Civilizations Past and Present, Combined Volume [Rental Edition]

This print textbook is available for students to rent for their classes. The Pearson print rental program provides students with affordable access to learning materials, so they come to class ready to succeed.  

For courses in world history.

A narrative exploration of world history and cultures

Civilizations Past and Present  presents a survey of world history, treating the development and growth of civilization as a global phenomenon involving the interaction of all of the world’s cultures. The text includes all the elements of history – social, economic, political, military, religious, aesthetic, legal, and technological – to illustrate this global interaction. The 13th Edition has been substantially revised and made more concise while emphasizing world trends and carefully avoiding placing these trends within a Western conceptual basis.

Robert R. Edgar is Professor of African Studies at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and a Senior Fellow in the Department of History at Stellenbosch University. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Virginia, Georgetown University, National University of Lesotho, University of Cape Town and University of Western Cape. He specializes in modern religious and political movements in southern Africa. Among his books are An African American in South Africa: the Travel Notes of Ralph Bunche (1992), African Apocalypse: the story of Nontetha Nkwenkwe, a Twentieth Century South African Prophet (2000) (co-authored with Hilary Sapire), and The Finger of God: Enoch Mgijima, the Israelites and the Bulhoek Massacre (2018).

Neil J. Hackett is Associate Professor Emeritus at Oklahoma State University. He has also served as Adjunct Professor of History at St. Louis University. He received his Ph.D in history and classics from the University of Cincinnati. He served as Associate and Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Oklahoma State, and for five years as Director of Oklahoma State’s branch campus in Kyoto, Japan.

George F. Jewsbury is Professor Emeritus of History at Oklahoma State University. He earned his PhD from the University of Washington in Russian and East European history. He has also served as a Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Nancy II, Senior Associate Member at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and as an Associate Researcher at the School for the Advanced Study of the Social Sciences in Paris. He has published The Russian Annexation of Bessarabia: 1774-1828, and several articles dealing with French influence in Russia 1770-1828 and Russian-Romanian relations from 1800 to the present.

Barbara Molony, Professor of Japanese History at Santa Clara University, co-President of the Coordinating Council for Women in History, and past president of the American Historical Association Pacific Coast Branch, specializes in research on women’s rights, transnational feminisms, and the construction and representation of gender in Japan and East Asia. She has published more than two dozen articles and chapters on these topics. She has also co-authored or co-edited Women’s Activism and “Second Wave” Feminism: Transnational Histories (with Jennifer Nelson, 2017), Gender in Modern East Asia (with Janet Theiss and Hyaeweol Choi, 2016), Modern East Asia: An Integrated History (with Jonathan Lipman and Michael Robinson, 2010), Asia’s New Mothers: Crafting Gender Roles and Childcare Networks in East and Southeast Asian Societies (with Ochiai Emiko, 2008), and Gendering Modern Japanese History (with Kathleen Uno, 2005). She is an associate editor of Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires since 1820. She is currently co-authoring Ichikawa Fusae: A Political Biography (in progress).

Matthew S. Gordon is Professor of Middle East and Islamic studies at Miami University, where he is the Philip R. Shriver Professor of History. He earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1993. Among his publications on the history of the Islamic Near East are two edited volumes, including Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History (2017); a series of textbooks, including The Rise of Islam (2005); and a monograph on the Abbasid caliphate, The Breaking of a Thousand Swords (2001). Gordon is a co-editor of the online journal, Al-Usur al-Wusta, and is presently at work on a history of the early Abbasid Empire.

1. Stone Age Societies and the Earliest Civilizations of the Near East
   
2. Early Chinese Civilization
   
3. Early Indian Civilizations 
   
4. The Greeks 2000–30 BCE 
   
5. Rome, 900 BCE to 476 CE 
   
6. The Eastern Mediterranean World, 300–950 CE
   
7. The Islamic World, 950–1300 CE
   
8. African Beginnings
   
9. The Americas to 1500
   
10. The Creation of Europe: 300–1500
    
11. Culture, Power, and Trade in the Era of Asian Hegemony, 220–1350
    
12. The Great Dynastic Empires of Eurasia, 1300–1650
    
13. East Asian Cultural and Political Systems, 1300–1650
    
14. New Ways of Thinking: 1300–1700: Renaissance, Reformations, and Scientific Revolution
    
15. Global Encounters: Europe and the New World Economy, 1400–1650
    
16. Europe: The Rise of the Nation States, 1500–1815
    
17. Africa in the World Economy, 1650–1850
    
18. Asian and Middle Eastern Empires and Nations, 1650–1815 
    
19. The Americas, 1650–1825 
    
20. The European Century, 1815–1914 
    
21. Africa and the Near East During the Age of European Imperialism 
    
22. Imperialism and Modernity in Asia and the Pacific, 1815–1914 
    
23. The Americas, 1825–1914 
    
24. World War I: The Origins and Consequences of a European Tragedy 
    
25. The Failure of the Liberal Model and the Rise of Authoritarianism 
    
26. World War II 
    
27. Forging New Nations in Asia, 1910–1950 
    
28. National Movements and the Drive for Independence in the Near East and Africa from the 1920s to 1950s 
    
29. The West Since 1945: Cold War and Confused Peace 
    
30. The Near East and Africa Since 1945 
    
31. Latin America Since 1910 
    
32. Asia and the South Pacific Since 1945
    

Volume I includes chapters 1–16; Volume II includes chapters 16–32.