The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community (1963 McNeill), book
The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community (1963) is a book by William Hardy McNeill.
Abstract
"The Rise of the West, winner of the National Book Award for history in 1964, is famous for its ambitious scope and intellectual rigor. In it, McNeill challenges the Spengler-Toynbee view that a number of separate civilizations pursued essentially independent careers, and argues instead that human cultures interacted at every stage of their history. The author suggests that from the Neolithic beginnings of grain agriculture to the present major social changes in all parts of the world were triggered by new or newly important foreign stimuli, and he presents a persuasive narrative of world history to support this claim ... In a retrospective essay titled "The Rise of the West after Twenty-five Years," McNeill shows how his book was shaped by the time and place in which it was written (1954-63). He discusses how historiography subsequently developed and suggests how his portrait of the world's past in The Rise of the West should be revised to reflect these changes."--Publisher description.
Editions
Published in Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998.
Contents
pt. 1. The era of Middle Eastern dominance to 500 B.C. -- In the beginning -- The breakthrough to civilization in Mesopotamia -- The diffusion of civilization : first phase -- The rise of a cosmopolitan civilization in the Middle East, 1700-500 B.C. -- The formation of peripheral civilizations in India, Greece, and China, 1700-500 B.C. -- pt. 2. Eurasian cultural balance, 500 B.C.-1500 A.D. -- The expansion of Hellenism, 500-146 B.C. -- Closure of the Eurasian Ecumene, 500 B.C.--200 B.C. -- Barbarian onslaught and civilized response, 200-600 A.D. -- The resurgence of the Middle East, 600-1000 A.D. -- Steppe conquerors and the European Far West, 1000-1500 A.D. -- pt. 3. The era of Western dominance, 1500-A.D. to the present -- The Far West's challenge to the world, 1500-1700 A.D. -- The tottering world balance, 1700-1850 A.D. -- The rise of the West : cosmopolitanism on a global scale, 1850-1950 A.D.