The History Book Club discussion

This is the folder designated to discuss the history of various countries or peoples around the globe.

These threads are dedicated to people, places and things which make up the country, location or group.

MAKE SURE TO ALWAYS SELECT VIEW ALL SO THAT YOU CAN SEE ALL OF THE GLOBAL INTEREST AREAS AND TOPICS; OTHERWISE YOU ONLY SEE LISTED THE LAST FIVE WHICH HAD POSTINGS.

Note: Please make your suggestions as to what interest areas should be opened. We already have a British History area so that interest area will not be part of this folder.

Here's one overview:

A People's History of the World
by Chris Harman
Synopsis
The only comprehensive “bottom up” history of the world from the earliest human society to the twenty-first century.

Chris Harman describes the shape and course of human history as a narrative of ordinary people forming and re-forming complex societies in pursuit of common human goals. Interacting with the forces of technological change as well as the impact of powerful individuals and revolutionary ideas, these societies have engendered events familiar to every schoolchild—from the empires of antiquity to the world wars of the twentieth century.

In a bravura conclusion, Chris Harman exposes the reductive complacency of contemporary capitalism, and asks, in a world riven as never before by suffering and inequality, why we imagine that it can—or should—survive much longer. Ambitious, provocative and invigorating, A People's History of the World delivers a vital corrective to traditional history, as well as a powerful sense of the deep currents of humanity which surge beneath the froth of government.

Another offering in this category:

The Human Story: Our History, from the Stone Age to Today
by James C. Davis
Synopsis
Has there ever been a history of the world as readable as this?

In The Human Story, James C. Davis takes us on a journey to ancient times, telling how peoples of the world settled down and founded cities, conquered neighbors, and established religions, and continues over the course of history, when they fought two nearly global wars and journeyed into space.

Davis's account is swift and clear, never dull or dry. He lightens it with pungent anecdotes and witty quotes. Although this compact volume may not be hard to pick up, it's definitely hard to put down.

For example, on the death of Alexander the Great, who in a decade had never lost a single battle, and who had staked out an empire that spanned the entire Near East and Egypt, Davis writes: "When they heard how ill he was, the king's devoted troops insisted on seeing him. He couldn't speak, but as his soldiers -- every one -- filed by in silence, Alexander's eyes uttered his farewells. He died in June 323 B.C., at the ripe old age of thirty-two."

In similar fashion Davis recounts Russia's triumph in the space race as it happened on an autumn night in 1957: "A bugle sounded, flames erupted, and with a roar like rolling thunder, Russia's rocket lifted off. It bore aloft the earth's first artificial satellite, a shiny sphere the size of a basketball. Its name was Sputnik, meaning 'companion' or 'fellow traveler' (through space). The watchers shouted, 'Off. She's off. Our baby's off!' Some danced; others kissed and waved their arms."

Though we live in an age of many doubts, James C. Davis thinks we humans are advancing. As The Human Story ends, he concludes, "The world's still cruel; that's understood, / But once was worse. So far so good."

And yet another perspective of the story of the world:

A Brief History of the Human Race
by Michael Cook
Synopsis
"Enthralling....If so compact a book can be magisterial, [this] is it.—Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World... "A smart, literate survey of human life from paleolithic times until 9/11."—Edward Rothstein, The New York Times

Why has human history been crowded into the last few thousand years? Why has it happened at all? Could it have happened in a radically different way? What should we make of the disproportionate role of the West in shaping the world we currently live in? This witty, intelligent hopscotch through human history addresses these questions and more. Michael Cook sifts the human career on earth for the most telling nuggets and then uses them to elucidate the whole. From the calendars of Mesoamerica and the temple courtesans of medieval India to the intricacies of marriage among an aboriginal Australian tribe, Cook explains the sometimes eccentric variety in human cultural expression. He guides us from the prehistoric origins of human history across the globe through the increasing unification of the world, first by Muslims and then by European Christians in the modern period, illuminating the contingencies that have governed broad historical change. "A smart, literate survey of human life from paleolithic times until 9/11."—Edward Rothstein, The New York Times 11 maps, 28 illustrations

A little different take on world history.

A History of the World

by Andrew Marr (no photo)

Synopsis:

From the earliest civilizations to the 21st century, a global journey through human history, tieing-in with a major BBC television series.

Andrew Marr, author of two bestselling histories of Great Britain now turns his attention to the world as a whole. A Short History of the World takes readers from the Mayans to Mongolia, from the kingdom of Benin to the court of the Jagiellonian kings of Poland. Traditional histories of this kind have tended to be Eurocentric, telling mankind's story through tales of Greece and Rome and the crowned heads of Europe's oldest monarchies. Here, Marr widens the lens, concentrating as much, if not more on the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Instead of focusing on one episode of history taking place in one place, he draws surprising parallels and makes fascinating connections, focusing on a key incident or episode to tell a larger story: for instance, the liberation of the serfs in Russia, which took place at the same time as the American Civil War, which resulted in the abolition of slavery in the U.S. But he begins the account with an episode in the life of Tolstoy, who racked up huge gambling debts and had to sell land and slaves as a result. Fresh and exciting, this is popular history at its very best.

Thank you Jill

I remember when I was a youngster, this set of books was in our bookshelves. Sadly, I never read them but they are justly famous.

by H.G. Wells

Synopsis:

Volume One: The Earth in Space and Time, Rocks, Natural Selection, Life & Climate, Reptiles, Mammals, Sub-Men & Men, Neanderthal Men, Postglacial Men, Neolithic Man, Early thought, Races, Languages, First Civilizations, Sea Peoples & Trading peoples, writing, Gods & Stars, Priests and Kings, Serfs, Slaves, Hebrew Scriptures & Prophets, The Aryan Speaking peoples in Prehistoric Times, The Greeks & Persians, Greek Thought in Relation to Human Society.

Volume Two: The Career of Alexander the Great, 카지노싸이트 & Religion at Alexandria, The Rise and Spread of Buddhism, The Two Western Republics, From Tiberius Gracchus to the God Emperor in Rome, The Caesars Between the Sea and the Great Plains of the Old World, The Beginnings, the Rise, and the Divisions of Christianity, Seven Centuries in Asia (Circa 50 B.C. To A.D. 650), Muhammad and Islam.

Volume Three: Christendom and the Crusades, The Great Empire of Jengis Khan and his Successors, The Renascence of Western Civilization, Princes, Parliaments, and Powers, The New Democratic Republics of America & France, The Career of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Volume Four: The Realities & Imaginations of the 19th C. , the Catastrophe of Modern Imperialism, The Effort to Reconstruct the World Begins, The Next Stage of History, Chronological Table, Diagrams, Index.

World History

by Globe (no photo, publisher)

Summary

Accessible world history and skills

This comprehensive full-year program is designed to provide key world history content at a manageable reading level. Students of varying abilities learn essential content and appreciate the world's diverse cultures. In addition, the program provides students with the information they need to successfully complete the requirements of rigorous district, state, and national standards.

Great job on citations Marren.

The New World History: A Teacher's Companion

by Ross E. Dunn(no photo)

Synopsis:

The New World History is a comprehensive volume to help instructors prepare for the challenge of teaching the world history survey. As more and more schools add the course to their curriculum, the need for a collection of writings on teaching issues becomes more apparent. With more than 50 articles by 51 scholars and experienced instructors, this topical reader will prove a valuable resource for both new and seasoned teachers. The editor, a leading voice for advancing the world history curriculum, has organized the articles into 11 pedagogically oriented chapters on topics such as arguments for and against teaching world history and the place of gender issues in world history. Each chapter includes approximately 5 articles; chapters open a brief introduction and an outline of ongoing discussions among historians. An overview of the history of the course in this country, along with a review of the debates that surround it, appears in an introduction that sets the stage for the articles that follow. Annotated bibliographies follow the selections to help foster ideas for further research.

This is such a fun series. It doesn't mean that we are all dummies, just that some of us don't know enough about world history. This compresses that history, hitting the highlights.

World History for Dummies

by Peter Haugen (no photo)

Synopsis:

In World History for Dummies, the author sweeps the reader through time, starting with the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Greece and Egypt, the major kings and queens of Europe during the Middle Ages and latter-day empires through to modern day.

Thanks - not a Pulitzer Prize winner but useful for some folks who want to hit the highlights I suspect.

A Dictionary of World History

by Oxford University Press

Synopsis:

This new Oxford reference work is the most up-to-date dictionary of world history available in paperback. The generous coverage of all aspects of history, from prehistory right up to the present day, makes this book the ideal guide both for students and the general reader.
-- More than 4,500 clear and concise entries
-- Biographies of key figures in world history, from Alexander the Great to Bill Clinton, Elizabeth I to Nelson Mandela
-- Full international coverage with detailed entries for every country in the world
-- Subject entries on religious and political movements, international organizations, and key battles and places
-- Fifty detailed maps covering events and topics such as the Black Death, the Boer War, and the African slave trade

History: From the Dawn of Civilization to the Present Day

by Adam Hart-Davis (no photo)

Synopsis:

Homo sapiens have remained the same species, largely unchanged in genetic makeup and anatomy since the Cro-Magnon era. By contrast, the cultural, social, and technological changes since then have been nothing less than extraordinary. Telling our story, from prehistory to the present day, DK's "History" is a thought-provoking journey, revealing the common threads and forces that have shaped human history.

Includes: Inventions, discoveries, and ideas that have shaped world history A look at human achievement through artifacts, painting, sculpture, and architecture An examination of humankind in context as part of the natural world Eyewitness accounts and biographies of key figures A comprehensive timeline chronicling the key events of the countries of the world.

And of course the Classic work

The Penguin History of the World

by J.M. Roberts (no photo) and Odd Arne Westad (no photo)

Synopsis:

Since its publication twenty years ago, J. M. Roberts's monumental History of the World has remained the "unrivaled World History of our day" (A. J. P. Taylor), selling more than a quarter of a million copies worldwide. Now in an equally masterful performance, Roberts displays his consummate skills of exposition in telling the tale of the European continent, from its Neolithic origins and early civilizations of the Aegean to the advent of the twenty-first century. A sweeping and entertaining history, The Penguin History of Europe comprehensively traces the development of European identity over the course of thousands of years, ranging across empires and religions, economics, science, and the arts. Roberts's astute and lucid analyses of the disparate spheres of learning that have shaped European civilization and our understanding of it make The Penguin History of Europe a remarkable journey through the last two centuries.

The New History of the World

by J.M. Roberts (no photo)

Updated version:

Synopsis:

An extremely accessible narrative of the world's history

A book of extraordinary ambition, scholarship and accessibility, The New Penguin History of the World covers the history of our planet from our origins on the African savannah to the state of the world six years after September 11, 2001. Tracing the development of different civilizations through the ages, J. M. Roberts examines the periods of turbulence and change, the international shifts in order and power, and the conflicts, divisions, and advances that have shaped the way we live.

A truly global and comprehensive chronicle of human experience-of ordinary people, as well as of those in power-across all continents and conditions, The New Penguin History of the World brilliantly conveys the staggering diversity of human life and achievement.

Thank you Simon for the add

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

by Jack Weatherford

Synopsis:

The name Genghis Khan often conjures the image of a relentless, bloodthirsty barbarian on horseback leading a ruthless band of nomadic warriors in the looting of the civilized world. But the surprising truth is that Genghis Khan was a visionary leader whose conquests joined backward Europe with the flourishing cultures of Asia to trigger a global awakening, an unprecedented explosion of technologies, trade, and ideas. In Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford, the only Western scholar ever to be allowed into the Mongols’ “Great Taboo”—Genghis Khan’s homeland and forbidden burial site—tracks the astonishing story of Genghis Khan and his descendants, and their conquest and transformation of the world.

Fighting his way to power on the remote steppes of Mongolia, Genghis Khan developed revolutionary military strategies and weaponry that emphasized rapid attack and siege warfare, which he then brilliantly used to overwhelm opposing armies in Asia, break the back of the Islamic world, and render the armored knights of Europe obsolete. Under Genghis Khan, the Mongol army never numbered more than 100,000 warriors, yet it subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans conquered in four hundred. With an empire that stretched from Siberia to India, from Vietnam to Hungary, and from Korea to the Balkans, the Mongols dramatically redrew the map of the globe, connecting disparate kingdoms into a new world order.

But contrary to popular wisdom, Weatherford reveals that the Mongols were not just masters of conquest, but possessed a genius for progressive and benevolent rule. On every level and from any perspective, the scale and scope
of Genghis Khan’s accomplishments challenge the limits of imagination. Genghis Khan was an innovative leader, the first ruler in many conquered countries to put the power of law above his own power, encourage religious freedom, create public schools, grant diplomatic immunity, abolish torture, and institute free trade. The trade routes he created became lucrative pathways for commerce, but also for ideas, technologies, and expertise that transformed the way people lived. The Mongols introduced the first international paper currency and postal system and developed and spread revolutionary technologies like printing, the cannon, compass, and abacus. They took local foods and products like lemons, carrots, noodles, tea, rugs, playing cards, and pants and turned them into staples of life around the world. The Mongols were the architects of a new way of life at a pivotal time in history.

In Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford resurrects the true history of Genghis Khan, from the story of his relentless rise through Mongol tribal culture to the waging of his devastatingly successful wars and the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed. This dazzling work of revisionist history doesn’t just paint an unprecedented portrait of a great leader and his legacy, but challenges us to reconsider how the modern world was made.

Reviews:

"There is very little time for reading in my new job. But of the few books I've read, my favourite is Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford (Crown Publishers, New York). It's a fascinating book portraying Genghis Khan in a totally new light. It shows that he was a great secular leader, among other things."
—Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India

“Reads like the Iliad. . . Part travelogue, part epic narrative.”
—Washington Post

“It’s hard to think of anyone else who rose from such inauspicious beginnings to something so awesome, except maybe Jesus.”
—Harper’s

“Weatherford’s lively analysis restores the Mongol’s reputation, and it takes wonderful learned detours. . . . Well written and full of suprises.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Weatherford is a fantastic storyteller. . . . [His] portrait of Khan is drawn with sufficiently self-complicating depth. . . . Weatherford’s account gives a generous view of the Mongol conqueror at his best and worst.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

by Peter Frankopan

The No. 1 Sunday Times and international bestseller - a major reassessment of world history in light of the economic and political renaissance in the re-emerging east.

'Magnificent' Sunday Times

'Immensely entertaining ... so ambitious, so detailed, so fascinating' The Times

For centuries, fame and fortune were to be found in the west – in the New World of the Americas. Today, it is the east which calls out to those in search of riches and adventure. Sweeping right across Central Asia and deep into China and India, a region that once took centre stage is again rising to dominate global politics, commerce and culture.

A major reassessment of world history, The Silk Roads is a dazzling exploration of the forces that have driven the rise and fall of empires, determined the flow of ideas and goods and are now heralding a new dawn in international affairs.