"The Rise of the West," winner of the National Book Award for history in 1964, is famous for its ambitious scope and intellectual rigor. In it, McNeill challenges the Spengler-Toynbee view that a number of separate civilizations pursued essentially independent careers, and argues instead that human cultures interacted at every stage of their history. The author suggests 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.
"This is not only the most learned and the most intelligent, it is also the most stimulating and fascinating book that has ever set out to recount and explain the whole history of mankind. . . . To read it is a great experience. It leaves echoes to reverberate, and seeds to germinate in the mind."--H. R. Trevor-Roper, "New York Times Book Review "

World-historical questions such as these, the subjects of major works by Jared Diamond, David Landes, and others, are now of great moment as global frictions increase. In a spirited and original contribution to this quickening discussion, two renowned historians, father and son, explore the webs that have drawn humans together in patterns of interaction and exchange, cooperation and competition, since earliest times. Whether small or large, loose or dense, these webs have provided the medium for the movement of ideas, goods, power, and money within and across cultures, societies, and nations. From the thin, localized webs that characterized agricultural communities twelve thousand years ago, through the denser, more interactive metropolitan webs that surrounded ancient Sumer, Athens, and Timbuktu, to the electrified global web that today envelops virtually the entire world in a maelstrom of cooperation and competition, J. R. McNeill and William H. McNeill show human webs to be a key component of world history and a revealing framework of analysis. Avoiding any determinism, environmental or cultural, the McNeills give us a synthesizing picture of the big patterns of world history in a rich, open-ended, concise account.

Upon its original publication, Plagues and Peoples was an immediate critical and popular success, offering a radically new interpretation of world history as seen through the extraordinary impact--political, demographic, ecological, and psychological--of disease on cultures. From the conquest of Mexico by smallpox as much as by the Spanish, to the bubonic plague in China, to the typhoid epidemic in Europe, the history of disease is the history of humankind. With the identification of AIDS in the early 1980s, another chapter has been added to this chronicle of events, which William McNeill explores in his new introduction to this updated editon.

Thought-provoking, well-researched, and compulsively readable, Plagues and Peoples is that rare book that is as fascinating as it is scholarly, as intriguing as it is enlightening. "A brilliantly conceptualized and challenging achievement" (Kirkus Reviews), it is essential reading, offering a new perspective on human history.

An introduction to a new way of looking at history, from a perspective that stretches from the beginning of time to the present day, "Maps of Time "is world history on an unprecedented scale. Beginning with the Big Bang, David Christian views the interaction of the natural world with the more recent arrivals in flora and fauna, including human beings.
Cosmology, geology, archeology, and population and environmental studies--all figure in David Christian's account, which is an ambitious overview of the emerging field of "Big History." "Maps of Time "opens with the origins of the universe, the stars and the galaxies, the sun and the solar system, including the earth, and conducts readers through the evolution of the planet before human habitation. It surveys the development of human society from the Paleolithic era through the transition to agriculture, the emergence of cities and states, and the birth of the modern, industrial period right up to intimations of possible futures. Sweeping in scope, finely focused in its minute detail, this riveting account of the known world, from the inception of space-time to the prospects of global warming, lays the groundwork for world history--and Big History--true as never before to its name.

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 liberaleducation 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.

William H. McNeill's seminal book The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community (1963) received the National Book Award in 1964 and was later named one of the 100 best nonfiction books of the twentieth century by the Modern Library. From his post at the University of Chicago, McNeill became one of the first contemporary North American historians to write world history, seeking a broader interpretation of human affairs than prevailed in his youth. This candid, intellectual memoir from one of the most famous and influential historians of our era, The Pursuit of Truth charts the development of McNeill's thinking and writing over seven decades. At the core of his worldview is the belief that historical truth does not derive exclusively from criticizing, paraphrasing, and summarizing written documents, nor is history merely a record of how human intentions and plans succeeded or failed. Instead, McNeill believes that human lives are immersed in vast overarching processes of change. Ecological circumstances frame and limit human action, while in turn humans have been able to alter their environment more and more radically as technological skill and knowledge increased. McNeill believes that the human adventure on earth is unique, and that it rests on an unmatched system of communication. The web of human communication, whether spoken, written, or digital, has fostered both voluntary and involuntary cooperation and sustained behavioral changes, permitting a single species to spread over an entire planet and to alter terrestrial flows of energy and ideas to an extraordinary degree. Over the course of his career as a historian, teacher, and mentor, McNeill expounded the range of history and integrated it into an evolutionary worldview uniting physical, biological, and intellectual processes. Accordingly, The Pursuit of Truth explores the personal and professional life of a man who affected the way a core academic discipline has been taught and understood in America.

"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."
"No summary can do justice to McNeill's intricate, encyclopedic treatment. . . . McNeill's erudition is stunning, as he moves easily from European to Chinese and Islamic cultures and from military and technological to socio-economic and political developments. The result is a grand synthesis of sweeping proportions and interdisciplinary character that tells us almost as much about the history of butter as the history of guns. . . . McNeill's larger accomplishment is to remind us that all humankind has a shared past and, particularly with regard to its choice of weapons and warfare, a shared stake in thefuture."--Stuart Rochester, "Washington Post Book World"
"Mr. McNeill's comprehensiveness and sensitivity do for the reader what Henry James said that Turgenev's conversation did for him: they suggest 'all sorts of valuable things.' This narrative of rationality applied to irrational purposes and of ingenuity cannibalizing itself is a work of clarity, which delineates mysteries. The greatest of them, to my mind, is why human beings have never learned to cherish their own species."--Naomi Bliven, "The New Yorker
"

Renowned historian William H. McNeil provides a brilliant narrative chronology of the development of Western civilization, representing its socio-political as well as cultural aspects. This sixth edition includes new material for the twentieth-century period and completely revised bibliographies. An invaluable tool for the study of Western civilization, the "Handbook" is an essential complement to readings in primary and secondary sources such as those in the nine-volume "University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization."

World Environmental History, a Berkshire Essential, explores how the biosphere is affected by human interventions such as climate change, deforestation, waste management, water and wind energy, population growth, oil spills, ecological imperialism, and urbanization. An interdisciplinary approach to the field considers biological and physical processes as integral parts of history, with mammals, birds, plants, bacteria, and viruses as "biotic actors" that play important roles. So do geological formations and disruptions, such as deserts, mountains, islands, earthquakes, and tsunamis. The volume's rich content includes articles on the anthroposphere, carrying capacity, ethnobotany, Gaia theory, and the Green Revolution, for instance-all of which define key concepts that shape the environmental studies so crucial to a sustainable future.

Africa in World History stresses Africa's interrelatedness to other regions and cultures, from early trade routes, the arrival of Christianity and Islam, and the ramifications of colonialism to contemporary issues such as HIV/AIDS and apartheid that have thwarted Africa's efforts to establish unity. Africa stretches across more than 11 million square miles, from the Sahara and Sahel in the north to the mineral-resource-rich south, the endangered rain forests of the west, and the Serengeti savannas of the east. Fossils from Ethiopia tell us that the human species originated in Africa, and scholars have different theories about the journey out of Africa made by Homo sapiens some 60,000 years ago. Today, Africa is home to over 1 billion people speaking more than a thousand different languages.

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."
"No summary can do justice to McNeill's intricate, encyclopedic treatment. . . . McNeill's erudition is stunning, as he moves easily from European to Chinese and Islamic cultures and from military and technological to socio-economic and political developments. The result is a grand synthesis of sweeping proportions and interdisciplinary character that tells us almost as much about the history of butter as the history of guns. . . . McNeill's larger accomplishment is to remind us that all humankind has a shared past and, particularly with regard to its choice of weapons and warfare, a shared stake in thefuture."--Stuart Rochester, "Washington Post Book World"
"Mr. McNeill's comprehensiveness and sensitivity do for the reader what Henry James said that Turgenev's conversation did for him: they suggest 'all sorts of valuable things.' This narrative of rationality applied to irrational purposes and of ingenuity cannibalizing itself is a work of clarity, which delineates mysteries. The greatest of them, to my mind, is why human beings have never learned to cherish their own species."--Naomi Bliven, "The New Yorker
"

Arnold Toynbee was one of the most remarkable thinkers of the 20th century, a man of far-reaching imagination, extraordinary erudition, and an infinite capacity for hard work. At the height of his fame, he was the most renowned scholar in the world, acclaimed as the author of the monumental, 10-volume A Study of History. Indeed, such was the regard for his Study that Time magazine, in a cover article on Toynbee published in 1947, declared that he had "found history Ptolemaic and left it Copernican."
In Arnold Toynbee: A Life, William H. McNeill weaves together Toynbee's intellectual accomplishments and the personal difficulties of his private life, providing both an intimate portrait of a leading thinker and a judicious evaluation of Toynbee's work and his legacy for the study of history. McNeill illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of A Study of History as well as the countless other works penned by this prolific writer, examining the responses of other historians (including the devastating attack mounted by Hugh Trevor Roper) and Toynbee's attempts to modify his Study to answer these criticisms. And McNeill also examines Toynbee's tormented personal life, including his troubled marriage to Rosalind Murray (the daughter of Gilbert Murray), and the suicide of his son Anthony. What emerges is both poignant and thought-provoking, a biography and a commentary about how history is written and how it should be pursued.
William McNeill is one of America's most eminent historians, the winner of a National Book Award in 1964 for The Rise of the West, which The New York Times Book Review called "the most learned...the most intelligent...the most stimulating and fascinating bookthat has ever set out to recount and explain the whole history of the world." In this sympathetic portrait of a life both triumphant and troubled, McNeill brings his skills to bear on one of the greatest figures in his field, illuminating a career of rare accomplishment.

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."
"No summary can do justice to McNeill's intricate, encyclopedic treatment. . . . McNeill's erudition is stunning, as he moves easily from European to Chinese and Islamic cultures and from military and technological to socio-economic and political developments. The result is a grand synthesis of sweeping proportions and interdisciplinary character that tells us almost as much about the history of butter as the history of guns. . . . McNeill's larger accomplishment is to remind us that all humankind has a shared past and, particularly with regard to its choice of weapons and warfare, a shared stake in thefuture."--Stuart Rochester, "Washington Post Book World"
"Mr. McNeill's comprehensiveness and sensitivity do for the reader what Henry James said that Turgenev's conversation did for him: they suggest 'all sorts of valuable things.' This narrative of rationality applied to irrational purposes and of ingenuity cannibalizing itself is a work of clarity, which delineates mysteries. The greatest of them, to my mind, is why human beings have never learned to cherish their own species."--Naomi Bliven, "The New Yorker
"

Could something as simple and seemingly natural as falling into step have marked us for evolutionary success? In "Keeping Together in Time" one of the most widely read and respected historians in America pursues the possibility that coordinated rhythmic movement--and the shared feelings it evokes--has been a powerful force in holding human groups together. As he has done for historical phenomena as diverse as warfare, plague, and the pursuit of power, William H. McNeill brings a dazzling breadth and depth of knowledge to his study of dance and drill in human history. From the records of distant and ancient peoples to the latest findings of the life sciences, he discovers evidence that rhythmic movement has played a profound role in creating and sustaining human communities. The behavior of chimpanzees, festival village dances, the close-order drill of early modern Europe, the ecstatic dance-trances of shamans and dervishes, the goose-stepping Nazi formations, the morning exercises of factory workers in Japan--all these and many more figure in the bold picture McNeill draws. A sense of community is the key, and shared movement, whether dance or military drill, is its mainspring. McNeill focuses on the visceral and emotional sensations such movement arouses, particularly the euphoric fellow-feeling he calls "muscular bonding." These sensations, he suggests, endow groups with a capacity for cooperation, which in turn improves their chance of survival.

A tour de force of imagination and scholarship, "Keeping Together in Time" reveals the muscular, rhythmic dimension of human solidarity. Its lessons will serve us well as we contemplate the future of the human community and of ourvarious local communities.

Arnold Toynbee was one of the most remarkable thinkers of the 20th century, a man of far-reaching imagination, extraordinary erudition, and an infinite capacity for hard work. At the height of his fame, he was the most renowned scholar in the world, acclaimed as the author of the monumental, 10-volume A Study of History. Indeed, such was the regard for his Study that Time magazine, in a cover article on Toynbee published in 1947, declared that he had "found history Ptolemaic and left it Copernican."
In Arnold Toynbee: A Life, William H. McNeill weaves together Toynbee's intellectual accomplishments and the personal difficulties of his private life, providing both an intimate portrait of a leading thinker and a judicious evaluation of Toynbee's work and his legacy for the study of history. McNeill illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of A Study of History as well as the countless other works penned by this prolific writer, examining the responses of other historians (including the devastating attack mounted by Hugh Trevor Roper) and Toynbee's attempts to modify his Study to answer these criticisms. And McNeill also examines Toynbee's tormented personal life, including his troubled marriage to Rosalind Murray (the daughter of Gilbert Murray), and the suicide of his son Anthony. What emerges is both poignant and thought-provoking, a biography and a commentary about how history is written and how it should be pursued.
William McNeill is one of America's most eminent historians, the winner of a National Book Award in 1964 for The Rise of the West, which The New York Times Book Review called "the most learned...the most intelligent...the most stimulating and fascinating bookthat has ever set out to recount and explain the whole history of the world." In this sympathetic portrait of a life both triumphant and troubled, McNeill brings his skills to bear on one of the greatest figures in his field, illuminating a career of rare accomplishment.

Could something as simple and seemingly natural as falling into step have marked us for evolutionary success? In "Keeping Together in Time" one of the most widely read and respected historians in America pursues the possibility that coordinated rhythmic movement--and the shared feelings it evokes--has been a powerful force in holding human groups together. As he has done for historical phenomena as diverse as warfare, plague, and the pursuit of power, William H. McNeill brings a dazzling breadth and depth of knowledge to his study of dance and drill in human history. From the records of distant and ancient peoples to the latest findings of the life sciences, he discovers evidence that rhythmic movement has played a profound role in creating and sustaining human communities. The behavior of chimpanzees, festival village dances, the close-order drill of early modern Europe, the ecstatic dance-trances of shamans and dervishes, the goose-stepping Nazi formations, the morning exercises of factory workers in Japan--all these and many more figure in the bold picture McNeill draws. A sense of community is the key, and shared movement, whether dance or military drill, is its mainspring. McNeill focuses on the visceral and emotional sensations such movement arouses, particularly the euphoric fellow-feeling he calls "muscular bonding." These sensations, he suggests, endow groups with a capacity for cooperation, which in turn improves their chance of survival.

A tour de force of imagination and scholarship, "Keeping Together in Time" reveals the muscular, rhythmic dimension of human solidarity. Its lessons will serve us well as we contemplate the future of the human community and of ourvarious local communities.

Global in scope, William McNeill's widely acclaimed one-volume history emphasizes the four Old World civilizations of the Middle East, India, China, and Europe, paying particular attention to their interaction across time as well as the impact on historical scholarship in light of the most recent archaeological discoveries. The engaging and informative narrative touches on all aspects of civilization, including geography, communication, and technological and artisitc developmetns, and provides extensive coverage of the modern era.

This new edition includes a thorought updated bibliographic essay and a new discussion of the most significant events in world history and civilization since 1976.

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"

As Martin E. Marty explains in the introduction to Religion and Belief Systems in World History, a Berkshire Essential, human response to (or faith in) some supernatural or suprahuman force has given spiritual sustenance to individuals and communities for far longer than the earliest existing sacred texts would indicate. Based on archaeological evidence of gravesites found in Europe and parts of Asia dating to over 70,000 years ago, Marty tells us, "many neuroscientists believe humans are `hard-wired' to seek meaning through rites and ceremonies, myth and symbols, ideas and behaviors." This volume presents a global survey of world religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) and belief systems (from animism to Zoroastrianism), with major themes including how spiritual beliefs both supported and railed against war, and how religions expanded and divided across cultures and borders.

Could something as simple and seemingly natural as falling into step have marked us for evolutionary success? In "Keeping Together in Time" one of the most widely read and respected historians in America pursues the possibility that coordinated rhythmic movement--and the shared feelings it evokes--has been a powerful force in holding human groups together.As he has done for historical phenomena as diverse as warfare, plague, and the pursuit of power, William H. McNeill brings a dazzling breadth and depth of knowledge to his study of dance and drill in human history. From the records of distant and ancient peoples to the latest findings of the life sciences, he discovers evidence that rhythmic movement has played a profound role in creating and sustaining human communities. The behavior of chimpanzees, festival village dances, the close-order drill of early modern Europe, the ecstatic dance-trances of shamans and dervishes, the goose-stepping Nazi formations, the morning exercises of factory workers in Japan--all these and many more figure in the bold picture McNeill draws. A sense of community is the key, and shared movement, whether dance or military drill, is its mainspring. McNeill focuses on the visceral and emotional sensations such movement arouses, particularly the euphoric fellow-feeling he calls "muscular bonding." These sensations, he suggests, endow groups with a capacity for cooperation, which in turn improves their chance of survival.

A tour de force of imagination and scholarship, "Keeping Together in Time" reveals the muscular, rhythmic dimension of human solidarity. Its lessons will serve us well as we contemplate the future of the human community and of our various local communities.