A Concise Survey of Western Civilization, Combined Edition: Supremacies and Diversities throughout History

by Brian A. Pavlac

Overview

This book gives a brief, readable description of our common Western heritage. It covers the minimum historical information that educated adults should know within a tightly-focused narrative and interpretive structure. The joined terms “supremacies and diversities” develop major themes of conflict and creativity. “Supremacies” centers on the use of power to dominate societies, ranging from warfare to ideologies. Supremacy seeks stability, order, and incorporation. “Diversities” encompasses the creative impulse that produces new ideas, as well as people’s efforts to define themselves as “different.” Diversity creates change, opportunity, and individuality. These themes of historical tension and change, whether applied to political, economic, technological, social and cultural trends, offer a bridging explanatory organization. Five other topical themes regularly inform the text: technological innovation, migration and conquest, political and economic decision-making, church and state, and disputes about the meaning of life. Various “Basic Principles” present summaries of historical realities. Primary Source Projects and Sources on Families offer students the chance to evaluate differing points of view about the past. This text is less expensive, less formal, has more attitude, yet still provides all the essentials for a course on Western Civilization.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538171103
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	01/23/2023
Edition description:	Fourth Edition
Pages:	618
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.25(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Brian A. Pavlac is professor emeritus of history from King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where he had served as chair of the department, director of the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, and a Herve A. LeBlanc Distinguished Service Professor. He is the author of Witch Hunts in the Western World: Persecution and Punishment from the Inquisition through the Salem Trials and articles on Nicholas of Cusa and excommunication, editor of and contributor to Game of Thrones versus History: Written in Blood, co-author of the forthcoming The Holy Roman Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia, and translator of Balderich’s A Warrior Bishop of the 12th Century: The Deeds of Albero of Trier.

Table of Contents

List of Diagrams, Figures, Maps, Primary Source Projects, Sources on Families, Tables, and Timelines

Acknowledgments

How to Use This Book

1. History’s Story

2. Wanderers and Settlers: The Ancient Middle East to 400 BC

3. The Chosen People: Hebrews and Jews, 2000 BC to AD 135

4. Trial of the Hellenes: The Ancient Greeks, 1200 BC to AD 146

5. Imperium Romanum: The Romans, 753 BC to AD 300

6. The Revolutionary Rabbi: Christianity, the Roman Empire, and Islam, 4 BC to AD 1453

7. From Old Rome to the New West: The Early Middle Ages, AD 500 to 1000

8. The Medieval Mêlée: The High and Later Middle Ages, 1000 to 1500

9. Making the Modern World: The Renaissance and Reformation, 1400 to1648

10. Liberation of Mind and Body: Early Modern Europe, 1543 to 1815

11. Mastery of the Machine: The Industrial Revolution, 1764 to 1914

12. The Westerner’s Burden: Imperialism and Nationalism, 1810 to 1918

13. Rejections of Democracy: The Interwar Years and World War II, 1917 to 1945

14. A World Divided: The Cold War, 1945 to 1993

15. Into the Future: The Contemporary Era, 1993 to the Present

Epilogue: Why Western Civilization?

Timelines

Common Abbreviations

Glossary

Index

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

This book is the way to go for a one-semester course: a text that’s full, but not dense. It’s well informed and intelligently written, yet still accessible. The big-picture approach combined with guided questions keep students on track, while the writing is lively, anecdotal, and illustrative—a nice balance of the forest and trees. The concise nature of the text makes it particularly suitable for online or condensed semesters.”

Christopher M. Bellitto

Exceptionally well-written, engaging, and accessible.. .. Pavlac includes useful diagrams and charts throughout.. . that break down complex information into visual and easy-to-digest parts.. .. Perhaps the most important attribute of A Concise History Survey of Western Civilization is that this is a text that students would actually read and understand. For many history professors, the first and most fundamental struggle is getting students to read and furthermore to read critically. Thus, the fact that the book is one that students will read, become engaged with, and understand makes it a valuable resource to teachers of Western Civilization.”

Teaching History: A Journal of Methods

The book’s conciseness and reasonable cost are very attractive. For a single-semester course that spans the three millennia, I preferred this book to competing texts, which are just too long, with too many ‘facts.’ Pavlac’s writing is also a plus. His informal tone and his skillful movement from paragraph to paragraph give his work a readability that my students like very much.

Robert Good

Written with the skill of a novelist, this book guides the reader step by step through the process of what a historian thinks, does, and interprets. Chapter content establishes the foundation for each future chapter with carefully selected questions, key word definitions, and ideas in bold type. This is the best-written textbook on Western civilization that I have had the pleasure to read in thirty-five years of teaching.

William A. Paquette

"Exceptionally well-written, engaging, and accessible. . . . Pavlac includes useful diagrams and charts throughout. . . that break down complex information into visual and easy-to-digest parts. . . . Perhaps the most important attribute of A Concise History Survey of Western Civilization is that this is a text that students would actually read and understand. For many history professors, the first and most fundamental struggle is getting students to read and furthermore to read critically. Thus, the fact that the book is one that students will read, become engaged with, and understand makes it a valuable resource to teachers of Western Civilization."

"This book is the way to go for a one-semester course: a text that's full, but not dense. It's well informed and intelligently written, yet still accessible. The big-picture approach combined with guided questions keep students on track, while the writing is lively, anecdotal, and illustrative--a nice balance of the forest and trees. The concise nature of the text makes it particularly suitable for online or condensed semesters."

The book's conciseness and reasonable cost are very attractive. For a single-semester course that spans the three millennia, I preferred this book to competing texts, which are just too long, with too many 'facts.' Pavlac's writing is also a plus. His informal tone and his skillful movement from paragraph to paragraph give his work a readability that my students like very much.

Written with the skill of a novelist, this book guides the reader step by step through the process of what a historian thinks, does, and interprets. Chapter content establishes the foundation for each future chapter with carefully selected questions, key word definitions, and ideas in bold type. This is the best-written textbook on Western civilization that I have had the pleasure to read in thirty-five years of teaching.

From the Publisher

I liked the first edition, and I love the second. Concise, clear, with lively text, this new edition adds useful primary sources while retaining the strengths of the earlier edition.Brian Pavlac does an exceptional job in demonstrating to students how historians work, while providing them the tools to begin their own forays into the thickets of history.

Judith Travers