Aspects of Western Civilization: Problems and Sources in History: Volume 1 - Softcover

The seventh edition of Aspects of Western Civilization maintains balanced coverage of historical periods while restructuring several chapters and enhancing coverage in particular areas.  It also offers additional pedagogical resources for the instructor and additional guidance for students. 

•   Structural Changes: There are two new chapters in Volume 2 designed to help students better understand the development of nationalism and subsequent political unification movements during the nineteenth century (“Paths of Glory: Napoleon and the Romantic Movement” and “Fatherland: The Power of Nationalism”).   Chapter 10 (“Fin de Siècle: The Birth of the Modern Era”) has been restructured for greater continuity.  There are also two new chapters added at the end of Volume 2 (“The Era of the Superpowers: Cold War Confrontation” and “The Dynamics of Change in the Contemporary World”) in order to expand coverage of the Cold War from 1945 to 1990 and to focus in greater detail on events in the contemporary world from 1990-2010.
• Enhanced Coverage: Beyond the additional coverage from 1945 to 2010, several chapters in both volumes have been expanded to enhance the study of important topics: Hebrew prophets (Amos and Isaiah), early Greek literature (Sappho, Pindar, and Hesiod), values in the early and middle Roman Republic (Livy), and visions of the New World (Thomas More and Michel de Montaigne) in Volume 1.  Enhanced coverage in Volume 2 includes the American Declaration of Independence; Romantic poetry of Schiller, Goethe, and Byron; perspectives on the slave trade from Olaudah Equiano and William Wilberforce; additional nationalist sources from Alexis de Tocqueville and Theodor Herzl; and enhanced coverage of nineteenth century feminist movements (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Ibsen’s A Doll’s House). Several selections also have been added to the coverage of the Holocaust and there are new sections on Serbian genocide in the Balkans in the 1990s, including the papal response. Coverage of the Cold War focuses on internal rebellion (Hungarian and Czechoslovakian revolutions), the Brezhnev Doctrine, and post-Cold War developments of eastern European and Balkan states. Finally, a new section on The Islamic World and the West concentrates on economic relationships between Turkey and the European Union, and Muslim relationships with France and the United States.
• New Feature Selections: Several new Feature selections have been added to the seventh edition, including a new rubric in Volume 1 entitled “ The Historian at Work.”  This Feature introduces students to historiography as well as to critical method, and provides longer excerpts from several of the most important historians of the ancient and medieval worlds (Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Tacitus, Josephus, Appian, and Usamah ibn-Munqidh).  New Feature selections often focus on the integration of art and architecture into the political mainstream as revolutionary cultural elements (Giotto, Bernini and St. Peter’s Basilica, Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, Francisco Goya and Napoleon, Eugène Delacroix and the Greek Revolution of 1820, the social perspective by train during the Industrial Revolution, the insular world of Edvard Munch, and the nightmare visions of Otto Dix during World War I).  New Features also include Theodor Herzl and the Zionist movement, excerpts from A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, Pope John Paul II on the Serbian genocide, and President Barack Obama’s 2009 speech to the Muslim world in Egypt regarding “a new beginning” with the West.
• New Pedagogical Aids: Every effort has been made in the seventh edition to aid both instructors and students in using the text for discussions and class papers.   Chapter opening essays and introductions to the primary sources have been reviewed and edited to establish a strong sense of historical continuity, and study questions have been clarified and refined to solicit specific information and offer a broader perspective on the abstract implications of ideas and events. Author Perry Rogers has inserted additional secondary sources on the decline of the Roman Empire and focused some questions on contending ideas under the rubric: “Taking Sides.”  He has edited and modernized translations to clarify ideas and bring older idioms into conformity with modern usage.   Study questions have been numbered for easier reference in class discussions and written assignments.  New Key Events chronologies have been added to each chapter and have been placed near corresponding coverage, giving students a solid historical reference point. 
• New Organizational Tool for Instructors: A new Thematic Index is available to instructors for download in PDF format to assist in developing comparative ideas across time and, ultimately, to make it easier to teach the course. This Thematic Index groups each primary source by chapter according to the seven themes listed in the Preface. Some sources are cross-referenced under multiple rubrics as application warrants. This superb organizational tool can be downloaded in PDF format from Pearson’s online catalog at www.pearsonhighered.com. Select “Educators” from the menu options and follow the instructions labeled “Download Instructor Resources.”