Dean Arthur Ray Warnock Award for Outstanding Faculty member in 1996 and received the Schreyer Honors College Excellence in Teaching Award in 2000.

• All chapters have been updated to reflect current scholarship, including dramatic recent events in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. New and revised material in the first half of the book includes discussion of the Hebrew Bible, including the Documentary Hypothesis (Chapter 1); the role the Persian threat for a growing sense of Greek cultural identity (Chapter 4); revolts against Roman rule during the Pax Romana (Chapter 5); the underlying reasons for the successful expansion of Islam in the Middle East (Chapter 7); the expansion of the maritime trade network in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea (Chapter 9); the nature of traditional society in Tang and Song dynasty China (Chapter 10); and monks as missionaries, particularly St. Patrick (Chapter 12).

• New and revised material in the second half of the text includes women and witchcraft (Chapter 15); the reasons for the rise and decline of the Ottoman Empire (Chapter 16); women and the Scientific Revolution (Chapter 18); British policies in India (Chapter 19); the intense debate over the consequences of Western Imperialism in Asia and Africa (Chapter 21); the social consequences of World War I (Chapter 23); the impact of technology (Chapter 25); new sections on migration crises; nativism and the politics of fear; and the March of Women (Chapter 28); the reasons behind the so-called Arab Spring and the collapse of organized nation-states in the contemporary Middle East, and new information on the Syrian civil war (Chapter 29).

• A number of new historical subsections have been added. Identified by the heading Historians Debate, they examine how and why historians differ in their interpretation of specific topics. Some of these debates include “Why Did Early Civilizations Develop?” (Chapter 1); “What was Romanization?” (Ch. 5); “The Mongols: A Reputation Undeserved?” (Chapter 10); “What were the Effects of the Crusades? (Chapter 12); “The Qing Economy: Ready for Takeoff?” (Chapter 17); “Was There an Agricultural Revolution?” (Chapter 18); “Imperialism: Drawing up the Balance Sheet” (Chapter 21); “Taisho Democracy: An Aberration?” (Chapter 24); “What is the Future of India?” and “The East Asian Miracle: Fact or Myth?” (Chapter 30).

• Focus Questions--Whenever appropriate, this edition incorporates new questions at the beginning and end of each chapter that address comparative issues, encouraging students to think globally. Additional new questions relate to issues from the Comparative Essay that appears in each chapter, or in the opening essay for each of the book's five parts. The questions support instructors in helping students to relate these supplemental essay features to the text's primary narrative.

• New Opposing Viewpoints--Several new Opposing Viewpoints features appear in the ninth edition. New topics include: "Confucianism and Its Enemies" (Chapter 10); “The Debate over Christianity” (Chapter 17); and "Soviet Repression in Eastern Europe: Hungary, 1956" (Chapter 26).

• New Film & History features--New Film & History essays include: The Mission (Chapter 14), Suffragette (Chapter 20), A Passage to India (Chapter 21), and Bridge of Spies (Chapter 26).

• Opposing Viewpoints features present two or more primary source documents representing different perspectives on the same or related topics. Now appearing in almost every chapter, these features provide students an opportunity for hands-on experience analyzing the types of materials historians use on a regular basis. Accompanying critical-thinking questions can be assigned for individual or collaborative study. Topics include "Women in Athens and Sparta" (Chapter 4), "Confucianism and Its Enemies" (Chapter 10), "Confrontation in Southeast Asia" (Chapter 26) and "Islam and the West: Secularism in France" (Chapter 28).

• More than 100 primary documents (four to five per chapter) give students access to the kind of material historians draw on when doing their research. A wide variety of sources such as letters, memoirs, song lyrics, official documents, diary entries, menus, poetry, plays and more bring history alive. Introductions and questions help guide students to think more critically, comparatively and thematically when reading the source material. Examples include "'Draw Their Veils over Their Bosoms'" (Chapter 7), "Women in the Factories" (Chapter 23) and "A Call for Revolt" (Chapter 24).

• Seven central themes make the narrative cohesive while helping students make connections and comparisons across chapters. These themes are Science and Technology, Art and Ideas, Family and Society, Politics and Government, Earth and Environment, Religion and Philosophy and Interaction and Exchange. Each of the Comparative Essays, Comparative Illustrations, Opposing Viewpoints and documents is keyed to one of these themes.

• Comparative Essays highlight similarities and differences between and among cultures. Examples include "History and the Environment" (Chapter 6), "The Columbian Exchange" (Chapter 14), "Imperialisms Old and New" (Chapter 21) and "A Revolution in the Arts" (Chapter 23). Each of these essay features is keyed to one of the text's seven themes, thus helping students further identify connections.

• Film & History features analyze the plot and historical significance of popular films using a historian's perspective to show students how movies represent, and sometimes misrepresent, the past. Features shine the spotlight on films such as Gladiator (Chapter 5), The Lion in Winter (Chapter 12), Marie Antoinette (Chapter 18), Bridge of Spies (Chapter 26) and The Iron Lady (Chapter 28).

Cengage provides a range of supplements that are updated in coordination with the main title selection. For more information about these supplements, contact your Learning Consultant.

Cengage Testing, powered by Cognero® for Duiker/Spielvogel's The Essential World History, Instant Access
9780357124048

Instructor's Companion Website for Duiker/Spielvogel's The Essential World History
9780357026885