Western Experience

In an age when so many people only look forward, THE WESTERN EXPERIENCE combines new and traditional approaches to the past that, combined with an interpretive approach, challenge, stimulate, and engage students. The approach of the authors is appealing to those who want students to come away from their course with more than a grasp of the ĹźfactsĹź, but instead wish students to analyze assumptions and use critical thinking skills. To further this goal, the authors not only see their book as a collection of interpretive essays that can serve as an example of historical writing, but they show and exemplify how historians struggle and deal with the past, for instance by discussing various controversies in history such as the Black Athena question. In addition, while the text presents a chronological survey of the history of Western Civilization, the narrative weaves several recurring themes that are strengthened and highlighted in new ways in this edition. The themes of social structure, the body politic, organization of production and the impact of technology, evolution of the family and changing gender roles, war, religion and cultural expression are laid out at the beginning of each chapter in the form of a color coded grid that the student and instructor will find easy to follow through the narrative.ive.New Content: Recent assertions that Egyptian writing began earlier than in Sumer, although this still must be tested by historians, and the discovery of early humans in the area of the Black SeaĹźthe earliest humans outside Africa.Terms and References are explained fully the first time they are used in the text.New scholarship providing new perspectives on womenĹźs history, minority groups, cultural history, post-colonial history and World Wars I and II.Coverage and analysis of the events of September 11 in the larger context of the historical development of the West.|New Pedagogy:Thematic Grid at the beginning of each chapter helps instructors know where themes are located through the narrative for instructional purposes, while also serving as a pedagogical aid alerting students to main thematic points before reading the chapter.Chapter Introductions written to concentrate more fully on the themes of the narrative.Questions For Further Thoughtat the end of each chapter stimulate students to think about history and social, political, and economic forces within it. Some questions are comparative in nature.|Sophisticated yet accessible approach of the authors has always been a hallmark of the book from its inception.|Coverage of cultural history, with a careful balance between high culture and popular culture as well as intellectual history.|Thematic coverage provides a unique flexibility to instructors who wish to organize the material in a different fashion than the authors have done.|Interpretive Approach challenges students, spurs discussion and debate and employs the use of critical thinking.|Stellar art history and mapping program, with substantial explanatory captions, enforces the emphasis on cultural history and geography.|The lavish map and illustration program provides visual sources to aid students in learning, and the carefully chosen art program with its long explanatory captions provides a strong art history element to the text.|Unique epilogue (revised for the 8th edition) invites students to learn more about the larger context of the study and methodology of history.