"A brilliant inquiry into culture and society over some seven centuries, Mary Evans explores the origins and trajectories of modernity from the Reformation through the Enlightenment to the contemporary period. Her intellectual control of complex ideas and diverse forms of evidence is consistently impressive. Exploring various pessimistic, dystopian strands in European perspectives on modernity by Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber and Theodor Adorno, she defends a balanced view of both the negative and positive consequences of modernization. This is historical sociology at its best: judicious, theoretically informed, carefully crafted, grounded in empirical research, and above all intellectually clever. A Short History of Society will prove to be a valuable companion to the student who needs a concise scholarly and sociological overview of modernity." Bryan Turner, National University of Singapore A Short History of Society is a concise account of the emergence of modern western society. It looks at how successive generations have understood and explained the world in which they lived, and examines significant events since the Enlightenment that have led to the development of society as we know it today. The book spans the period 1500 to the present day and discusses the social world in terms of both its politics and its culture. This book is ideal for undergraduate students in the social sciences who are perplexed by the myriad of events and theories with which their courses are concerned, and who need a historical perspective on the changes that shaped the contemporary world.

"A brilliant inquiry into culture and society over some seven centuries, Mary Evans explores the origins and trajectories of modernity from the Reformation through the Enlightenment to the contemporary period. Her intellectual control of complex ideas and diverse forms of evidence is consistently impressive. Exploring various pessimistic, dystopian strands in European perspectives on modernity by Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber and Theodor Adorno, she defends a balanced view of both the negative and positive consequences of modernization. This is historical sociology at its best: judicious, theoretically informed, carefully crafted, grounded in empirical research, and above all intellectually clever. A Short History of Society will prove to be a valuable companion to the student who needs a concise scholarly and sociological overview of modernity." Bryan Turner, National University of Singapore A Short History of Society is a concise account of the emergence of modern western society. It looks at how successive generations have understood and explained the world in which they lived, and examines significant events since the Enlightenment that have led to the development of society as we know it today. The book spans the period 1500 to the present day and discusses the social world in terms of both its politics and its culture. This book is ideal for undergraduate students in the social sciences who are perplexed by the myriad of events and theories with which their courses are concerned, and who need a historical perspective on the changes that shaped the contemporary world.

A classic study of fifteen crucial years in the formation of the modern world The Birth of the Modern has established itself as a new kind of historical work - an examination of the way the matrix of the modern world was formed. Paul Johnson, one of today's most popular historians, takes fifteen critical years and subjects them to a fascinatingly detailed analysis: their geopolitics and politics, their cultural and intellectual life, their technology and science. He investigates every area of life, in every corner of the world. And he makes of this huge variety of elements a coherent narrative, told through the lives and actual words of the age's people - outstanding and ordinary - so that the reader feels he was there.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The startling true history of how one extraordinary man from a remote corner of the world created an empire that led the world into the modern age—by the author featured in Echoes of the Empire: Beyond Genghis Khan. The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans did in four hundred. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization. Vastly more progressive than his European or Asian counterparts, Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege. From the story of his rise through the tribal culture to the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed, this brilliant work of revisionist history is nothing less than the epic story of how the modern world was made.

Annotation World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500 offers a comprehensive introduction to the history of humankind from prehistory to 1500. Authored by six USG faculty members with advance degrees in History, this textbook offers up-to-date original scholarship. It covers such cultures, states, and societies as Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Israel, Dynastic Egypt, India's Classical Age, the Dynasties of China, Archaic Greece, the Roman Empire, Islam, Medieval Africa, the Americas, and the Khanates of Central Asia. It includes 350 high-quality images and maps, chronologies, and learning questions to help guide student learning. Its digital nature allows students to follow links to applicable sources and videos, expanding their educational experience beyond the textbook. It provides a new and free alternative to traditional textbooks, making World History an invaluable resource in our modern age of technology and advancement.

Chronologically discusses the events of history beginning with the evolution of man and ending with the restructuring of Western Europe in 1993.