This book is a study of the interaction of the Western societies of Europe and America with others around the world in the past two centuries - the age of European empire. It deals with the European threat and the non-Western response, but the focus is on the ways in which people in Asia, Africa, and Indian America have tried to adapt their ways of life to the overwhelming European power that existed in this period. The challenge and the response are presented through a series of selected and...

Studying change in the course of human history, in different places, through the lens of a diverse set of core themes, World History for International Studies offers readers a set of windows into different debates historians have been conducting. Key themes, such as communication, trade, order, slavery, religion, war, identity, modernity, norms and ecology, are linked to specific world regions, which tell a story about how local ideas and individual contacts developed, started to overlap and ...

The essential guide to the complex, fascinating world of Chinese myths: retelling the stories and exploring their significance in Chinese culture.

This is a concise and entertaining guide to the complex tradition of Chinese mythology. While many around the world are familiar with some aspects of Chinese myth - through Chinese New Year festivities or the classic adventures of the Monkey King in Journey to the West - few outside of China understand the richness of Chinese mythology, ...

The Silk Road was the current name for a complex of ancient trade routes linking East Asia with Central Asia, South Asia, and the Mediterranean world. This network of exchange emerged along the borders between agricultural China and the steppe nomads during the Han Dynasty (206BCE-220CE), in consequence of the inter-dependence and the conflicts of these two distinctive societies. In their quest for horses, fragrances, and spices, gems, glassware, and other exotics from the lands to their west...

This one thousand year history of the civilization of western Europe has already been recognized in France as a scholarly contribution of the highest order and as a popular classic. Jacques Le Goff has written a book which will not only be read by generations of students and historians, but which will delight and inform all those interested in the history of medieval Europe. Part one, Historical Evolution , is a narrative account of the entire period, from the barbarian settlement of Roman Eu...