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A compact yet thorough one-volume narrative of the entire history of the development of Western civilization

With this book, renowned historian William H. McNeil provides a brilliant narrative chronology of the development of Western civilization, representing its sociopolitical as well as cultural aspects. Sweeping in its coverage but careful in its attention to detail, and up to date with the latest scholarship History of Western Civlization is the perfect introduction to the subject for general readers and students alike.

The inauguration of Robert Maynard Hutchins as the fifth President of the University of Chicago in 1929 coincided with a drastically changed social and economic climate throughout the world. And Hutchins himself opened an era of tumultuous reform and debate within the University. In the midst of the changes Hutchins started and the intense feelings they stirred, William H. McNeill arrived at the University to pursue his education. In Hutchins' University he tells what it was like to come of age as a undergraduate in those heady times.

Hutchins' scathing opposition to the departmentalization of learning and his resounding call for reforms in general education sparked controversy and fueled debate on campus and off. It became a struggle for the heart and soul of higher education—and McNeill, as a student and then as an instructor, was a participant. His account of the university's history is laced with personal reminiscences, encounters with influential fellow scholars such as Richard McKeon, R. S. Crane, and David Daiches, and details drawn from Hutchins' papers and other archives.

McNeill sketches the interplay of personalities with changing circumstances of the Depression, war, and postwar eras. But his central concern is with the institutional life of the University, showing how student behavior, staff and faculty activity and even the Hyde Park neighborhood all revolved around the charismatic figure of Robert Maynard Hutchins—shaped by him and in reaction against him.

Successive transformations of the College, and the tribulations of the ideal of general or liberal education are central to much of the story; but the memoir also explores how the University was affected by such events as Red scares, the remarkably successful Round Table radio broadcasts, the
abolition of big time football, and the inauguration of the nuclear age under the west stands of Stagg Field in 1942.

In short, Hutchins' University sketches an extraordinarily vibrant period for the University of Chicago
and for American higher education. It will revive old controversies among veterans from those times, and may provoke others to reflect anew about the proper role of higher education in American society.

A classic novel of war, suffering, and survival in Bosnia
Internationally acclaimed since its original publication just after World War II, The Bridge on the Drina is a vivid historical novel that uses the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge as the centerpiece of the story of Bosnia and its people from the late sixteenth century to the beginning of World War I. As we seek to make sense of the current nightmare in this region, this remarkable, timely book serves as a reliable guide to its people and history. Through powerful stories of the people who make history—and the people suffer under those who do—Ivo Andric traces the story of the Bosnian people from the Ottoman Empire through the domination of Austria-Hungary and into the rising tide of competing nationalist ideologies that set the stage for the tragedy of World War I. 

Written while Andric was under house arrest during the Nazi occupation, The Bridge on the Drina is as gripping as a soap opera, bringing history down to the level of compelling individual lives and experiences. It is one of the landmark works of twentieth-century literature, as powerful today as it ever was.
 

The Islamic World is a collection of important and representative documents from all periods of Islamic history. From the formative years in Arabia to the confrontations with and responses to modernity, these translations indicate the continuity and development of the youngest of the world's greatest civilizations. Included are historical, theological, philosophical, and political writings, as well as poetry and narratives, from Muslim writers in the Arab lands, Turkey, Persia, and other parts of the Islamic world. The editors have provided informative introductions to each historical period and to the individual texts, making this an enlightening and intriguing first look at Islamic civilization and tradition.

In this magnificent synthesis of military, technological, and social history, William H. McNeill explores a whole millennium of human upheaval and traces the path by which we have arrived at the frightening dilemmas that now confront us. McNeill moves with equal mastery from the crossbow—banned by the Church in 1139 as too lethal for Christians to use against one another—to the nuclear missile, from the sociological consequences of drill in the seventeenth century to the emergence of the military-industrial complex in the twentieth. His central argument is that a commercial transformation of world society in the eleventh century caused military activity to respond increasingly to market forces as well as to the commands of rulers. Only in our own time, suggests McNeill, are command economies replacing the market control of large-scale human effort. The Pursuit of Power does not solve the problems of the present, but its discoveries, hypotheses, and sheer breadth of learning do offer a perspective on our current fears and, as McNeill hopes, "a ground for wiser action."
 

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

One of the most important works of history from the twentieth century, The Rise of the West, winner of the National Book Award in 1964, is famous for its ambitious scope and intellectual rigor. In it, William H. McNeill challenges the then-prevalent view that a number of separate civilizations pursued essentially independent careers, and argues instead that human cultures interacted at every stage of their history. McNeill argues instead that from the Neolithic beginnings of grain agriculture to the present major social changes in all parts of the world were triggered by new or newly important foreign stimuli, and he presents a persuasive narrative of world history to support this claim.

In a retrospective essay titled "The Rise of the West after Twenty-five Years," McNeill shows how his book was shaped by the time and place in which it was written (1954-63). He discusses how historiography subsequently developed and suggests how his portrait of the world's past in The Rise of the West should be revised to reflect these changes.
 

In this magisterial history, National Book Award winner William H. McNeill chronicles the interactions and disputes between Latin Christians and the Orthodox communities of eastern Europe during the period 1081–1797. Concentrating on Venice as the hinge of European history in the late medieval and early modern period, McNeill explores the technological, economic, and political bases of Venetian power and wealth, and the city’s unique status at the frontier between the papal and Orthodox Christian worlds. He pays particular attention to Venetian influence upon southeastern Europe, and from such an angle of vision, the familiar pattern of European history changes shape.

“No other historian would have been capable of writing a book as direct, as well-informed and as little weighed down by purple prose as this one. Or as impartial. McNeill has succeeded admirably.”—Fernand Braudel, Times Literary Supplement

“The book is serious, interesting, occasionally compelling, and always suggestive.”—Stanley Chojnacki, American Historical Review