The Oxford History of the World

Description

Histories you can trust.

Imagine the planet, as if from an immense distance of time and space, as a galactic observer might see it—with the kind of objectivity that we, who are enmeshed in our history, can´t attain.

The Oxford History of the World encompasses the whole span of human history. It brings together some of the world's leading historians, under the expert guidance of Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, to tell the 200,000-year story of our world, from the emergence of homo sapiens through to the twenty-first century: the environmental convulsions; the interplay of ideas (good and bad); the cultural phases and exchanges; the collisions and collaborations in politics; the successions of states and empires; the unlocking of energy; the evolutions of economies; the contacts, conflicts, and contagions that have all contributed to making the world we now inhabit.

About the editor:

Felipe Fernández-Armesto was an undergraduate and graduate student at Oxford (Demy of Magdalen College, Senior Scholar of St John´s, Fellow of St Antony´s) where he was a member of the Modern History Faculty before moving to chairs in the University of London (Professor of Global Environmental History at Queen Mary College), Tufts University (Prince of Asturias Professor), and the University of Notre Dame, where he holds the William P. Reynolds Chair for Mission in Arts and Letters. His work, which has covered many fields and disciplines and has appeared in twenty-seven languages, has won him numerous awards, including the John Carter Brown Medal, a World History Association Book Prize (for Pathfinders, 2007), Spain´s national prizes for geography and food-writing, and, most recently, the Gran Cruz de la Orden de Alfonso X el Sabio, Spain´s highest award for services to education and the arts.

Reviews

"When a renowned academic publisher such as Oxford University Press gathers well-known (mainly British and American) historians to write a history of the whole world, one can expect a cross between the highest condition, light and metaphorical language and opulent visualization - and this is exactly what this volume delivers." - Matthias Middell, Comparativ

"To say that The Oxford History Of The World is a monumental undertaking is something of an understatement. In just over 400 pages some of the world's most noted historians come together to tell the story of human history, from its first breath to the modern age ... The result is a triumph ... As accessible as it is well-researched, it really is a joy to read and will satisfy anyone who wants to delve deeper into the history of the world." - All About History

"Extraordinary ... [A] beautiful book, with accessible essays of such originality" - Richard Drayton, Times Literary Supplement

"Some books are admirable because of their sheer scope and ambition, and this overview of the entirety of the human story fits firmly within that category." - History Revealed

"A handy compendium of some of the major moments and periods of transformation in human history, set in a global context." - Lucia Marchini, Minerva

"Condensing the story of humanity's 200,000 year tenure on Earth into 450 pages could be an act of hubris or the result of orderly - yet imaginative - minds making connections across centuries and continents. The Oxford History of the World is more the latter... a pleasure to read with many thought-provoking passages." - David Luhrssen, Shepherd Express

"Are you intellectually curious, but very busy? Would you have liked to understand the biggest questions about the history of the last 200,000 years, but you don't have the time required to read 97 different fat books to tell you the answers? Are you looking for just one book that will summarize it all? Then this is your book! It's exciting, up-to-date, and well-written. You'll love it!" - Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography at UCLA and Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and The World Until Yesterday

"Felipe Fernández-Armesto and his gifted team have produced the world history for our times, ecologically oriented, written from multiple standpoints and informed by systematic comparison." - Peter Burke, Professor Emeritus of Cultural History, University of Cambridge

"A truly remarkable book." - Richard Lofthouse, Quad Magazine

"Brilliant and provocative" - Art Eyewitness

Table of contents

Part I: Children of the Ice
1:Humanity From the Ice: The Emergence and Spread of an Adaptive Species, Clive Gamble
2:The Mind in the Ice: Art and Thought before Agriculture, Felipe Fernández-Armesto
Part II: Of Mud and Metal
3:Into a Warming World, Martin Jones
4:The Farmers' Empires: Climax and Crises in Agrarian States and Cities, Felipe Fernández-Armesto
Part III: The Oscillations of Empires
5:Material Life: Bronze Age Crisis to the Black Death, John Brooke
6:Intellectual Traditions: Philosophy, Science, Religion, and the Arts, 500 BCE - 1350 CE, David Northrup
7:Growth: Social and Political Organizations, 1000 BC-AD 1350, Ian Morris
Part IV: The Climatic Reversal
8:A Converging World: Economic and Ecological Encounters, 1350-1815, David Northrup
9:Renaissances, Reformations, and Mental Revolutions: Intellect and Arts in the Early Modern World, Manuel Lucena-Giraldo
10:Connected by Emotions and Experiences: Monarchs, Merchants, Mercenaries, and Migrants in the Early Modern World, Anjana Singh
Part V: The Great Acceleration
11:The Anthropocene Epoch: The Background to Two Transformative Centuries, David Christian
12:The Modern World and Its Demons: Ideology and After in Arts, Letters and Thought, 1815-2008, Paolo Luca Bernardini
13:Politics and Society in the Kaleidoscope of Change: Relationships, Institutions, and Conflicts from the Beginnings of Western Hegemony to the American Supremacy, Jeremy Black