The Shaping of Western Civilization

In this overview, Michael Burger's pedagogical goal is to provide a brief historical narrative of Western civilization to enable students to engage more fully with primary sources. The no-frills, uncluttered format and well-written, one-author approach make this book an affordable yet valuable asset for every history student.

The third edition features stylistic and substantive revisions throughout. Volume One includes additional coverage of the neolithic revolution, the evolving self-definition of the West, race in the Middle Ages, the Crusades, and the conquest of the Americas, as well as new and improved maps.

"Burger's survey covers all of the expected factual bases, but it also challenges readers to reflect on the process of history-making itself, models enquiry for them, and calls attention to the structuring limitations on our pursuit of historical knowledge: evidence never speaks of its own accord, different questions require different levels of resolution, similarities among cultures serve to heighten the contrasts, past and present ways of looking at the world may be incommensurable, historians must beware of moralizing - and all this just in the first chapter! This is a book for those instructors who believe that the goal of teaching history is not to impart knowledge but to provoke their students to a certain way of thinking."--Oren Falk, Cornell University
"This is an elegant book that does many difficult things at once: it reflects the most up-to-date scholarship on premodern history, it carefully elucidates how the material bears on contemporary cultural issues, and it thoroughly substantiates the narrative with evidence from primary and premodern sources. Quite an accomplishment!"--Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, University of California, Santa Barbara

" The Shaping of Western Civilization provides a focused narrative, written in a clear style, that is accessible to today's college and university students - many of whom may not have been sufficiently introduced to the history of Western civilization in their previous schooling. The relatively trim length and low price add to the attractiveness of this volume. These features do not detract from presenting a critical treatment of topics based on the current state of scholarship, and there is a good balance in the coverage of social, political, cultural, and religious history."

Michael Burger is a professor of history at Auburn University at Montgomery.

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