Customer Reviews:
Eugen Weber.......2005-12-21
If you are interested, Eugen Weber has recorded 15 hours of lectures on the Western Tradition on the following site
learner.org in the social studies category. He is fascinating to listen to and I really suggest having a look.
Insight Into History.......2000-04-04
This book is a list of primary sources on the major events of European History from the Renaissance to the present. Weber does a good job of presenting balanced viewpoints (except maybe in the case of evolution, where he's definitely pro) The works are a bit dry, but that's not his fault. Plus, he gives a quick summary of each author before presenting his work. Perfect for AP classes (as practice for DBQs)
Book Description
This collection of primary, secondary, and visual sources for the Western Civilization survey course provides a broad introduction to the materials historians use, the interpretations historians make, and 6,000 years of Western civilization. Its broad selection of documents, photographs, maps, and charts, and its full array of accompanying commentaries--drawn from a balanced spectrum of perspectives and approaches--offer valuable insight into the work of historians and provide the context that helps students understand the texts' full historical significance.
Customer Reviews:
Thorough, Generous, Beautifully Illustrated.......2004-02-11
This book is unique in its balance of primary sources and their interpretations. All the figures you'd expect are present: Macchiavelli, Luther, Locke, Paine, Engles, Freud, etc. And with secondary sources coming from Fromm, Ulam, et. al, the data is clearly and comprehensively analyzed. What readers will appreciate are the generous illustrations throughout the text which give you some idea how the philosophies/theories/values of the times are reflected in visual media. What some readers won't appreaciate is the single-spaced type that changes font and styles so often that one might get motion sickness. It's a minor point that has nothing to do with the value of the texts presented, but it does interfere with the pleasure of reading. Still, this is a great history book to teach from or just as a casual read/refresher for the history fan.
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- The essential elements of the Western tradition (Volume 2)
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Western Humanities, Vol. 2: The Renaissance to the Present
Roy Matthews , and
Dewitt Platt
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
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Readings in the Western Humanities, Volume 1
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Western Humanities, Volume 1
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Western Humanities, Complete
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Music: The Art of Listening w/CD-ROM
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Humanities in Western Culture, Brief Revised Fourth Edition
ASIN: 0072556315 |
Book Description
This chronologically organized introduction to the Western humanities (art, music, history, literature, and drama) establishes the historical context of each era before the arts are discussed. Hundreds of illustrations appear throughout the text, "Personal Perspectives" boxes bring to life the events of the day, and brief sections at the end of each chapter describe the cultural legacy of the era discussed. Volume II of The Western Humanities covers the period from the Renaissance through the present.
Customer Reviews:
The essential elements of the Western tradition (Volume 2).......2004-01-31
This is the fifth edition of Volume II of "The Western Humanities" by Roy Matthews and F. DeWitt Platt, covering the cultural achievements of Western civilization in terms of art, music, literature, philosophy, theater, film, and the other arts, from the Renaissance to the Present. The two chapters on the Renaissance are in both volumes of "The Western Humanities," which allows for institutional differences on where various schools decide to break the study of Western humanities into two courses. However, what attracted me to "The Western Civilization" was that in addition to the two textbooks, there were not only a pair of additional books with readings from literature and philosophy, but also a CD with music.
For example, when studying the Age of Reason (1700-1789) students will learn about the Enlightenment, the great powers, and cultural trends in Chapter 16 of this textbook. In the companion collection of readings they will read Pope's "Essay on Man," along with excerpts from Voltaire's "Candide," Rousseau's Confessions," Kant's "Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment," and Wollstonescrft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." Then, on the companion CD, they would get to listen to Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" and Haydn's "Surprise" Symphony No. 94.
As the fifth edition of "The Western Humanities, Volume II: The Renaissance to the Present," emphasizing the linkages between cultural expression and historical conditions. Previous editions had expanded coverage of the contributions of women and other artists outside the traditional canon and added a multicultural dimension that looked at what was happening outside the Western tradition. This fifth edition expands coverage of Islamic civilization, obviously in response to current events.
"The Western Humanities" is organized chronologically into twenty-one chapters, the last 11 of which are in this second volume. The first two chapters cover the Early Renaissance and the High Renaissance followed by one on the Northern Renaissance. Following a pair of chapters on the Baroque, Matthews and Platt break the last three centuries of the previous millennium into the Age of Reason (a.k.a., the Enlightenment), the age of revolution (primarily the industrial one), the triumph of the bourgeoisie, the age of early modernism, the age of the masses, and the age of anxiety and beyond.
Each chapter begins by establishing the material conditions of the era (historical, political, economic, and social) and then presenting the crucial points that defined the culture during that period (major themes, issues, and problems of the period). The second half of each chapter focuses on the cultural expression of the period, including not only ideas in philosophy, history, religion, and science, but also the cultural artifacts of art, music, drama, literature, and (eventually) film. This shows the attempt to balance the historical background with the cultural and artistic achievements, and each chapter concludes with a brief section covering the cultural legacy of that period.
Among the special features are "Windows on the World," a series of two-page timelines that outline the most important historical events and cultural achievements in Africa, the Americas, and Asia, which appear between most of the chapters. "Personal Perspectives" are excerpts from primary sources and original documents that allow students to hear the voices of participants and witnesses in the historical and cultural events described in the text. At the start of the book there is "A Humanities Primer: How to Understand the Arts," that introduces readers to the understanding and appreciation of cultural works (defining and explaining terms and concepts). The back of the book includes an "Appendix, Writing for the Humanities: Research Papers and Essay Examinations," a Glossary, and an Index.
The focus here is on the essential elements and works of the Western tradition, which I see as being less information translating into more understanding and retention, which is certainly something I can appreciate. But as I indicated earlier, what I especially like is how students will get to read extended excerpts from the literature of these times and listen to the music. For someone who teaches online classes, this combination is quite attractive.
Book Description
The image of the lone inventor transforming society from the outside has a strong hold on the public's imagination. In reality, though, technologies are products of ongoing social and cultural processes. In Leonardo to the Internet, historian Thomas J. Misa provides a sweeping comparative history of the interrelationship between technology and society since the Renaissance, revealing how technological innovations have been shaped by the cultures in which they arose -- and how such technologies have, in turn, shaped these cultures. From the careers and contributions of Renaissance court inventors Johann Gutenberg and Leonardo da Vinci to beer brewing in industrial London to the telecommunication revolution of the late twentieth century, Misa uses carefully chosen and engagingly told case studies to develop his thesis.
Over eight thematic chapters, Misa provides detailed portraits of the inventors and users of technologies. Beginning his narrative at the dawn of the "modern" era, Misa surveys the intersections of technology, politics, and culture in the Renaissance court system of Western Europe; the role of technology in Holland's commercial expansion; the diverse "paths" to and through Britain's industrial revolution; the links among technology, imperialism, and trade in the nineteenth century; and the application of scientific discoveries in chemistry and physics to industry in Germany and the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Misa then examines the introduction of mass-produced consumer goods and their impact on daily life and modernist sensibilities; the rise of the military-industrial complex during World War II and the technological innovations generated by the command-and-control economies of the Cold War; and the emergence of a technology-oriented global culture since the 1970s. The work concludes with a provocative essay laying out the technological choices we face today and considering their impact on the type of society we wish for the future.
A masterful analysis of the ways in which technology and culture have influenced each other over five centuries, Leonardo to the Internet encourages students and general readers alike to think both more widely and more deeply about the invention, development, transfer, and adaptation of technologies within Western civilization.
Customer Reviews:
Broad and compelling review of technology in history.......2005-10-05
LEONARDO TO THE INTERNET takes a broad historic look at the defining technologies of eight different eras between the 15th century and today. The author, Thomas Misa, is a professor in the Department of Humanities at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He looks at the relationship between technology and the various cultures of these periods and shows that "technology is not only a force for but also a product of social and cultural change."
In the first chapter, "Technologies of the Court," he looks at the court engineers, including Leonardo da Vinci, the invention of perspective in painting, and the Gutenberg printing press to show how these technologies were used, not for economic gain, but to support the royal courts and city-states of the Renaissance era.
The second chapter is entitled "Techniques of Commerce" and looks at the period from 1588 to 1740 when Dutch merchants amassed fortunes using technologies like herring fishing boat factories, windmills, and fine textiles manufacture and developed an international trade second to none. They used their wealth to support fine artists and to speculate in tulip bulbs.
"Geographies of Industry" is the third chapter and it covers the period from 1740 to 1851, the time of the Industrial Revolution in England. Rather than looking at the cities normally considered the homes of industry in this period, Misa takes a close look at industry in London, using beer brewing as his focus. He then compares London to Manchester's textiles industry and Sheffield steel manufacture. He does this to create a much more complex image of the Industrial Revolution, and to show that there were many paths to industrialization in the period.
1840 to 1914 is the subject of "Instruments of Empire," the fourth chapter. Here Misa looks at how British Imperialism and the technologies of railroads, steamships, and telegraphy interacted to create a world-spanning empire.
Chapter five, Science and Systems, covers a second industrial revolution that took place between 1870 and 1930. Here the German science-based chemical industry developed a synthetic-chemical empire based originally on fabric dyes. Also science and technological research became an integral part of industry, driving out the independent inventors of earlier times. The author also looks to America's electric lighting struggle between direct and alternating current systems. Out of these developments came modern German companies like IG Farben, BASF, Bayer, and AGFA, as well as the American firms of Westinghouse and General Electric. Misa also looks at the beginning of university industrial partnerships with the development of the MIT labs.
The first half of the 20th century is the focus of chapter six, "Materials of Modernism." Here the Italian Futurists, the German Bauhaus, and the Dutch Modernists take the modern materials of steel and glass to redefine architecture and aesthetic theories.
"The Means of Destruction," chapter seven, looks at the relationship between the military and technological innovation in the 20th century. Misa calls World War II a "war of innovation" and looks closely at the atomic programs on both sides of the war as an example of how this relationship developed. The author shows that after the war this military-technology relationship still held sway. He uses the examples of the development of solid-state electronics and digital computers to illustrate this.
In chapter 8, "Toward a Global Culture," the author shows how Globalization was the major trend in last 30 years of the 20th century. He uses the development of the international standards that made the fax machine an everyday commodity as a case study of how this happened. Then he turns his attention to the world-wide food chain McDonald's to show how culture and technology give and take together in globalization. He then ends up with a discussion of the global Internet culture, but with a nod back to the previous chapter as he shows the military influences that developed the Internet.
He ends up with a summary chapter called "The Question of Technology" where he discusses the dynamics between Science, Economics, Culture, and Change. It is here that Misa points out that the relationship between Technology and Society is a constant give and take. There is a sad note to this summation as he states that he feels the attacks of September 11, 2001 signalled an end to this era. He states that the reactions to these attacks do not fit a pattern of globalization, and goes on to say that the "vision of a peaceful world, economically integrated and culturally harmonious, knitted together by information technology, is dead." He looks forward to a new era where reformers, social movements and groups of citizens embrace technological solutions to shape a new future.
Customer Reviews:
Sources of Western Tradition.......2007-08-23
It was rather slow in arriving, but the price was good and the quality was fine (it was a new book).
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Classics of Western Thought Series: Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, Volume II (Classics of Western Thought)
Karl F. Thompson
Manufacturer: Wadsworth Publishing
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ASIN: 0155076833 |
Book Description
Originally edited by Thomas H. Greer, this series emanates from the Humanities Department at Michigan State University. Today, these books remain outstanding sources for the comprehensive study of most subject areas included under the umbrella of humanities. Most major literary forms are represented: essay, poem, short story, play, novel, memoir, epigram, scientific discourse, philosophical treatise, political manifesto, and religious proclamation. Major subject areas include art, music, education, mathematics, biology, psychiatry, religion, philosophy, politics, economics, and physics.Originally published under the General Editorship of Thomas H. Greer, the series emanated from the Humanities Department of Michigan State University. The books remain today perhaps the best sources available for the comprehensive study in one volume of every subject area which might be included in the umbrella of humanities. Most major literary forms are represented: essay, poem, short story, play, novel, memoir, epigram, scientific discourse, philosophical treatise, political manifesto, and religious proclamation. All major subject areas are explored: art, music, education, mathematics, biology, psychiatry, religion, philosophy, politics, economics, and physics. The informative apparatus, headnotes, and footnotes are all aimed at enhancing the student-reader's comprehension.
Book Description
This outstanding work on the history of philosophy and ideas, written by world-renowned philosopher, historian of philosophy, and teacher John Herman Randall, Jr., is now available for the first time in paperback. Long acclaimed a contemporary classic, The Making of the Modern Mind displays the comprehensiveness, clarity of style, balance, and wit that came to characterize all of Dr. Randall's works.
From the medieval worldview to the modern outlook, this work presents a sweeping intellectual history in one volume. The emphasis is on ideas in their historical setting, on how modes of thought emerge, grow, influence and react to one another, and sometimes, when no longer useful, even die. The result is a grand synthesis of the main currents in western thought, bringing together religion, philosophy, politics, science, economics, literature and the arts, and the social and behavioral sciences -- all the diverse systems man has devised in his effort to understand, interpret, and shape human experience.
Whether as a text or as a supplementary reading, this distinguished volume will complement a wide variety of courses in philosophy, history, and contemporary civilization. It can be read with pleasure by all those interested in the history of man and ideas.
Customer Reviews:
For those who would like to know how we got to where we are........2006-04-27
Amazing! There's no better way to describe it. Of the five books composing this volume, four are absolutely superb. The fifth misses only in the sense that it was written 60 years ago. Were Randall writing today, that part would be much modified and probably expanded into a sixth book.
There are prerequisites for reading this work, the main one being considerable knowledge of Western History from the 13th Century onwards. For those who have that knowledge already, then this book is a marvelous adventure--thoughful, insightful and truly an intriguing explanation for why we are what we are today.
One of the best textbooks still in print!.......2000-09-18
"... a book of that rare sort which can lay the foundations for another man's intellectual career", wrote Jacques Barzun in his Forward as invitation for the inquiring mind to have patience in reading this weighty volume. He boldly reassures the new reader that his/her encounter will be "an opportunity for self-development, and a source of life-long gratitude". Who is this Jacques Barzun? and why so much flattery for a book? It is only after justifiably granting this book permanent residency in our libraries that we can fully appreciate the extent of Barzun's admiration. It is by familiar encounters with this book which renew our sense of history, and the history of ideas, that we see more clearly what is in our heads. And what more pleasant way to be inspired by and infused with the historical spirit than to indulge in the captivating and coherent flow of Randall's eloquence?
An erudite and insightful survey of Eurocentric philosophy.......1999-04-17
Randall's book, written in 1940 as a college survey textbook, is a remarkable Eurocentric history, not only for its breadth of knowledge and depth of analysis. By freely expressing his opinions, the author enlivens the narrative, but his opinions are so judicious and even-handed that he never alienates the reader. He turns the history that I learned in school upside-down; here there are no warriors or kings to leave their mark, but rather the philosophers and the scientists create new vistas, and those creations that further the enrichment of the pre-WW II middle class endure. A warning: Randall presupposes in the reader a liberal familiarity with history, philosophy, and literature that probably very few college students of the 1990s have attained. A bonus of the book, though, is the mellifluous prose and the exquisite analogies, the best that I've read in a history since Gibbon. For example, the Old Testament "is a stern and austere code, more ready to burst into the flame of indignation than the warm glow of love." (page 42)
students review of a classic lesson.......1998-07-14
A wonderfully eloquant review of the "modern" mind's evolution from its barbarous Judeo-Christian beginnings up until the industrial age. Makes powerful arguments for science's positive efffects upon man(as well as being historically and technically acurate), as well as questioning the negative effect it has had on man's morals and reason. A good read for someone out there lost amidst the multimedia education of hyperactive universities, just looking for a articulate lesson in man's chaotic growth. If you can find the time to read all seven hundred pages, do so at all costs.
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- Both high school and college-level audiences will appreciate
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Ireland: A Reference Guide From The Renaissance To The Present (European Nations)
John P. McCarthy
Manufacturer: Facts on File
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0816053782 |
Customer Reviews:
Both high school and college-level audiences will appreciate.......2006-11-05
IRELAND: A REFERENCE GUIDE FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE PRESENT joins others in the 'European Nations' series to provide a historical survey of the political and social changes of a nation and its key players. Both high school and college-level audiences will appreciate the A-Z dictionary reference which details battles, politics, peoples and evens essential to understanding Irish history.
Books:
- The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
- Thermopylae: The Battle for the West
- Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World
- Thunderstruck
- Understanding Contemporary Africa (Understanding: Introductions to the States & Regions of the Contemporary World)
- Van Day Truex: The Man Who Defined Twentieth-Century Taste and Style
- Voices of a People's History of the United States
- Western Civilization: Volume II: Since 1500
- What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
- When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise And Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty
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