Book Description
Unlike some other world history texts that center on the West, The Human Record provides balanced coverage of the global past. The book features both written and artifactual sources that are placed in their full historical contexts through introductory essays, footnotes, and focus questions.
The text sheds light on the experiences of women and non-elite groups while maintaining overall balance and a focus on the major patterns of global historical developments through the ages.
Customer Reviews:
History from the original source documents.......2007-04-27
"The Human Record" is a collection of primary source documents veering world history from the beginning of written history to about 1500 AD/CE. The text provides context for the original source documents and it typically is used as a companion text for many world history textbooks at the secondary and university levels. "Human Record" includes sample questions which either the student or teacher can utilize to help assess their comprehension of the material presented.
"Human Record" has been regularly updated with new editions that further add or refine previous editions, attesting to its enduring popularity as a resource at both the secondary and university levels. Outside of teachers and students however I cannot imagine there is much appeal. It does represent a wide cultural diversity of ethnic groups and religions rather than showing a Eurocentric perspective, but then again that's become the norm at both secondary and university levels rather than the norm.
4th Edition different from 5th.......2005-09-26
If you are needing the 5th Edition for a class, Do not be fooled that the 4th is the exact same. The majority of the documents are exactly the same but a few key ones are not there. It depends if you want to do the extra work to save a few dollars...so far it's been ok for me...
A Review of The Human Record: Sources of Global History.......2000-05-28
The Human Record: Sources of Global History is an excellent introduction for History students in analyzing and discussing primary source material. The editors have selected not only the most interesting but also the most useful sources in World History. Selections range from the Epic of Gilgamesh, The Book of Genesis, Code of Hammurabi, the Analects, Bhagavad Gita, etc. The only critque I have is that some of the selections are rather short but if used in conjunction with a text book like Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past, and other supplemental material this book will prove beneficial to instructors and students of any World History course. cdeluca@citrus.ucr.edu
Book Description
In a stunningly original look at the American Declaration of Independence, David Armitage reveals the document in a new light: through the eyes of the rest of the world. Not only did the Declaration announce the entry of the United States onto the world stage, it became the model for other countries to follow.
Armitage examines the Declaration as a political, legal, and intellectual document, and is the first to treat it entirely within a broad international framework. He shows how the Declaration arose within a global moment in the late eighteenth century similar to our own. He uses over one hundred declarations of independence written since 1776 to show the influence and role the U.S. Declaration has played in creating a world of states out of a world of empires. He discusses why the framers' language of natural rights did not resonate in Britain, how the document was interpreted in the rest of the world, whether the Declaration established a new nation or a collection of states, and where and how the Declaration has had an overt influence on independence movements--from Haiti to Vietnam, and from Venezuela to Rhodesia.
Included is the text of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and sample declarations from around the world. An eye-opening list of declarations of independence since 1776 is compiled here for the first time. This unique global perspective demonstrates the singular role of the United States document as a founding statement of our modern world.
Customer Reviews:
A fine first offering.......2007-04-09
Armitage's work, though far from comprehensive, is an excellent "conversation starter" regarding the immense influence the U.S. Declaration of Independence has exerted upon world movements towards self-empowerment. And the reader need not take Armitage's word alone as the gospel: the oblong volume includes a broad selection of "declarations of independence" from around the world, including those from such diverse locations as Liberia, Texas, and Israel.
Armitage analyzes the ideological influences writers have felt from Jefferson's document, and offers his interpretations regarding the importance of those influences. His work is a key discussion on an emerging field in American archival study.
However, this book is simply not long enough. Only half of the volume is devoted to Armitage's research. The remaining half is given over to sample declarations, Jefferson's rough and final drafts for the Second Continental Congress, a British rebuttal to the American document, and a table listing almost all independence pronouncements from 1776 to 1993. Armitage has opened the discussion--it remains for a further scholar, or perhaps Armitage himself--to take it to the next level.
A nice little compendium.......2007-02-19
It was long known that the U.S declaration of Independence inspired others including Haiti, New Zealand, Hungary and Rhodesia. This book is an attempt to survey a few of those and ask important questions about the nature of such declarations. It is nice little book although it is not encyclopedic. It does miss a few declarations that are obviously modeled on the American one and the book could have gone deeper to examine the way in which the U.S declaration influenced others and why it didnt influence some. That would have been an interesting aside, nevertheless this is a first step and it merely begs someone to complete the project.
Incisive and intelligently written, a quick and enjoyable read.
Seth J. Frantzman
I declare.......2007-01-28
A strangely dry and thin analysis of the political afterlife of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. It reads like a professor's lecture notes that are slightly expanded and tidied-up for publication. One more book to be listed as a professional accomplishment for the Harvard teacher.
I did enjoy reading the reprinting of Jeremy Bentham's view of the great document shortly after it was issued in 1776.
I did not enjoy the physical size of this edition. I found its relative smallness made for an awkward reading experience.
MOVING ACCOUNT OF AMERICAN 'DOI'; TERRIBLE ACCOUNT OF GLOBAL HISTORY.......2007-01-28
The book's first hundred pages are a moving and extraordinary account of the American Declaration of Independence. It confirms the author's ommand of American history and of the English language. If the book stopped there, and was issued as a mass-distribution, commemorative account, it may even be the best thus far.
But alas, the author's ambition gets the better of him and he insists on turning it into a 'Global History' of declarations of independence. That is in fact the subtitle of the book, and perhaps a hoped-for hook to make readers buy it. But the next forty pages quickly confirm that the author has neither the breadth of knowledge to deliver a complete history, leaving gaps that an elephant could walk through, nor the savvy to avoid emphasizing declarations of independence by Haiti, Venezuela, Philipines, Latvia, Hungary and others, none of which have been independent for any reasonable length of their history. Lost thus are the history of Australian, New Zealand or French independence, and other countries that have in fact been independent, although those at least find mention in appendices and in passing. What finds no mention at all is the largest democracy in the world, India, and its declaration of independence, which begins with the familiar words "We the People." In fact, in an exhaustive but unnecessary appendix of all the world's declarations of independence, India finds no mention at all, neither its initial declaration in 1931 nor its final one in 1947. The book then simply loses all credibility and completeness.
It appears therefore that the author David Armitage has relied too much on extraneous countries, studying which perhaps won him grants and fellowships, and has thus missed the elephants in the room, countries like Australia and India, which rarely attract funding or discussions in the hallowed halls of Harvard. The book so badly misses its promise that Harvard Press should reissue it as a collector's books, and then it should soar.
Book Description
A quiet revolution in knowledge separated the early modern period in Japan from all previous time. After 1600, self-appointed investigators used the model of the land and cartographic surveys of the newly unified state to observe and order subjects such as agronomy, medicine, gastronomy, commerce, travel, and entertainment. They subsequently circulated their findings through a variety of commercially printed texts: maps, gazetteers, family encyclopedias, urban directories, travel guides, official personnel rosters, and instruction manuals for everything from farming to lovemaking. In this original and gracefully written book, Mary Elizabeth Berry considers the social processes that drove the information explosion of the 1600s. Inviting readers to examine the contours and meanings of this transformation, Berry provides a fascinating account of the conversion of the public from an object of state surveillance into a subject of self-knowledge.
Japan in Print shows how, as investigators collected and disseminated richly diverse data, they came to presume in their audience a standard of cultural literacy that changed anonymous consumers into an "us" bound by common frames of reference. This shared space of knowledge made society visible to itself and in the process subverted notions of status hierarchy. Berry demonstrates that the new public texts projected a national collectivity characterized by universal access to markets, mobility, sociability, and self-fashioning.
Book Description
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, King Philip, ruler of the conjoint global empires of Spain and Portugal, received advice from many quarters, not least with regard to the attacks on the empires by other west European nations. Manoel de Andrada Castel Blanco, an obscure cleric who had worked in Brazil and Africa and who lamented the marine disasters and enemy incursions of the previous half-century, wrote c.1590 a tract of advice which has remained unpublished until the present annotated edition. His proposals for the defense of the imperial sea routes, which include references to localities as far apart as Bahia, Aden, Siam and Magellan Strait, make him one of the earliest global strategists. The tract, despite its patent defects of thought and presentation, gives the reader something of the "feel" of the period as it was experienced by those Iberians who, although outside the imperial administration, were capable of grasping the intense excitement of novel global venture and the inevitable accompanying anxieties and alarms.
Customer Reviews:
History from the original source documents.......2007-04-27
"The Human Record" is a collection of primary source documents veering world history from the beginning of written history to about 1500 AD/CE. The text provides context for the original source documents and it typically is used as a companion text for many world history textbooks at the secondary and university levels. "Human Record" includes sample questions which either the student or teacher can utilize to help assess their comprehension of the material presented.
"Human Record" has been regularly updated with new editions that further add or refine previous editions, attesting to its enduring popularity as a resource at both the secondary and university levels. Outside of teachers and students however I cannot imagine there is much appeal. It does represent a wide cultural diversity of ethnic groups and religions rather than showing a Eurocentric perspective, but then again that's become the norm at both secondary and university levels rather than the norm.
Book Description
This magisterial survey of the rise and decline of European overseas empires asks how and why these empires were formed, persisted, and eventually fell. In a discussion that encompasses European and non-European actors as well as the economic, social, cultural and political dimensions of empire, David B. Abernethy explains Europe's long occupation of global center stage and throws new light on today's postcolonial world and the legacies of empire.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Overveiw of Fundamental Topic.......2007-10-12
Professor Abernethy's massive summary of European imperialism spans over 500 years and encompasses every major Empire. Its genius is its specific approach: it boils an almost unmanagably large topic down to concise and clear patterns. In all its detail and variation and intricacy, imperialism did have broad and distinct phases. The discipline of history deals with the former, bottom-up approach- individual stories, specific locations, small incidents- and sruggles to create an overall framework of imperialism. But as a political scientist- somebody who deals with models and theories- Abernethy has the adacity to organize colonialism into a coherent phenomenon. The reader is greatly rewarded by this approach: he or she gains a broad overview of how modernity came to be.
Impartial and excellent analysis of the matter.......2001-12-02
This book covers the whole period of European overseas empires, i.e., from the beginning of the XV century up to the end of the XX century.
Perhaps its flaw, if any, is the lack of an explanation of why or how the Europeans were able to conquer said empires. This issue is linked to one of the most controversial issues nowadays on long-term and comparative history: why Western countries have dominated the world during the last few centuries. To put it in a nutshell (quoting from J.M. Blaut, "Eight eurocentric historians"): "Europe acquired incalculable riches from the Americas after 1492. This led to the rise to political power of the merchant-capitalist class and its allies, and in many others ways led, directly and indirectly, to the awakening of Europeans to the rest of the world and the transformation of Europe's society and economy". Also on this line, "The Great Divergence", by Kennetz Pomeranz, and [according to one review I have read], Clive Ponting's world history [but I warm that I have not read this last book yet].
Apart from that, the book is excellent. By means of comparative analysis, it tries (and, as far as I am concerned, he achieves his goal) to provide a global explanations of the phases of imperial expansion and contraction, the factors accounting for imperial expansion, and then contraction, and also sets up rational criteria that may lead on the future to the moral evaluation of colonialism [he gives his own and nuanced opinion on this matter].
Perhaps, as a Spaniard myself, I would have appreciated some more analysis on the Spanish empire. It would have been very useful if Mr. Abernethy had examined and passed judgment on the Spanish Empire in America and its "Black Legend". I bet it would have been worth reading that.
I have rated it four starts. Considering its content, I think it should be five; considering its readability, three. In any event, I do recommend it to read it.
Book Description
Demonstrating that globalization is a centuries-old phenomenon, From Silver to Cocaine examines the commodity chains that have connected producers in Latin America with consumers around the world for five hundred years. In clear, accessible essays, historians from Latin America, England, and the United States trace the paths of many of Latin America’s most important exports: coffee, bananas, rubber, sugar, tobacco, silver, henequen (fiber), fertilizers, cacao, cocaine, indigo, and cochineal (insects used to make dye). Each contributor follows a specific commodity from its inception, through its development and transport, to its final destination in the hands of consumers. The essays are arranged in chronological order, according to when the production of a particular commodity became significant to Latin America’s economy. Some—such as silver, sugar, and tobacco—were actively produced and traded in the sixteenth century; others—such as bananas and rubber—only at the end of the nineteenth century; and cocaine only in the twentieth.
By focusing on changing patterns of production and consumption over time, the contributors reconstruct complex webs of relationships and economic processes, highlighting Latin America’s central and interactive place in the world economy. They show how changes in coffee consumption habits, clothing fashions, drug usage, or tire technologies in Europe, Asia, and the Americas reverberate through Latin American commodity chains in profound ways. The social and economic outcomes of the continent’s export experience have been mixed. By analyzing the dynamics of a wide range of commodities over a five-hundred-year period, From Silver to Cocaine highlights this diversity at the same time that it provides a basis for comparison and points to new ways of doing global history.
Contributors. Marcelo Bucheli, Horacio Crespo, Zephyr Frank, Paul Gootenberg, Robert Greenhill, Mary Ann Mahony, Carlos Marichal, David McCreery, Rory Miller, Aldo Musacchio, Laura Nater, Ian Read, Mario Samper, Steven Topik, Allen Wells
Customer Reviews:
A Real Global History.......2000-03-31
Prof. Stavrianos showed us a real global history in which only the main flow of the divelopment of human society was sketched and explained, so we can go inside the logic of modernization without any duty to remember those meaningless but "important" information.
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The Earth and Its Peoples : A Global History : Brief Edition : Third Edition : Volume II : Since 1500
Traditions & Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past Volume 1 from the Beginnings to 1500 2nd edition
Human Record
The Earth And Its Peoples: A Global History : Since 1500
Cracking the AP World History Exam, 2006-2007 Edition (College Test Prep)
