World Access

by Petras, Kathryn; Petras, Ross

• ISBN13: 9780684814797
• ISBN10: 068481479X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-06-01
• Publisher: Fireside

Summary

United States citizens are becoming citizens of the world. Just look at the front page of any newspaper, the travel schedule of any corporate executive, college curricula, high school reading lists, the advertising and fashion spreads that fill our magazines, and our computer screens. The global village has arrived. We're all connected.
World Access is the first reference book guaranteed to fill in the gaps in anyone's incomplete education and provide a great time along the way. Packed with lists, brief biographies, statistics, and much more, this lively volume explores: the history of the world, from ancient Africa to modern China; the philosophies of the world, plus what philosophy is, in case you wondered; who's worshipping whom, from Jesus to Vishnu; art and architecture from hieroglyphics to op art, from Angkor Wat to Chartres cathedral; literature from its sparest (the Japanese haiku) to its most expansive (the Greek epic poem, or would it be Ulysses?); how we act out, from Sophocles to Satyajit Ray to downtown performance art; the music of our sphere, from Haydn's symphonies to reggae's beat; the top ten languages of the world (not counting English); and politics: You say you want a revolution? Or did you want peace in the Middle East?
Cutting-edge and fun to read, rich with facts and art and charts and bite-size nuggets of all kinds, World Access takes us beyond our own borders to the world at large.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 7
History of the World	p. 9
Philosophy of the World	p. 143
Religions of the World	p. 187
Art and Architecture of the World	p. 223
Literature of the World	p. 301
Drama and Film of the World	p. 377
Music of the World	p. 427
Languages of the World	p. 467
Political Geography of the World	p. 499
Politics of the World	p. 563
Acknowledgments	p. 643
Index	p. 645
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.