The Making of the West, Volume I: To 1740 Peoples and Cultures

by Hunt, Lynn; Martin, Thomas R.; Smith, Bonnie G.; Rosenwein, Barbara H.; Hsia, R. Po-chia

• ISBN13: 9780312452957
• ISBN10: 0312452950
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-02-20
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Summary

A team of renowned scholar-teachers createdThe Making of the Westto address three of the biggest challenges teachers of western civilization face demonstrating how the West has been an evolving entity shaped by global influences; conveying the dynamic interaction of social, political, cultural, and economic history in shaping events over time; and revealing the historical roots of developments in today's world. Through a ground-breaking chronological synthesis, the narrative deftly weaves together the main events, people, and themes of a specific time, thus providing a balanced, easy-to-follow story line. New aids to guide student reading and enhancements to the book's organization bring the essence of western history to the fore in the most accessible edition yet.

Author Biography

LYNN HUNT (Ph.D., Stanford University) is Eugen Weber Professor of Modern European History at University of California at Los Angeles. She is the author of Revolution and Urban Politics in Provincial France (1978); Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (1984); The Family Romance of the French Revolution (1992); and Inventing Human Rights (2007). She is also the coauthor or editor of numerous other works on the French Revolution and cultural history. She has been awarded fellowships by the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEH and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She served as president of the American Historical Association in 2002.

THOMAS R. MARTIN (Ph.D., Harvard University) is Jeremiah O’Connor Professor in Classics at the College of the Holy Cross. He is the author of Sovereignty and Coinage in Classical Greece (1985) and Ancient Greece (1996, 2000) and is one of the originators of Perseus: Interactive Sources and Studies on Ancient Greece (1992, 1996, and www.perseus.tufts.edu), which was named the EDUCOM Best Software in Social Sciences (History) in 1992. He serves on the editorial board of STOA (www.stoa.org) and as co-director of its DEMOS project (on-line resources on ancient Athenian democracy). He has also appeared on a variety of television documentary programs. A recipient of fellowships from the NEH and the American Council of Learned Societies, he is currently conducting research on the history and significance of freedom of speech in Athenian democracy.

BARBARA H. ROSENWEIN (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is professor of history at Loyola University Chicago. She is the author of Rhinoceros Bound: Cluny in the Tenth Century (1982); To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s Property, 909–1049 (1989); Negotiating Space: Power, Restraint, and Privileges of Immunity in Early Medieval Europe (1999); A Short History of the Middle Ages (2001; 2004); Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages (2006); and Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic World (2006). She is the editor or coeditor of several works on the Middle Ages and a recipient of Guggenheim and NEH fellowships. She is currently working on a general history of the emotions in the West.

R. PO-CHIA HSIA (Ph.D., Yale University) is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of Society and Religion in Munster, 1535–1618 (1984); The Myth of Ritual Murder: Jews and Magic in Reformation Germany (1988); Social Discipline in the Reformation: Central Europe 1550–1750 (1989); Trent 1475: Stories of a Ritual Murder Trial (1992); and The World of the Catholic Renewal (1997). He has edited several volumes on medieval history. He has been awarded fellowships by the Woodrow Wilson International Society of Scholars, the NEH, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Davis Center of Princeton University, the Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Academy in Berlin. Currently he is working on the cultural contacts between Europe and Asia between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.

BONNIE G. SMITH (Ph.D., University of Rochester) is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University. She is the author of Ladies of the Leisure Class (1981); Confessions of a Concierge: Madame Lucie’s History of Twentieth-Century France (1985); Changing Lives: Women in European History Since 1700 (1989); The Gender of History: Men, Women and Historical Practice (1998); Imperialism (2000); and Europe in the Contemporary World (2007). She is also the co-author and translator of What Is Property? (1994), and editor or co-editor of numerous titles of European, world, and women’s history, including Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History (6 vols. 2007). She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEH, the National Humanities Center, the Davis Center of Princeton University, and the American Council of Learned Societies. Currently she is studying the globalization of European culture and society since the seventeenth century.

Table of Contents

Note: All chapters close with a conclusion and a full-page Chapter Review section.

Prologue: The Beginnings of Human Society

The Paleolithic Age, 200,000–10,000 B.C.E.

The Neolithic Age, 10,000–4000 B.C.E.

New Sources, New Perspectives: Daily Bread, Damaged Bones, and Cracked Teeth

1. Early Western Civilization, 4000–1000 B.C.E.

The Controversial Concept of Western Civilization

Mesopotamia, Home of the First Civilization, 4000–1000 B.C.E.

Egypt, the First Unified Country, 3050–1000 B.C.E.

The Hittites, Minoans, and Mycenaeans, 2200–1000 B.C.E.

Terms of History: Civilization

Document: Hammurabi’s Laws for Physicians

Document: Declaring Innocence on Judgment Day in Ancient Egypt

2. The Near East and the Emergence of Greece, 1000–500 B.C.E.

From Dark Age to Empire in the Near East, 1000–500 B.C.E.

Remaking Greek Civilization, 1000–750 B.C.E.

The Creation of the Greek Polis, 750–500 B.C.E.

New Directions for the Polis, 750–500 B.C.E.

Document: Homer’s Vision of Justice in the Polis

Seeing History: Shifting Sculptural Expression: From Egypt to Greece

Document: Cyrene Records Its Foundation as a Greek Colony

Taking Measure: Greek Family Size and Agricultural Labor in the Archaic Age

Contrasting Views: Persians Debate Democracy, Oligarchy, and Monarchy



3. The Greek Golden Age c. 500–c. 400 B.C.E.

Wars between Persia and Greece, 499–479 B.C.E.

Athenian Confidence in the Golden Age, 478–431 B.C.E.

Tradition and Innovation in Athens’s Golden Age

The End of the Golden Age, 431–403 B.C.E.

Document: Athenian Regulations for a Rebellious Ally

Contrasting Views: The Nature of Women and Marriage

Document: Sophists Argue Both Sides of a Case

Taking Measure: Military Forces of Athens and Sparta at the Beginning of the Peloponnesian War (431 B.C.E.)

4. From the Classical to the Hellenistic World, 400–30 B.C.E.

Classical Greece after the Peloponnesian War, 400–350 B.C.E.

The Rise of Macedonia, 359–323 B.C.E.

The Hellenistic Kingdoms, 323–30 B.C.E.

Hellenistic Culture

Document: Aristotle on the Nature of the Greek Polis

Document: Epigrams by Women Poets

New Sources, New Perspectives: Papyrus Discoveries and Menander’s Comedies

5. The Rise of Rome, 753–44 B.C.E.

Roman Social and Religious Traditions

From Monarchy to Republic

Roman Imperialism and Its Consequences

Upheaval in the Late Republic

Document: The Rape and Suicide of Lucretia

Taking Measure: Census Records during the First and Second Punic Wars

Document: Polybius on Roman Military Discipline

Contrasting Views: What Was Julius Caesar Like?

6. The Roman Empire, 44 B.C.E.–284 C.E.

Creating the Pax Romana

Maintaining the Pax Romana

The Emergence of Christianity

The Third-Century Crisis

Document: Augustus, Res Gestae (My Accomplishments)

Document: The Scene at a Roman Bath

Contrasting Views: Christians in the Empire: Conspirators or Faithful Subjects?

Taking Measure: The Value of Roman Imperial Coinage, 27 B.C.E.–300 C.E.

7. The Transformation of the Roman Empire, 284–600 C.E.

Reorganizing the Empire, 284–395

Christianizing the Empire, 312–c. 540

Non-Roman Kingdoms in the West, c. 370-550s

The Roman Empire in the East, c. 500-565

Document: Diocletian’s Edict On Maximum Prices and Wages

Taking Measure: Peasants’ Use of Farm Produce in the Roman Empire

Document: The Edict of Milan on Religious Liberty

Seeing History: Changing Religious Beliefs: Pagan and Christian Sarcophaguses

New Sources, New Perspectives: Was There a Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?

8. Islam, Byzantium, and the West, 600–750

Islam: A New Religion and a New Empire

Byzantium: A Christian Empire under Siege

Western Europe: A Medley of Kingdoms

Terms of History: Medieval

Document: The Fatihah of the Qur’an

Seeing History: Who Conquered Whom? A Persian and an Arabic Coin Compared

Taking Measure: Church Repair, 600–900

Document: On Holy Images

New Sources, New Perspectives: Anthropology, Archaeology, and Changing Notions of Ethnicity

9. Emperors, Caliphs, and Local Lords, 750–1050

The Emperor and Local Elites in the Byzantine Empire

The Caliphate and Its Fragmentation

The Creation and Division of a New European Empire

After the Carolingians: The Emergence of Local Rule

Document: The Book of the Prefect

Document: When She Approached

Contrasting Views: Charlemagne: Roman Emperor, Father of Europe, or the Chief Bishop?

Terms of History: Feudalism

Taking Measure: Sellers, Buyers, and Donors, 800–1000

10. Merchants and Kings, Popes and Crusaders, 1050–1150

The Commercial Revolution

Church Reform

The Crusades

The Revival of Monarchies

Document: A Byzantine View of Papal Primacy

Contrasting Views: The First Crusade

New Sources, New Perspectives: The Cairo Geniza

Document: Penances for the Invaders, 1070

Taking Measure: Slaves in England in 1086

11. The Flowering of the Middle Ages, 1150–1215

New Schools and Churches

Governments as Institutions

The Growth of a Vernacular High Culture

Religious Fervor and Crusade

Seeing History: Romanesque vs. Gothic: The View Down the Nave

Contrasting Views: Magna Carta

Document: Frederick’s Reply to the Romans

Document: The Children’s Crusade, 1212

12. The Medieval Search for Order, 1215–1340

The Church’s Mission

The Medieval Synthesis

The Politics of Control

New Sources, New Perspectives: The Peasants of Montaillou

Taking Measure: Sentences Imposed by an Inquisitor, 1308–1323

Document: The Debate between Reason and the Lover

Document: Ausculta Fili (Listen, beloved son)



13. Crisis and Renaissance, 1340–1492

Crisis: Disease, War and Schism

The Renaissance: New Forms of Thought and Expression

Consolidating Power

Taking Measure: Population Losses and the Black Death

Contrasting Views: Joan of Arc: Who Was "the Maid"?

Document: Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, 1381

Terms of History: Renaissance

Document: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man

14. Global Encounters and Religious Reforms, 1492–1560

Widening Horizons

The Protestant Reformation

Reshaping Society through Religion

A Struggle for Mastery

Seeing History: Expanding Geographic Knowledge: World Maps in an Age of Exploration

Document: Columbus Describes His First Voyage, 1493

Contrasting Views: Martin Luther: Holy Man or Heretic?

Document: Ordinances for Calvinist Churches, 1547

15. Wars of Religion and the Clash of World Views, 1560–1648

Religious Conflicts Threaten State Power, 1560–1618

The Thirty Years’ War, 1618–1648

Economic Crisis and Realignment

The Rise of Secular and Scientific Worldviews

Document: Hans Grimmelshausen, The Horrors of the Thirty Years’ War

Taking Measure: The Rise and Fall of Silver Imports to Spain, 1550–1660

New Sources, New Perspectives: Tree Rings and the Little Ice Age

Seeing History: Religious Differences in Painting of the Baroque Period: Rubens and Rembrandt

Document: Sentence Pronounced Against Galileo

16. State Building and the Search for Order, 1648–1690

Louis XIV: Absolutism and its Limits

Absolutism in Central and Eastern Europe

Constitutionalism in England

Outposts of Constitutionalism

The Search for Order in Elite and Popular Culture

Document: Marie de SŽvignŽ’s Description of the French Court

Taking Measure: The Seventeenth-Century Army

Contrasting Views: The English Civil War

Document: John Milton’s Defense of Freedom of the Press



17. The Atlantic System and Its Consequences, 1690–1740

The Atlantic System and the World Economy

New Social and Cultural Patterns

Consolidation of the European State System

The Birth of the Enlightenment

New Sources, New Perspectives: Oral History and the Life of Slaves

Document: The Social Effects of Growing Consumption

Taking Measure: Relationship of Crop Harvested to Seed Used, 1400–1800

Terms of History: Progress

Document: Voltaire, Letters Concerning the English Nation, 1733

Appendix: Useful Facts and Figures

Glossary

Suggested References