Human Web : A Bird's Eye View of the World History

by McNeill, John Robert; McNeill, William H.

• ISBN13: 9780393051797
• ISBN10: 039305179X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-02-01
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc

Summary

Why did the first civilizations emerge when and where they did? How did Islam become a unifying force in the world of its birth? What enabled the West to project its goods and power around the world from the fifteenth century on? Why was agriculture invented seven times and the steam engine just once?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.

Author Biography

J. R. McNeill is professor of history in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University His father William H. McNeill, is emeritus professor of history at the University of Chicago

Table of Contents

List of Maps	xiii
List of Tables	xv
Preface	xvii
Introduction: Webs and History	3	(6)
The Human Apprenticeship	9	(16)
Shifting to Food Production, 11,000-3,000 Years Ago	25	(16)
Webs and Civilizations in the Old World, 3500 B.C.E.-200 C.E.	41	(41)
The First Civilizations	43	(12)
Rise of Bureaucratic Empire	55	(5)
Portable, Congregational Religions	60	(2)
Indian Civilization	62	(3)
Chinese Civilization	65	(3)
Greek and Roman Civilization	68	(11)
Population, Environment, and Disease	79	(2)
Conclusion	81	(1)
The Growth of Webs in the Old World and America, 200-1000 C.E.	82	(34)
Shifts in Relative Wealth and Power	82	(12)
Expanding and Thickening the Old World Web	94	(9)
New Roles for Religion	103	(5)
Emergence of an American Web	108	(6)
Conclusion: Common Patterns	114	(2)
Thickening Webs, 1000-1500	116	(39)
Overview	116	(5)
How China Became the First Market Society	121	(6)
The Transformation of Islam, 1000-1500	127	(10)
Christendom's Thickening Web	137	(10)
The Old World Web's Pacific Flank	147	(3)
Southern and Northern Frontiers of the Old World Web	150	(3)
The American Webs	153	(1)
Conclusion	153	(2)
Spinning the Worldwide Web, 1450-1800	155	(58)
The World's Webs as of 1450	156	(6)
Fusing and Extending the World's Webs, 1450-1800	162	(16)
The World the Web Made, 1500-1800	178	(33)
Conclusion	211	(2)
Breaking Old Chains, Tightening the New Web, 1750-1914	213	(55)
The Progress of the Web	214	(7)
Igniting the Population Explosion	221	(2)
New Foundations for Politics	223	(7)
The Industrial Revolution	230	(6)
Impacts of the Industrial Revolution	236	(16)
Abolition of Slavery and Serfdom	252	(6)
Globalization in the Age of Imperialism	258	(6)
Ecological Change	264	(2)
Conclusion: Lock-In	266	(2)
Strains on the Web: the World Since 1890	268	(51)
Communications and Ideas	269	(8)
The Marriage of Science and Technology	277	(2)
Population and Urbanization	279	(5)
Energy and Environment	284	(4)
Retreat from Globalization: War and Depression, 1914-41	288	(8)
Resurgent Globalization: War and the Long Boom Since 1941	296	(21)
Conclusion	317	(2)
Big Pictures and Long Prospects	319	(10)
by J. R. McNeill	319	(4)
by William H. McNeill	323	(6)
Further Readings	329	(10)
Index	339