In this overview, Michael Burger provides a brief historical narrative of Western civilization. The no-frills, uncluttered format and well-written, one-author approach make this book a valuable asset for every history student. This new edition includes additional coverage of race and slavery in the eighteenth century, twentieth-century imperialism, and twenty-first-century developments such as populism – both right and left. New and improved maps make it easier for students to follow major developments.
Michael Burger is a professor of history at Auburn University at Montgomery.
List of FiguresList of MapsPrefacePreface to the Third EditionNotes on References, Further Reading, and DatesIntroduction1 The Early Modern West I: The Reformation, the Great Consolidation, and the End of Christendom Introduction Fundamentals: Protestant Doctrine and the Middle Ages A Catholic Reformation? The Sexes and the Family Fragmentation and Further Reform Complications: Political and Social Political Results: The Consolidation of Royal Authority A Crisis of Authority and the End of Christendom Early Modern Western Expansion 2 The Early Modern West II: Science, Society, and the State Introduction Fundamentals I: A Society of Orders, Estates, and Corporations Fundamentals II: The Universe ca. 1600Absolutism I: Motives, Means, and Implications Absolutism II: Successes and Failures Germany France Poland Russia England, Scotland, and Ireland The United States The Scientific Revolution I: Nature Empiricism The Scientific Revolution II: Society Labor 3 The Early Modern West III: Enlightenment, Industrialization, and an Unraveled CompromiseFundamentalsThe Enlightenment I: AttitudesThe Enlightenment II: Continuity with the Past?The Enlightenment III: Equality and GenderThe Enlightenment IV: Race and SlaveryThe Crisis of the Ancien Regime: Rebellion and RevolutionThe American RevolutionThe Habsburg LandsThe French RevolutionLatin AmericaCounterrevolutions: Thermidor, Napoleon,and the Congress of Vienna The Industrial Revolution4 The West, 1815–1914: The Search for Community, and Responses to the Enlightenment and RevolutionFundamentals: The Search for CommunityChange and Geist I: RomanticismNationalism: Thinking about the Nation in theFirst Half of the Nineteenth CenturyNationalism and Politics: Movements of National Unification and Independence GreeceSerbia and BulgariaHungaryGermanyItalyThe United States Change and Geist II: MarxismChange and Geist III: Darwinism The New Toughness of Mind Imperialism I: Means Imperialism II: Motives and Attitudes Reform, State, and PeopleThe Crisis of the Fin de Siècle: Modernism and Postmodernism 5 From ca. 1914 to the Present: The Search for Community, Global Conflict, and the Harvest of the Modern WestFundamentals: State and CommunityThe Great WarThe Great DepressionCommunismFascismGeneral ConsiderationsItalyBrazilGermany World War IICold War: The Pax Americana and Pax CommunistaThe Fall of Western Empires Movements of Liberation in the Twentieth and Twenty-First CenturiesEconomy and Education: The YoungIdeology and the Search for CommunityWomen and MenRace Sexual OrientationMulticulturalism, Diversity, Equity, and InclusionA Conservative TurnA Global Community?6 Coda: The Shaping of Western CivilizationSourcesIndex