Research Catalog

Title

The rise of the West : a history of the human community : with a retrospective essay / by William H. McNeill ; drawings by Béla Petheö.

Author

McNeill, William Hardy, 1917-2016.

Publication

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, ©1991.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxxii, 828 pages : illustrations, maps; 23 cm

Summary

• A concise account of the development of the Western civlization beginning with the ancient culture of the Nile.
• "The Rise of the West, winner of the National Book Award for history in 1964, is famous for its ambitious scope and intellectual rigor. In it, McNeil challenges the Spengler-Toynbee view that a number of separate civilizations pursued essentially independent careers, and argues instead that human cultures interacted at every stage of their history. The author suggests that from the Neolithic beginnings of grain agriculture to the present, major social changes in all parts of the world were triggered by new or newly important foreign stimuli, and he presents a persuasive narrative of world history to support this claim. In a retrospective essay titled 'The Rise of the West after Twenty-five Years,' McNeil shows how his book was shaped by the time and place in which it was written (1954-63). He discusses how historiography subsequently developed and suggests how his portrait of the world's past in The Rise of the West should be revised to reflect these changes." -- Back cover

Subjects

• Civilization
• História cultural
• Civilização (história)
• Westerse wereld
• 15.50 general world history; history of great parts of the world, peoples, civilizations: general
• Civilization, Western
• Civilization > History
• History (form)
• History

Genre/Form

• History.
• History (form)

Note

• "'The Rise of the West after twenty-five years' first appeared in the Journal of world history 1 (1990): 1-21; c1990 by University of Hawaii Press"--Title page verso.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

• The era of Middle Eastern Dominance to 500 B.C. -- In the beginning -- The breakthrough to civilization in Mesopotamia -- The diffusion of civilization : first phase -- Introduction -- The civilizations of the Nile and Indus Valleys to 1700 B.C. -- Ancient Egypt -- The Indus civilization -- The transplantation of civilization to rain-watered lands -- Introductory -- Asia Minor -- Crete -- The impact of civilization on the outer fringes of the agricultural world -- Megalithic protocivilization -- High barbarism of the Eurasian Steppe.
• The rise of a cosmopolitan civilization in the Middle East, 1700-500 B.C. -- Introduction -- Military-political changes -- Administrative systems -- Social structure -- Cultural conservation and advance -- Babylonia -- Egypt -- The intermediate regions -- Zoroastrianism and Judaism -- The formulation of peripheral civilizations in India, Greece, and China, 1700-500 B.C. -- Introduction -- The formulation of Indian civilization -- The formulation of Greek civilization -- Political and social development -- Cultural growth -- Religion -- Art -- Literature -- Philosophy -- The beginnings of Chinese civilization to 500 B.C. -- Changes in the barbarian world to 500 B.C.
• Eurasian cultural balance 500 B.C.-1500 A.D. -- General introduction -- The expansion of Hellenism, 500-146 B.C. -- The flowering of Greek culture, 500-336 B.C. -- Introduction -- Political evolution -- The perfecting of Greek cultural forms -- Tragedy -- Philosophy -- History and rhetoric -- Monumental art -- Summary -- Hellenic expansion into barbarian Europe -- The Hellenization of the orient, 500-146 B.C. -- Military and political -- Social and cultural -- Closure of the Eurasian Ecumene, 500 B.C.-200 A.D. -- Introduction -- Expansion and development of the non-Hellenic civilizations of Eurasia, 500-100 B.C. -- India -- China -- The Far West : Rome and Western Europe, 336-146 B.C. -- The Eurasian Ecumene, 100 B.C.-200 A.D. -- Political and social developments -- Cultural growth and interchange -- Art -- Religion -- Other aspects of the high cultural tradition of Eurasia, 100 B.C.-200 A.D.
• Barbarian onslaught and civilized response, 200-600 A.D. -- Introduction -- The flowering of Indian culture -- Political and social framework -- Cultural achievements -- Language -- Literature -- Religion and philosophy -- Science -- Art -- Other aspects of Indian culture -- The expansion of Indian civilization -- Southeast Asia -- Eastern Mediterranean, Iran, and Central Asia -- China -- The northern frontier : barbarian breakthrough and civilized reaction -- The great migrations -- Consequences of the migrations -- Civilizing the barbarians -- Modification of civilized military and political institutions in Western Eurasia -- Cultural changes in Persia and Rome -- The outer fringes.
• The resurgence of the Middle East, 600-1000 A.D. -- Introduction -- The Moslem world -- Christendom -- India -- China and the Far East -- The outer fringes -- Steppe conquerors and the European Far West, 1000-1500 A.D. -- Introduction -- Infiltration and conquest from the Steppe -- Islamic reaction to the pressures from the Steppe -- Political and social -- Cultural -- Indians, Christians, and Jews under Moslem rule -- The Moslem heartlands -- India -- Orthodox Christendom -- The Far East -- China -- China's outliers -- The Far West -- Introductory -- The struggle for political order -- The expansion of Western Europe -- Cultural growth : the high middle ages -- Unique characteristics of West European civilization -- The fringes of the Ecumene.
• The era of Western dominance, 1500 A.D. to the present -- General introduction -- The Far West's challenge to the world, 1500-1700 A.D. -- The great European explorations and their world-wide consequences -- The transmutation of Europe, 1500-1650 A.D. -- Politics -- Economics -- Culture -- Europe's outliers : the Americas and Russia, 1500-1650 A.D. -- The Americas -- Russia -- The changing balance of the Ecumene, 1500-1700 A.D. -- The Moslem world -- The Iberian Crusade and Moslem response -- The rise of Russia and its consequences for Islam -- The Sunni-Shi'a Conflict and its consequences for Islam -- The subject religious communities in the Moslem world -- Hindu India and Buddhist Southeast Asia -- Christians under Moslem rule -- Jews in Moslem lands -- The Far East -- China -- Japan -- Tibet, Mongolia, and the Central Asian Steppe -- Africa -- Conclusion.
• The tottering world balance, 1700-1850 A.D. -- Introduction -- The old regime of Europe, 1650-1789 A.D. -- European expansion to new ground -- Exploration, trade, and national rivalries -- Plantations and the conscious transformation of tropical and subtropical economies -- The spread of European settlement -- Acculturation in the older outliers of Europe : America and Russia -- Spanish America -- Brazil and North America -- Russia -- The compromises of the old regime in the European heartlands -- Political and social compromises -- Intellectual compromises -- Compromises in the arts -- Elements of instability in the old regime -- Moslem catalepsy, 1700-1850 A.D. -- Ottoman reform and Christian rebellion -- Iran and Turkestan -- Disintegration of the Mogul Empire in India -- Islam in Africa and Southeast Asia.
• Hindu and Buddhist Asia, 1700-1850 A.D. -- Creeping crisis in the Far East, 1700-1850 A.D. -- China -- Japan -- The retreat of barbarism, 1700-1850 A.D. -- The rise of the West : Cosmopolitanism on a global scale, 1850-1950 A.D. -- Introductory -- The Western explosion, 1789-1917 A.D. -- Territorial expansion -- Industrialism -- The first or British phase -- The second or German and American phase -- The democratic revolution -- Artistic and intellectual aspects -- The non-Western world, 1850-1950 A.D. -- The changing shape and style of the Ecumene -- The Moslem world -- Hindu India -- China -- Japan -- Other parts of the world.

ISBN

• 0226561410
• 9780226561417

LCCN

91024224

OCLC

• ocm24108117
• 24108117
• SCSB-14367889

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library