David Hertzel's provocative workbook provides thoughtful exercises that allow students opportunities to gain deeper understandings of how historians make interpretations and draw conclusions about the past. In addition, he draws examples from a wide variety of periods and locations to help students glean a better understanding of what it means to be human.” —M. Todd Black, Department of Defense Dependent Schools-Europe
“Hertzel’s workbook offers an innovative approach to learning about world history. He does not present us with an exhaustive narrative, but instead offers a wealth of information and learning frameworks along with selective narratives on a variety of world history topics. It will be a valuable tool for faculty who want to teach by using a book filled with practical exercises that places students at the center of the learning process.” —David M. Kalivas, Middlesex Community College; editor of H-World at H-Net
“I have had the opportunity to engage the World History Workbook as both a student and an instructor. It is a text that, above all else, respects the students themselves as capable participants in the discipline of History and as protagonists in building a world that is more tolerant, just, open, and honest. In the World History Workbook, Hertzel turns away from providing students with the broad outlines they received earlier in their education. Instead, Hertzel designs his chapters around themes and universal experiences throughout World History. Hertzel anchors these universal themes around student projects that teach the discipline of History step by step. So while the student using the workbook learns about Humanism, the Enlightenment, and other topics, they will complement this reading with projects that teach how historians work such as differentiating between primary and secondary sources, the comparative method, and evaluating sources in relationship to their contexts. Like the chapters themselves, these projects all center around the responsibility of the historian, and indeed the responsibility of every person, to pursue the truth using arguments and evidence.
For the new Third Edition, Hertzel provides a brand new chapter on women and the environment in the Modern World. This chapter exposes students to some of the most offensive injustices towards both women and the environment that are both unchanging human constants and ongoing (in some cases worsening) in the present. While much of this chapter is hard reading, Hetzel addresses these issues in a responsible way that serves not to depress so much as to empower the student to work to create a better world. My own students were emphatic over the power of these readings. I cannot praise the World History Workbook highly enough.” —Samuel Jennings, PhD Candidate, Oklahoma State University
David Hertzel's provocative workbook provides thoughtful exercises that allow students opportunities to gain deeper understandings of how historians make interpretations and draw conclusions about the past. In addition, he draws examples from a wide variety of periods and locations to help students glean a better understanding of what it means to be human.
I have had the opportunity to engage the World History Workbook as both a student and an instructor. It is a text that, above all else, respects the students themselves as capable participants in the discipline of History and as protagonists in building a world that is more tolerant, just, open, and honest. In the World History Workbook, Hertzel turns away from providing students with the broad outlines they received earlier in their education. Instead, Hertzel designs his chapters around themes and universal experiences throughout World History. Hertzel anchors these universal themes around student projects that teach the discipline of History step by step. So while the student using the workbook learns about Humanism, the Enlightenment, and other topics, they will complement this reading with projects that teach how historians work such as differentiating between primary and secondary sources, the comparative method, and evaluating sources in relationship to their contexts. Like the chapters themselves, these projects all center around the responsibility of the historian, and indeed the responsibility of every person, to pursue the truth using arguments and evidence.
For the new Third Edition, Hertzel provides a brand new chapter on women and the environment in the Modern World. This chapter exposes students to some of the most offensive injustices towards both women and the environment that are both unchanging human constants and ongoing (in some cases worsening) in the present. While much of this chapter is hard reading, Hetzel addresses these issues in a responsible way that serves not to depress so much as to empower the student to work to create a better world. My own students were emphatic over the power of these readings. I cannot praise the World History Workbook highly enough.
Hertzel’s workbook offers an innovative approach to learning about world history. He does not present us with an exhaustive narrative, but instead offers a wealth of information and learning frameworks along with selective narratives on a variety of world history topics. It will be a valuable tool for faculty who want to teach by using a book filled with practical exercises that places students at the center of the learning process.
As one who teaches at a small regional public university, I can attest to the difficulty of getting students to take reading assignments seriously. The World History Workbook will be welcomed by all who face the same challenge. Rather than the typical one-thing-after-another text, this book gives students a real taste of the thoughts, hopes, and passions of the past—and it gets students to engage with the thinkers, the dreamers, and the passionate such that their understanding of their own world will never be the same.
David Hertzel addresses World History with common sense and intelligence. Instead of another large, unruly text, The World History Workbook offers us a manageable approach to the subject featuring critical historiographical topics, straightforward comments on methodology, an impressive set of primary sources, and a selection of relevant exercises that bring students face to face with the study of history.
In this effective and clear introduction to the work of a historian, David Hertzel explains how to identify and analyze primary sources to render critical interpretations of the past. The workbook guides students through the process of interpretation while simultaneously raising their awareness of the complexity of context. Now updated to maintain relevance for students, this new edition is an invaluable addition to the history classroom.
My common frustration with textbooks is that they present neither historiography nor the tools historians use to create historical narratives. Dr. Hertzel's workbook does both. Using his workbook has enabled me to help my students understand the historical process and the tools and methods that historians employ. It introduces them to the skills that can be gleaned from historical inquiry and is written clearly enough that students in high school or college can benefit from the workbook. I am delighted to see it published more widely.
