Books With Flair

/*0321317777, Brummett, Civilization Past and Present, Volume C: 11e*/The authors of the Eleventh Edition of Civilization Past and Present-specialists in Islamic, African, Asian, Ancient, Russian, and East European history-weave the diverse trends of world history into a clear and accessible analysis for today's students. Civilization Past and Present, well known in the marketplace as a highly readable survey text, delivers a strong narrative of world history and a level of detail that is manageable for students and solid for instructors. Using images and documents that enhance the text's content, the narrative traces connections across cultures and introduces intriguing avenues of historical interpretation. The text examines all aspects of world history-social, political, economic, religious, cultural, and geographic.

Covers every aspect of knowledge--scientific, intellectual, and historical--from the beginning of the human experience into the twenty-first century and beyond

"A thoughtful and thoroughly documented analysis of the runaway train we are all aboard. Anyone worried about the track ahead should read it. Those not worried should read it more than once." --Ronald Wright, author of A Short History of Progress

“A lively popular history of an oft-overlooked element in the development of human society” (Library Journal)—walls—and a haunting and eye-opening saga that reveals a startling link between what we build and how we live. With esteemed historian David Frye as our raconteur-guide in Walls, which Publishers Weekly praises as “informative, relevant, and thought-provoking,” we journey back to a time before barriers of brick and stone even existed—to an era in which nomadic tribes vied for scarce resources, and each man was bred to a life of struggle. Ultimately, those same men would create edifices of mud, brick, and stone, and with them effectively divide humanity: on one side were those the walls protected; on the other, those the walls kept out. The stars of this narrative are the walls themselves—rising up in places as ancient and exotic as Mesopotamia, Babylon, Greece, China, Rome, Mongolia, Afghanistan, the lower Mississippi, and even Central America. As we journey across time and place, we discover a hidden, thousand-mile-long wall in Asia's steppes; learn of bizarre Spartan rituals; watch Mongol chieftains lead their miles-long hordes; witness the epic siege of Constantinople; chill at the fate of French explorers; marvel at the folly of the Maginot Line; tense at the gathering crisis in Cold War Berlin; gape at Hollywood’s gated royalty; and contemplate the wall mania of our own era. Hailed by Kirkus Reviews as “provocative, well-written, and—with walls rising everywhere on the planet—timely,” Walls gradually reveals the startling ways that barriers have affected our psyches. The questions this book summons are both intriguing and profound: Did walls make civilization possible? And can we live without them? Find out in this masterpiece of historical recovery and preeminent storytelling.

Written from a consciously anti-enthnocentric approach, this fascinating work is a survey of the civilizations of the modern world in terms of the broad sweep and continuities of history, rather than the "event-based" technique of most other texts.