Kevin Reilly - Worlds of History, Volume 1: A Comparative Reader, to 1550

The front cover

A Comparative Reader

• Volume One: To 1550
• Seventh Edition

• Kevin Reilly
• Raritan Valley College

For Bedford/St. Martins

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Cover Art: (top) Middle East / Arabia: Collecting frankincense from trees. Le Livre des Merveilles, Paris, c. 1420 / Pictures from History / Bridgeman Images; (bottom) Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead of Khonsumes. New Kingdom, XX Dynasty / G. Dagli Orti / De Agostini Picture Library / Bridgeman Images

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Acknowledgments

Text acknowledgments and copyrights appear at the back of the book on , which constitute an extension of the copyright page. Art acknowledgments and copyrights appear on the same page as the art selections they cover.

Since the time I began writing for and about the introductory history course, we have transformed it in three important ways. First, beginning in the 1980s, we recognized the need to teach about the entire world, including the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. Second, we sought to integrate new fields that have enriched the study of history. Even before the 1980s, historians were adding coverage of social history to their classes. This book follows suit, covering the history of social classes, women, and minorities. The carefully selected sources in this book trace the influence of education, migration, science, religion, and popular culture throughout world history, and explore whole new fields such as environmental history and the history of the senses. In fact, we have added a chapter on each of these two recently developed fields to this new edition.

Now, in our attempts to explore world and social history in detail, we run into the question of what to include and what to leave out. How do we decide what is truly important? As we struggled to decide what to teach, we became more conscious of the choices we made and more aware of the value of teaching how to learn as well as what to learn.

The third transformation of the teaching of history, occurring today, is to teach history as a process of learning. Our goal now is to teach students historical thinking skills or habits of mind. This goal is now receiving explicit formulation and vigorous advocacy in the efforts of institutions like the American Historical Association and the College Board. To support the teaching and learning of history as a process, this book features sections in each chapter called Thinking Historically. The idea behind teaching these historical thinking skills is not to abandon subject matter; indeed, we cannot learn anything without it. Rather, we have harnessed subject matter with lessons intended to improve both critical thinking skills in general and historical thinking skills more specifically.

To engage students who are not only new to the college experience but new to reading source material as well, I have continued my efforts to provide accessible readings that pique their interest. This updated edition aims to maintain that high level of reader interest with new selections, including an exploration of the rise of individuality as evidenced by three ancient Mesopotamian sculptures, a glimpse into colonial India and Africa through the novels of E. M. Forster and Ren Maran, and the riveting voice of Sojourner Truth. As in previous editions, I have included secondary as well as primary texts. In some chapters the secondary text introduces an issue that the primary sources then address, while at other times the secondary source offers a summary or suggestions for new directions. My aim in combining these two types of sources is for students to learn how texts, whether primary or secondary, talk to each other and without having to buy separate books of each.

As a framework, Ive used a thematic and topical organization that also proceeds chronologically, with each chapter focusing on a captivating topic within a particular time period. I have long found a comparative approach to be a useful tool for approaching world history, and for this seventh edition, I have continued to use this tool, examining two or more cultures at a time. In some chapters students can trace parallel developments in separate regions, such as the development of society in ancient Greece and India in ), or the chapter on the scientific revolution in Europe, the Ottoman Empire, China, Japan, and the Americas (Chapter 18). Even the normally bipolar study of the Cold War can be expanded, as documents in Chapter 25 relating to the superpowers fight to control the emerging Third World show.

I continue to include a wealth of pedagogical tools to help students unlock the readings and hone their critical thinking skills. Each chapter begins with a Historical Context introduction that sets the stage for directed comparisons among the chapters readings. The Thinking Historically section follows, which introduces a particular critical thinking skill such as asking about author, audience, and agenda, or distinguishing causes of change that is designed to mine the chapters selections. Introductions preceding each selection provide additional context, while document-specific Thinking Historically content poses questions to encourage close analysis of the selections using the critical thinking skill introduced at the beginning of the chapter. Explanatory gloss notes and pronunciation guides throughout help ensure comprehension of the readings. A set of Reflections that both summarizes and extends the chapters lessons concludes each chapter.