Michael Burger's goal in this inexpensive overview is to provide a brief, historical narrative of Western civilization. Not only does its length and price separate this text from the competition, but its no-frills, uncluttered format and well-written, one-authored approach make it a valuable asset for every history student.
The Shaping of Western Civilization: From the Reformation to the Present begins with the Reformation and ends with globalization. Unlike other textbooks that pile on dates and facts, Shaping is a more coherent and interpretive presentation. Burger's skills as writer and synthesizer will enable students to obtain the background required to ask meaningful questions of primary sources. In addition to suggestions for further reading, this overview includes over 20 images and 11 maps.
By:
Michael Burger
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions:
Height: 236mm,
Width: 192mm,
Spine: 15mm
Weight: 500g
ISBN: 9781442607590
ISBN 10: 1442607599
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 02 January 2014
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of figures List of maps Preface Notes on references, further reading, and dates Introduction 6. The Early Modern West I: The Reformation, the great consolidation, and the end of Christendom 7. The Early Modern West II: Science, society, and the state 8. The Early Modern West III: Enlightenment, industrialization and an unraveled compromise 9. The West, 1815-1914: The Search for community, and responses to the Enlightenment and revolution 10. From ca. 1914 to the present: The search for community, global conflict, and the harvest of the modern West 11. Coda: The Shaping of Western Civilization Sources Index
Michael Burger is a professor of history at Auburn University at Montgomery.
Reviews for The Shaping of Western Civilization, Volume II: From the Reformation to the Present
Instructors of a Western Civilization curriculum can nowadays choose from any number of textbooks, most of which are, in all honesty, perfectly good. But I know of no other textbook in English that I would recommend to undergraduates, graduate students, and colleagues as a thought-provoking read on its own merits. 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
