Books » World History Books

History comes alive in this engaging and lavishly illustrated chronicle, which spans world events and people from ancient times to the 21st century. The voices of the great and humble speak to us through songs, documents, edicts, poetry, letters, menus, and even graffiti, revealing each era's conflicts, daily life, arts, science, religion, and enduring influence. Interactive design focuses on the tangible artifacts of history, and magnificent illustrationsincluding period art, archival photographs, and expertly rendered scenes of long-ago eventsbring vivid immediacy and eye appeal to every colorful spread. With its unique emphasis on voices from the past, its competitive price point, and its inviting, innovative design, Eyewitness to History is poised to be THE pick for value-minded customers looking for an absorbing take on world history.

The Feres Mura, Ethiopian Jews whose families converted to Christianity during the nineteenth century and then reasserted their Jewish identity in the late twentieth century, still await acceptance by Israel. Since the 1980s, they have sought homecoming through the state's right of return law. Instead of a welcoming embrace, Israel's government and society regard them with reticence and suspicion. Using more over ten years of ethnographical research, One People, One Blood expertly documents this tenuous relationship and the challenges facing the Feres Mura.

In August of 1991, the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights was engulfed in violence following the deaths of Gavin Cato and Yankel Rosenbauma West Indian boy struck by a car in the motorcade of a Hasidic spiritual leader and an orthodox Jew stabbed by a Black teenager. The ensuing unrest thrust the tensions between the Lubavitch Hasidic community and their Afro-Caribbean and African American neighbors into the media spotlight, spurring local and national debates on diversity and multiculturalism. Crown Heights became a symbol of racial and religious division. Yet few have paused to examine the nature of Black-Jewish difference in Crown Heights, or to question the flawed assumptions about race and religion that shape the politicsand perceptionsof conflict in the community. In Race and Religion among the Chosen Peoples of Crown Heights, Henry Goldschmidt explores the everyday realities of difference in Crown Heights. Drawing on two years of fieldwork and interviews, he argues that identity formation is particularly complex in Crown Heights because the neighborhoods communities envision the conflict in remarkably diverse ways. Lubavitch Hasidic Jews tend to describe it as a religious difference between Jews and Gentiles, while their Afro-Caribbean and African American neighbors usually define it as a racial difference between Blacks and Whites. These tangled definitions are further complicated by government agencies who address the issue as a matter of culture, and by the Lubavitch Hasidic beliefa belief shared with a surprising number of their neighborsthat they are a "chosen people" whose identity transcends the constraints of the social world. The efforts of the Lubavitch Hasidic community to live as a divinely chosen people in a diverse Brooklyn neighborhood where collective identities are generally defined in terms of race illuminate the limits of American multiculturalisma concept that claims to celebrate diversity, yet only accommodates variations of certain kinds. Taking the history of conflict in Crown Heights as an invitation to reimagine our shared social world, Goldschmidt interrogates the boundaries of race and religion and works to create space in American society for radical forms of cultural difference.

Jewish Studies, the first volume in a groundbreaking new series, Key Words in Jewish Studies, introduces the basic approach of the series by organizing discussion around key concepts in the field that have emerged over the last two centuries: history and science, race and religion, self and community, identity and memory. The book is oriented by contemporary critical theory, especially feminist and postcolonial studies, and the multidisciplinary approaches of cultural studies.By looking backward and forward--and across continents and disciplines--to unearth the evolution of the scholarly study of Jews, Andrew Bush provides a comprehensive introduction to the development of Jewish studies from the turn of the nineteenth century to the present. In the course of engaging scholarship on periods from the classical to the contemporary and from the disciplines of history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and literary studies, Bush questions male-dominated and Ashkenazi-centric visions of the field. He concludes with an experimental exposition of a new Jewish studies for a time where attention to difference has overtaken the security of canons and commonalities.

A great speech can stir the soul and inspire a nation. This compact and affordable anthology gathers complete speeches and selected excerpts from memorable addresses by Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi, Winston Churchill,Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X, Ronald Reagan, Elie Wiesel, the Dalai Lama, Csar Chvez, and many others.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo (1909-1987) was the leader of Nigeria's Action Group party and the first indigenous Premier of Western Nigeria. He campaigned heavily for developmental change and implemented free primary education and child healthcare policies across the Western Region. Awolowo began work on this autobiography in 1957, at a time when Nigeria's request for self-government had been refused. The work was completed in 1960, the year Nigeria gained its long-awaited independence. Accordingly, this autobiography is dedicated to a 'new and free Nigeria', with the trust that its people will enjoy 'a more abundant life'. This determined, self-made leader here describes his youth, education and politics. He writes of his hope that this tale of stubborn perseverance can become 'a source of inspiration' in itself, and indeed, this account will fascinate anyone with an interest in Africa, the history and politics of Western Nigeria, or a love of insightful political autobiography.

In Rationalities in History the distinguished historian David d'Avray writes a new comparative history in the spirit of Max Weber. In a strikingly original reassessment of seminal Weberian ideas, d'Avray applies value rationality to the comparative history of religion and the philosophy of law. Integrating theories of rational choice, anthropological reflections on relativism, and the recent philosophy of rationality with Weber's conceptual framework, d'Avray seeks to disengage 'rationalisation' from its enduring association with Western 'modernity'. This mode of analysis is contextualised through the examples of Buddhism, Imperial China and sixteenth-century Catholicism - in the latter case building upon unpublished archival research. This ambitious synthesis of social theory and comparative history will engage social scientists and historians from advanced undergraduate level upwards, stimulating interdisciplinary discourse, and making a significant contribution to the methodology of history. D'Avray explores the potential of this new Weberian analysis further in his companion volume, Medieval Religious Rationalities.

What does it mean to be Jewish This ancient question has become a pressing civil rights controversy. Despite a recent resurgence of anti-Semitic incidents on American college campuses, the U.S. Department of Education's powerful Office for Civil Rights has been unable to protect Jewish students. This failure has been a problem not of execution but of conceptualization. The OCR has been unable to address anti-Jewish harassment because it lacks a coherent conception of either Jewish identity or anti-Jewish hatred. Given jurisdiction over race and national origin but not religion, federal agents have had to determine whether Jewish Americans constitute a race or national origin group. They have been unable to do so. This has led to enforcement paralysis, as well as explosive internal confrontations and recriminations within the federal government. This book examines the legal and policy issues behind the ambiguity involved with civil rights protections for Jewish students. Written by a former senior government official, this book reveals the extent of this problem and presents a workable legal solution.

The most global approach to world history, now more streamlined and accessible.Worlds Together, Worlds Apart is organized around major world history stories and themes: the emergence of cities, the building of the Silk Road, the spread of major religions, the spread of the Black Death, the Age of Exploration, alternatives to 19th-century capitalism, the rise of modern nation-states and empires, and more. In the Third Edition, the text has been compressed and streamlined to heighten emphasis on world history stories and themes throughout.

A SWEEPING CHRONICLE OF ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANTAND CONTROVERSIALINSTITUTIONS IN HISTORYWith the papacy embattled in recent years, it is essential to have the perspective of one of the worlds most accomplished historians. In Absolute Monarchs, John Julius Norwich captures nearly two thousand years of inspiration and devotion, intrigue and scandal. The men (and maybe one woman) who have held this position of infallible power over millions have ranged from heroes to rogues, admirably wise to utterly decadent. Norwich, who knew two popes and had private audiences with two others, recounts in riveting detail the histories of the most significant popes and what they meant politically, culturally, and socially to Rome and to the world.Norwich presents such brave popes as Innocent I, who in the fifth century successfully negotiated with Alaric the Goth, an invader civil authorities could not defeat, and Leo I, who two decades later tamed (and perhaps paid off) Attila the Hun. Here, too, are the scandalous figures: Pope Joan, the mythic woman said (without any substantiation) to have been elected in 855, and the infamous pornocracy, the five libertines who were descendants or lovers of Marozia, debauched daughter of one of Romes most powerful families.Absolute Monarchs brilliantly portrays reformers such as Pope Paul III, the greatest pontiff of the sixteenth century, who reinterpreted the Churchs teaching and discipline, and John XXIII, who in five short years starting in 1958 opened up the church to the twentieth century, instituting reforms that led to Vatican II. Norwich brings the story to the present day with Benedict XVI, who is coping with a global priest sex scandal.Epic and compelling, Absolute Monarchs is the astonishing story of some of historys most revered and reviled figures, men who still cast light and shadows on the Vatican and the world today.