Western Civilizations (Brief Fifth Edition) (Vol. Combined Volume)

THIS BRIEF FIFTH EDITION of Western Civilizations is a landmark in a long and continuing journey. Since the original publication of the Full Edition in 1941, this book has been assiduously updated by succeeding generations of historians who have kept it at the forefront of the field in both scholarship and pedagogical innovation. Our newest edition carries this legacy forward, further honing the tools we have developed to empower students—our own and yours—to engage effectively with the themes, sources, and challenges of history. It presents a clear and concise narrative of events that unfolded over many thousands of years, supplemented by a compelling selection of primary sources and striking images. At the same time, it features a unified program of pedagogical elements that guide students from understanding core content to reading and analyzing historical sources and, finally, to developing a sophisticated sense of the ways that historians reconstruct the past on the basis of those sources. This framework, and a brand-new set of activities built around select sources from each chapter, helps students to read and interpret historical evidence on their own, encouraging them to become active participants in the learning process and helping them to think historically.